guppies (different topic) :]

[darkstar22]

okay so i know eventually my guppies will have babies... but my question is how long do they have to stay in the speprate net box thingy...till they can be released with the rest? how many weeks? or size? do guppies also eat their young? ? ? ?

 

[freddyk]

With the right decoration (breeding grass, thick plants) the fry will have no problem keeping out of the way of the adults. I had a lot of success with this without ever even using a breeding net when I was breeding as feeders. Otherwise they simply need to be big enough not to be eaten - generally about 1/4" or larger.

 

[mandi]

It's extremely difficult to give you an exact time frame ... livebearer fry grow at drastically different rates depending on how much they're fed, what they're fed, how big of an aquarium they're in, and how crowded they are. I found that out when I separated some of my platy fry into a 10 gallon and a 20 gallon tank ... the ones in the 20 gallon grew remarkably faster!

The easy answer is... they can go back into the main tank as soon as they're big enough to not fit in the other fish's mouths.

I agree with freddyk though -- if you provide cover (plants, caves, etc.) you'll have a a surprising amount of fry survive. The toughest and cleverest ones! Haha. Plus they won't be cooped up in that little breeding trap. I never used a breeding net/trap or seperate tank for my newborn fry and I had MORE than enough survive -- which is why I had to move them to other tanks (the first tank got too overcrowded).

 

[kimbowee]

There is also a section pinned in the Livebearers section about breeding. I have read that if you put the mother in a netbreeder & she does not have birth within 4 days to release her back to the main tank. Sometimes just being confined will stress the fish out too much and make her abort or hold onto her fry.

I also agree with freddyk & mandi that if you just leave the mother in the tank & give the fry plenty of places to hide some will make it.

I also have guppies and leave the mother in the tank. One of my guppies gave birth a month ago. I originally found 7 fry. Today there are two left. One bit of advice tho is if you have a Hang on back filter is to put a piece of nylon over the intake so the fry don't wind up in your filter.

 

[MegTheFish]

Mine take about 6+ months before they are big enough to go with the other guppies...I raise them in a filtered 3 gallon. I have never gotten any that have grown full size yet, so I don't know how long that will take (my first batch died at about 7 months of ich, and the 2nd batch I am still raising, they are old enough to go in with the guppies, but not full grown). I have to take mine out or else they will get eaten, and I've only been able to rescue a total of 8 of them.

 

[darkstar22]

k thanks everyone for your help!!!

 

[Dawney G]

My first pregnant guppie gave birth in our tank, we caught about 7 and put them in the breading net. We have 4 left now and there about 9 months old and i have just let them out. They are still quite tiny but had to get rid of my silver shark first. My second pregnant guppie gave birth in the net and ate them all!! Greedy bugga!!!
She wasnt in there for long, but obviously long enough to have a decent meal!
So next time i have baby guppies i will catch them when there born.