Guppy Breeding ... Load Me With Your Knowledge

[This Old Spouse]

'Raising guppies just to get a few pence to spend in the store seems a bit like running a puppy mill'

Don't really understand this? None of us would have fish short of catching them from the wild if everyone thought like this

No, that's not true, and not the spirit in which I meant it. There are folks out there who raise guppies, lots of guppies, to sell back to the LFS, who in turn ends up selling them as feeder fish when they get too many of them. I walked into an LFS last summer and saw a 10g tank that must have had 150 guppies. Full grown, not fry. That's what brought up the puppy mill statement.

I think as responsible fishkeepers we need to just be careful in how we raise our fish (and how many). Not trying to ruffle anyone's feathers.

 

[Cazgar]

+1 we responsible for our fish, & they deserve the best care we can give them

 

[Antony]

Breeding this type of guppy is only temporary for me at the moment and i am only planning on raising around 50-60 fry to a decent size in order to gain some experience in this subject before moving on to a slightly rarer variation of the species which i plan to breed and re populate in my area
seems as it is a really beautiful fish and irregularly stocked in any lfs within 50-60 miles of my area probably more
so in this case i think a few more tanks set up and a higher electric bill (which i don't pay for) would be more than worth the time and money invested if i could help get this fish more well known and more commonly kept and available

as for the feeder fish thing although it is part of the natural way of life i strongly disagree in raising ,buying or even feeding any fish to another in an aquarium environment seems as it is basically condemning the fish to death and is pretty much animal cruelty in my eyes

 

[OldMan47]

If you want to raise 50 guppies to adult size you will need a tank of at least 20 gallons, 78 litres, to grow them out. That would be considered overcrowded by most people, but proper tank care will let you stuff that many guppies into such a small tank. If you want easy care, go for at least a 29 gallon, 115 litres, tank.

 

[Antony]

If you want to raise 50 guppies to adult size you will need a tank of at least 20 gallons, 78 litres, to grow them out. That would be considered overcrowded by most people, but proper tank care will let you stuff that many guppies into such a small tank. If you want easy care, go for at least a 29 gallon, 115 litres, tank.

cheers for that so far i have a spare 20l a 25l 110l and a 90l but there pretty much getting raised until there bigger than edible for the other fish then there getting split into communitys of my friends for a few months

 

[Antony]

well thats that then ...
... lost 3 fish and a fry this week so heres the casualties

1x blue powder gourami (wasnt too smart when i bought him)
1x heavily pregnant guppy carrying 28 fry ready to drop within hours died via Miscarriage
1x dwarf spotted puffer who decided to stopand eating wedge his self in the heater and stop eating (died of heater burn injuries)

also lost the small fry that i said was possibly for culling due to unknown reasons possibly not eating

and at the moment the female who gave birth is swimming tail heavy
not a clue what it is after looking it up but it seems to be common after they give birth

so all in all a bad week for me .. not the birthday week i was expecting :'(

 

[jrcan]

i can sympathise with you, it was my birthday week and i lost one of my female guppies. my advice to anyone with guppies, stick to one sex. we are finding homes for our fry and soon giving away the adult males as so far we have had almost every single fry survive. we have a few plants but no seperate tank for the fry yet we have only seen one eaten and no reason to believe many more have died.

and since the poster asked to be loaded with guppy breeding knowledge, here is a snippet of wisdom from my grandmother (who had guppies around 40 years ago) as to why fry get eaten.:

"the guppies give birth from their mouths so once the baby is out, the mother sees it and eats it straight away".

but to be honest, i'd leave the advice to the experts on here

 

[Antony]

wow a guppy giving birth from it's mouth ...that's news to me
yeah i think the experts should take this one