How Do Guppies Mate?

[napiman]

hi,

got some guppies from my friends the other day to add to my collection and i was wonderin how do they mate

 

[Somethings Fishy Here]

Guppies are livebearers and easy to breed at that. So long as you have a male and a female they should be breeding and having offspring every month or so. The male guppy has a fin on its underside called a gonopodium which it uses to impregnate the female(s). Thats about it, livebearer breeding is about as simple as it gets!

 

[theotheragentm]

If you see a male following a female very closely, he is trying to mate. Although I don't have guppies, common livebearers are typically similar in their mating habits. It's what they do in the wild. They eat and mate. What a life!

 

[napiman]

Thanx, u see ive got 2 males chacing 1 female and i didnt know wether or not they were tryin to get it on. thanx again

 

[theotheragentm]

You should get more females than males, giving the females some chance to rest and not be harassed solely. Livebearers are kept in 3:1 ratios for the first male and 2:1 after that for general sanity of the females, while allowing males to have their fun. If only there were someone else looking out for human males like this...

 

[napiman]

i have about 10 males and 7 females, that should be ok, right

 

[puddle_inc]

there should be atleast 2, preferably atleast 3 females per male.

and on the topic question...


first, there is a mommy guppy and a daddy guppy... >_>


EDIT: OMG 10 males and 7 females? that won't work out well at all. all of those males will chase the females to death.

 

[napiman]

so wat happens next?

 

[puddle_inc]

um, the male will insert 'ferlizer' into the female so she can 'grow' her babies inside of her. then after, i think like 9 weeks or so, they have live babies.

but it's really dangerous to have 10 males and 7 females.

 

[napiman]

just counted, theres 6 male and 11 females. i will not guess the amount of fish in future. i got them round the wrong way

 

[theotheragentm]

If you have the space, add more females so you get a 2:1 ratio. That's two females for every male. Since that's a lot to add, you might just want to separate out seven of the males into another tank. Livebearers actually give birth to a higher number of females, so in a few months things should even out, but for now that might be too much harassment by the males. See if your local fish store will trade some of the males for females as males are more colorful and more expensive normally.