First brood

[Firebelle_uk]

I just thought I'd let you know I had my first brood of guppies today. I know it's not all that exciting because they are pretty common but they are my first and I;m chuffed. I only managed to save about 8 as I wasn;t sure how big they get before having thier yoiung and didn;t really think any of the ones I had were that large yet. I still can;t work out which female it actually was? They all seemed to swimming around non chalantly, unless they saw a baby then it was lunch . Have put my swordtails in with them now and decided I need to find a different supplier to add a couple more guppies and swordtails to break up the genetic chains a bit.

Firebelle

 

[ncjharris]

Congratulations!
I felt dead pleased when our first guppies dropped their spogs!

Incidently, while I like your ideals grandeur are well meaning, I think its too late to save the genetics of the common guppy. They have got to the point now where inbreeding is so common that no matter where you go locally, chances are they will be inhabiting a tank with a relative.

But still, ignore me on my moral highground and populate that gene pool!

 

[Firebelle_uk]

Thanks, I kinda realised that my efforts at modifying the gene pool are pretty ineffectual, but felt it was better for them to be mating with a distant cousin than a bother or sister. Come to that it's probably better not to eat a close relative either, not that canniblaism holds much appeal for me at all lol.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Yep, guppys are pregnant pretty much 24/7 and can have sperm stored in them, eggs and developing fry all at the same time- guppys are somtimes referred to as "millions fish" and finding fry in your tank will become common place over the next year- a single female guppy can have over 40fry a month.
Don't feel tempted to save every fry as otherwise you will be overrun with them, many people just leave the fry in the main tank to fend for themselves and add extra dense planting to the tank as the fry instinctivly hide in dense planting- guppy fry take an average of 6months to be full grown although are capable of having fry at 3-4months old themselves- speak to your lfs(local fish store) and ask them if they will accept fry at a suitable size.

 

[Saz]

My guppies bred out of control and I couln't keep up with buying new ones to bring in new genes so mine are all inbred poor things! The males start losing their colour and they don't reach the same size they used to. Like Tokis-Phoenix said-don't feel tempted to save every single one otherwise you will have millions before you know it!