Guppy Fry

[Mollybreeder]

I have been breeding guppies for awhile now and I have never been able to keep any alive for more than a few weeks. They either disapear or have been eaten by two glo lite tetras. So I decided to set up a little experiment type idea. I have a 1 gallon tank with a light and a heater...no filtration. I recently had a batch of fry so I put three fry in the one gallon. The water is excellent and the temp is good...so I am hoping they will survive. They are eating and swimming around just fine. So what do you guys think and can I pull this one off. Oh and I am strictly monitering the feeding. I feed them 5 times a day and they eat every spec of food i put in there. I do water changes every day too.


Thank you for the time and I'll be checking for some comments.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

An unfiltered tank is very suitable for guppys...1 gal tank will too small to raise them to any decent size, its not alot bigger than a large breeding net.
It odd your fry keep disapearing when they survive being eaten by the glo lites, how many gallons does your tank hold and how long has it been set up and what and how many fish do you have in it?

 

[MissD]

I had this same problem 3 or 4 times before I had any success with my guppies. I've now got about 50 or 60 healthy fry.

I would suggest that you get them a bigger tank if you can, although I wouldn't move the babies until they are a few weeks old. I found that moving mine around, even when the water stats read perfect, stressed the fry out and I lost them virtually every time. This will also give the tank a chance to start a cycle. I use a 25 gallon for my grow-out tank and have other various sized tanks scattered around.

What are you feeding your babies? I don't know if you're new to keeping fish or anything, but my guppies were my first fish, and I started them off on crushed flake fed about 5 times daily, similar to you. I found that the fry would eat and eat until there was nothing there and, sadly, a few popped their stomachs from this. The fish in my tanks vary from 3 months to about 3 weeks, so I've made a mixture of Hikari First Bites, and just normal tropical flake so that everyone gets what they need. It works great.

How big are the water changes you do? If the fry are only a few days old I really wouldn't change too much or, again, it can stress them out.

I really hope you have success with your babies this time. I know how frustrating it is to keep losing them when you think everything's going well!

Again, this is only my personal experience, but I thought it may be of some help. Good luck, and let us know how it all goes!

 

[Mollybreeder]

Thanks for the advice and comments! Right now I have a 10 gallon tank thats been set up for a year now with 1 zebra pleco 2 tetra glo lites 1 african DWARF frog and then 2 male gups and 5 females. i feed my baby guppies very finely crushed flake food and they do fine with that, sometimes a throw in a crushed blood worm which they crave. I cant get a bigger tank at the moment so I guess ill have to work with the 1 gallon.

 

[afireinside]

ah, the ADF, the reason ur fry are disappearing!