I Think My Female Guppy Is Sick

[Akasha72]

it's +1 now! I've just found another in the main tank

And as for the streamlined mum ... she's ravinous and I'm not surprised!

 

[FishBlast]

it's +1 now! I've just found another in the main tank

And as for the streamlined mum ... she's ravinous and I'm not surprised!

Nice to see a happy ending X)

 

[Akasha72]

OMG!!!

I've just been using a small clear yogurt type pot to scoop a few out of the net and put them into the tank with the other fry and I've counted 65!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It doesn't seem possible. There's still about 5-8 in the net that refused to be caught.

If I thought I could catch them all again I'd do a re-count just to be sure. If I've counted right there's no wonder I thought she was dying

 

[FishFanatic04]

I have a platy who always looks pregnant, and we see one or two fry two weeks after she has released a full bunch. Maybe yours was something similar, she could have been having fry without you knowing and still looking fat maybe.

Congrats. G Lad she is ok.

 

[Cazgar]

Wow that's a lot of fry!
Glad it had a happy ending for you, the mum must be pleased to get rid of that lot, no wonder she's ravenous.
Keep us updated on their progress

 

[TheShrimpGirl]

Geepers! 64!!! Congrats and glad she didn't get cloved over a simple thing!

 

[Akasha72]

yeah, me too! She was so close to it though that it was scary. If she hadn't of had those 2 fry in the net as I was getting her out she'd have died for no reason.

The final count was 77 - another dead one (3 dead in total) so she had 76 ... is that a record? Do I need to be ringing guiness world record up?

I'm still thinking about trying to do a recount cos it just seems too unreal

 

[FishBlast]

Maybe you've hit the hundred X))
I've heard that guppies can drop even 100+ Poor critters...

 

[OldMan47]

Akasha72, there is a reason that they are known as millions fish in some places. Congrats on your drop.

 

[Akasha72]

thanks guys but the reality has dawned on me this morning. I can't raise 76 fry in a 26 litre tank until they are large enough to go to the lfs.

I'm now faced with 2 options

1. get a larger tank from somewhere - the cheaper the better

2. net some out and give my adult fish some live food today.

Option 2 makes me feel sick given that I watched the majority being born and option 1 is gonna be hard given that I'm more than a bit skint right now


And the worse of it is ... the male is already circling both his women this morning so there's gonna be another drop potentially as big within the next 2 months

 

[FishBlast]

thanks guys but the reality has dawned on me this morning. I can't raise 76 fry in a 26 litre tank until they are large enough to go to the lfs.

I'm now faced with 2 options

1. get a larger tank from somewhere - the cheaper the better

2. net some out and give my adult fish some live food today.

Option 2 makes me feel sick given that I watched the majority being born and option 1 is gonna be hard given that I'm more than a bit skint right now


And the worse of it is ... the male is already circling both his women this morning so there's gonna be another drop potentially as big within the next 2 months

Could separate them or something. Although drops still will be possible. Lol.
When my swordtail will drop, I'll only keep 1-2 females and give away the rest to a neighbor. Can't have more than 4-5 swordies in my tank. What ever new fry comes, will become food or if they survive, be given away or in worst case, become newt food.

 

[Akasha72]

all these babies are going to the lfs as I don't want anymore guppies ... the problem is raising them to a decent enough size for the lfs to take them in.

Raising that amount in such a small tank isn't going to be easy and is probably very cruel

 

[FishBlast]

all these babies are going to the lfs as I don't want anymore guppies ... the problem is raising them to a decent enough size for the lfs to take them in.

Raising that amount in such a small tank isn't going to be easy and is probably very cruel

You're lucky that your lfs takes fish. The shop I get my stuff from only sells the fish and won't take even for free as they have rooms full of fish tanks already.
Other shops don't even deserve to be running the business. Their fish are kept in incredibly small areas, are overcrowded with fish and even have dead bettas in cups next to a sink.

