Guppys

[littlechups]

Hi everyone

I've just purchased a new fish tank for my daughter, however it's been at least 15 years since I kept tropical fish myself and I was hoping for a little advice. I want to start with some Guppys & my understanding is that Guppys can be kept in a cold as well as tropical water tank, is this correct??

Secondly! For the size tank we have I only really have capacity for about 5 male guppys. To be honest I would really prefer to have all male fish, is this going to cause me any problems or are there any implication to having a male only tank??

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

 

[helterskelter]

You can keep them in unheated tanks and long as the average temp in the house is around 75F
Guppies will happily live down to 65F and will live longer and happier due to the lower temp.

Males will live fine in a grope, they may argue now and then but not as bad then if their was a females to fight over!
So it's either all male or 2-3 females per male.

Your also need to cycle the tank before adding the fish or you may resualt in lots of dead fish at first.
You ideally need to get some used filter media to add the good bacteria as this bacteria remove the toxins produced by the fish.

 

[youngfisher]

And good Luck

 

[littlechups]

That's brilliant mate, thanks for your help! As for the cycle, I purchased the tank yesterday afternoon, cleaned it, filled it & got everything running. My intention was to leave it for about 6 or 7 days before adding the fish. Is that suffient for the cycle? I've added the water conditioners given by the shop to balance the water conditions and remove clorine ect also.

 

[rdd1952]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Actually, filling the tank and letting it sit doesn't do anything to ccycle the tank. Cycling is the process of building a beneficial bacteria colony to process ammonia and nitrte, both toxins. Check out the threads in the Beginners Resource Center, particularly the top 4 under cycling. All of the threads in there hae good information if you are new to the hobby.

 

[Dazzle.g]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Hi Every One,

I have a 12 Gallon tank currently with 4 guppies. 3 male and 1 female (I know it's backwards, and I am looking inot getting more)

My female Guppy (named Dazzle) is pregnant, I never had a pregnant guppy before so I don't know what to expect. I am a little worried about her as she hasn't been swimming around in the last couple of days. She just stays in one spot with her head down a tail up.

for the past week she hasn't been very active (i was just saying it was because she is so fat), but now she isn't eating. Just this afternoon I notice that along her back and into her tail she has gone red. No like red colouring but like internal colouring that looks like internal bleeding.. (i have no idea if fish have blood or not but i didn't think so.) Also she is usually a very fluorescent yellow along her back and tail, but lately I have noticed she is getting black around her outline???

I changed her into a much smaller tank this afternoon. When i caught her she didn't even attempt to swim away. She didn't flip/flop around when i had her and when i put her in the smaller tank she just drifted straight to the bottom.

Also one of my male fish which is usually fluorescent orange (pretty sure he is the father, as I didn't have the other males until a couple of weeks ago), but where his colour is above his head, it has turned like a faded baby pink colour....

Any help would be greatly appriciated.

oh and I'm in Qld Australia, the temp is just starting to change into Autum/Winter cold.

My tank contains plastic plants, about 2 cm of rocks and I add STRESS ZYME+ to their water.

 

[Duff83]

Hi Every One,

I have a 12 Gallon tank currently with 4 guppies. 3 male and 1 female (I know it's backwards, and I am looking inot getting more)

My female Guppy (named Dazzle) is pregnant, I never had a pregnant guppy before so I don't know what to expect. I am a little worried about her as she hasn't been swimming around in the last couple of days. She just stays in one spot with her head down a tail up.

for the past week she hasn't been very active (i was just saying it was because she is so fat), but now she isn't eating. Just this afternoon I notice that along her back and into her tail she has gone red. No like red colouring but like internal colouring that looks like internal bleeding.. (i have no idea if fish have blood or not but i didn't think so.) Also she is usually a very fluorescent yellow along her back and tail, but lately I have noticed she is getting black around her outline???

I changed her into a much smaller tank this afternoon. When i caught her she didn't even attempt to swim away. She didn't flip/flop around when i had her and when i put her in the smaller tank she just drifted straight to the bottom.

Also one of my male fish which is usually fluorescent orange (pretty sure he is the father, as I didn't have the other males until a couple of weeks ago), but where his colour is above his head, it has turned like a faded baby pink colour....

Any help would be greatly appriciated.

oh and I'm in Qld Australia, the temp is just starting to change into Autum/Winter cold.

My tank contains plastic plants, about 2 cm of rocks and I add STRESS ZYME+ to their water.

sounds to me like shes hours from dropping bro. make sure if you want to keep the babies, that you have plenty of plants for them to hide in, as iv learned that some live bearers eat their young. good luck.