Guppies that do not Grow

[aigai]

Hi,

I have a smaller (7 Gallons) well-planted tank, with shrimps and 4 cardinal tetras. I had 2 female guppies in my larger tank, I put them in my smaller tank to protect the fries. Both fish gave birth to about a total number of 30 fries in the first week of December 2021. to this day (May 1st, 2022) they are not growing. Only 1 male is fully grown but still smaller about 3/4 of an inch showing a beautiful dark blue color scale, and 1 female appears to be adult, she's half an inch (I found 1 tiny fry last week). Except for the 2 fish I still have about 14-15 fries. It's been almost 5 months I have had them and for some reason, they don't grow and become adults, or they don't die. (I lost half because I kept a female betta in the tank for about a week, and removed her when I realized I lost a portion of the fries) I have no idea what's wrong with my fish, please let me know if you have any ideas.

Thanks.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

To grow baby fish quickly, they need lots of food, warm water and regular water changes. Miss out on any one of these, and they won't grow or they only grow slowly.

The babies should be fed newly hatched brineshrimp and microworms until they are big enough to eat other types of frozen foods like prawn and fish. Then you add those foods to the diet as well as dry foods and the brineshrimp and microworms. The babies should be fed 3-5 times a day and they should look like pregnant guppies after feeding.

The best temperature for rearing tropical fish is 28C. . 26-28C if fine, lower temps slow the growth rate.

Do a 50-75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day or two so the water stays clean.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.