In cases like those, I'd rather give the baby fish to someone I know and who will try their best to keep them alive, than someone I don't know (from a shop), who is more likely putting them all in with unsuitable tankmates and in a very very small space that won't even let them turn around at the very least.
If not, well... they become lunch to my other fish or newt since I'd not be as attached to them as to my current fish.

The only definition of cruel I perceive (and I see a lot of use of the word cruel around here, but not entirely in the way I see it) would be to constantly harass a creature, directly hurt it, cram it in a totally small container where it would have not even space to turn around and have a bunch of other fish/creatures in there too without filtration or water changes at the very least (this goes for the betta in a plastic cup too), refuse to feed it for long periods of time, let a creature get damaged to death by another that will take it too slow to kill that creature or doing experiments that are 100% sure to result in the death of a creature. (although in the experiments domain, I am not entirely sure about this, as most of the medicine we have nowadays came from experiments such as those, but maybe nowadays it is possible to avoid deaths of animals and replace that with a bunch of chemical experiments that will say how lethal something really is).

 

[Akasha72]

well I try to warn the lfs that I have baby fish and ask when it's best to bring them in. In the case of the guppies that were born yesterday I'd have to warn them well in advance that I have a large supply to bring in and then they can keep space for them.
All these should have a blue tail and fins as both mum and dad are like that so they should be really easy to get rid of.

As for the cruelty thing, I agree with you. I'd never hurt an animal and my concern with these babies is that they may well not have enough room in the fry tank if they all survive to swim, turn around etc. The tank is heated and filtered and I change 50% of the water once a week at the very least.

My Dad still has his old 2ft tank in the garage. If it comes down to it we will have to fill it with water in the yard and see if it leaks. If it holds water I'll have to bring it home as a tempory fry tank. I'm never doing this again ... if I spot another guppy dropping babies she can stay in the main tank and I'll remove what survives!

 

[FishBlast]

well I try to warn the lfs that I have baby fish and ask when it's best to bring them in. In the case of the guppies that were born yesterday I'd have to warn them well in advance that I have a large supply to bring in and then they can keep space for them.
All these should have a blue tail and fins as both mum and dad are like that so they should be really easy to get rid of.

As for the cruelty thing, I agree with you. I'd never hurt an animal and my concern with these babies is that they may well not have enough room in the fry tank if they all survive to swim, turn around etc. The tank is heated and filtered and I change 50% of the water once a week at the very least.

My Dad still has his old 2ft tank in the garage. If it comes down to it we will have to fill it with water in the yard and see if it leaks. If it holds water I'll have to bring it home as a tempory fry tank. I'm never doing this again ... if I spot another guppy dropping babies she can stay in the main tank and I'll remove what survives!

Wish I had blue-tailed guppies... My best were some kind of green-tailed flame-patterned guppies. Kind of like an alteration from my original red+yellow+orange flame-patterned tails.
Another color was some kind of leopard guppy, mostly orange+yellow and with black dots on tail.
All of the above had a trapezoid tail.

I have no idea how 2 gray-tailed endler-lookalikes appeared out of an F2 generation that seemed to have no endler aspect whatsoever. They did have colorful bodies though.

When I had fry and I didn't know much about filtration and stuff, I used to change water 100% once every 4-5 days, didn't feed much though. Probably the reason why most of those fry didn't survive but I didn't have much space anyway and I also gave my neighbor part of the guppy batch too. Was lucky to save 10 guppy fry that became my largest generation (F3) and the last one (out of which the endler wannabes were part, and all the normal-looking guppies had green tails, including the females). For some reason, they seemed sterile though, as no female remained pregnant at all and 2-3 years later, I ended up with 2 green-tailed males and no more females. That was the end of my guppies.

I hope I can keep the swordtail generations though, now that I know what to do, have filtration, a somewhat big tank and a heater and can do large and fast water changes. Maybe I won't even have to buy more swordies and just keep 3 babies and always have 5 swordtails. Although I am pretty confused whether to bother saving the fry or leave them in the tank. I don't have too many plants but I don't have an extra filter either so I guess I have no choice but to try and get more cover or hope they find cover in the current plant.