New arrivals!

[Ch4rlie]

Lovely looking tank

Your hard work is paying dividends here with nice plant growth.

39 fry ! What do you plan to do with all these?
Sell them? Keep them? Give them away?

Think I can see more tanks coming your way

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

BABY FISH

Congratulations on your new fry and the tank looks great.

Congrats on the fries

What are the substrates of your tank? It look really nice

Congrats! I love babies.

Thank you all I'm extra excited about this batch, not entirely sure why, maybe just because it's been rough lately with treating worms for a month, shrimp being poisoned by plants, lots of mini cycles to deal with as I set up new tanks to deal with all that... and this is the first batch of fry born since that all started. New fresh hope, you know. Plus I'll be rearing these in the breeder box and then the grow out tank, so more closely involved than when I just let them mature in the main tank.

Glad you all like babies, you'll be sick of seeing these as I post loads of updates on these as they grow!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Lovely looking tank

Your hard work is paying dividends here with nice plant growth.

39 fry ! What do you plan to do with all these?
Sell them? Keep them? Give them away?

Think I can see more tanks coming your way

Thank you so much!

I might keep a couple, you never know! Depends how they turn out and how I'm feeling in 2-3 months time The plan was to move away from guppies, so really they should all go to LFS, but we'll see, lol. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with the two yellow female fry from her last batch. They'll probably go to the LFS when they're big enough, now I have a large batch to pick from.

Luckily, my LFS is happy to take my fry, even when I had some pretty plain looking ones. I checked he'd be willing to take fry before I ever bought a guppy, knowing that they've earned the name 'The Million Fish' for a reason! I didn't want to be stuck with hundreds of guppies.


No more tanks, no! LOL. I'm at my current limit in terms of time with the four I have. I'll rear these in the breeder box for a week or two, by which time I'll hopefully have been able to move the cories out of the 12 gallon QT tank, and that can be the grow out tank as planned. Or they can room together for a while, since I don't think the cories are contagious. Once they're old enough to sex, I'll keep all females in the main tank (moving the one adult male, dad of this batch, out) then all males in the QT tank.

This ain't my first guppy rodeo
When I set up my first tank, and had five breeding females popping out fry, I expected most of the fry would get eaten, but I guess the adults were eating too well with four times a day feedings, and the fry would swim right past them, unharmed. I soon realised it wasn't going to happen like that and that I'd need another tank, so bought another 15.5 gallon. I had to move the first tank so I could set up the new larger cabinet for both tanks, so caught all the fish so I could empty it. I'd guessed I might have around 40 fry in there, was hard to count, you know.

But I just kept catching more. Turned out to be 83 fry That's when I learned I was rubbish at estimating numbers, lol. The most I've had at one time was 150 or so, from different batches. I'm glad I've reduced the number of breeding females I keep now, that was getting ridiculous, although I miss those five breeding girls who've sadly passed. Pet shop guppies don't seem to last too long, but had most of those five for a year. This will be a nice sized batch to have. Enough to be fun, not so many as to be overwhelming.

This was when they were split into male/female tanks. And the light on the left one was a rubbish old style tube, have changed that now. Now one is the oto tank, so the 12 gallon will be the male only tank.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Caught a few more, up to 47 now

 

[FishGuest5123]

Wow!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

55 and counting. Have seen at least one more I haven't caught yet. I'm half convinced they must be escaping the net somehow and I'm re-catching and counting the same ones over and over again. Where on earth do they put them all?? Guppies are only tiny fish!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

58...

 

[Retired Viking]

Most my guppies ever had was around 30 or so, they do take over a tank.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

55 and counting. Have seen at least one more I haven't caught yet. I'm half convinced they must be escaping the net somehow and I'm re-catching and counting the same ones over and over again. Where on earth do they put them all?? Guppies are only tiny fish!

Yep, just confirmed this theory! Kept catching and counting, got to 73 fry caught and saw another three and was like "no way this many have hidden from me, even if she was still popping them out like pez today. I know they can have that many, but that would be a big batch, 30-40 is more usual. Removed the plant from the breeder net, and can't count more than 20 in there Don't know how they're getting out, it's a new net and I checked it for holes, but they're getting out! I spent waaay to long netting and counting before double checking the box. Doh!!

Now gotta decide if I wanna go through the hassle of catching them all again and moving them to the 12 gallon grow out. No escaping there! HA! I think I will though, 'cos I really want to know how many I actually have. Plus hungry adults are more likely to eat them since I'm feeding lightly during mini-cycle.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Okay, I re-caught as many fry as I could, moved the breeder net into the 12 gallon, and moved them over there. New, accurate count: 31

Well, there are at least three or more still in the main tank, but had a devil of a time trying to catch them and gave up. I probably caught them an average of three times each, so funnily enough, they're wary of the net now Might try to catch them tomorrow, or might leave them where they are. 30 odd fry is still a nice sized batch though. 40 or 50 would have been a bit much, lol!

Embarrassing that it took sooo long for the penny to drop, but I never claimed to be smart! And it's hilarious. Like someone in a TV comedy putting things into a bag and not knowing there's a hole in the bottom, picking up what's falling out and putting it back in.

When I put number 31 in the box in the 12 gallon, there were already eight or so swimming around outside the box. They must have been like "this again? Pffft, I know the way out of here!"

 

[AilyNC]

That's still a LOT of fry! It'll be a very fun tank I found about 3 new fry today. This momma never stops. But these are grey, one has a black tail. All her other fry were orange with black tails/fins. So I think this is first lot from the silver/orange/black spotted male platy in this tank. The others were her baby dada from pet shop. Be interesting to see what colour they take.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

That's still a LOT of fry! It'll be a very fun tank I found about 3 new fry today. This momma never stops. But these are grey, one has a black tail. All her other fry were orange with black tails/fins. So I think this is first lot from the silver/orange/black spotted male platy in this tank. The others were her baby dada from pet shop. Be interesting to see what colour they take.

Oh yes, I'm still happy to have that many healthy looking fry! Mamma did good.

Platies are brilliant fun for the colour mixing aren't they! My dad keeps a few colours of platy. He had some santa mickey mouse platies
(not my photos, just examples of the colours from google images)

And some male red mickey mouse platies

So got some normal 'santa' mickey mouse platies, then some orange mickey mouse platies appeared, so the red male had bred with the santa females.

Then he added some blue female platies

Which dropped some normal blue platy fry since they were already gravid, I have some of their fry now. But now there are fry in there that have an orange body, but what looks like the blue speckles all over them. Will be nice to see how those look once they're larger. So must have come from a blue mother, and a red or orange father, but probably an orange one. Fun to be able to pick out the different parents and see their different genes so clearly expressed!

With guppies it's so variable. My blue females mated to blue males produced all kinds of different colours. Which is exciting too, but love seeing the varations on the platies and knowing where they came from, lol. The blues are still my favourite though, gorgeous fish, that's why I saved some fry before they were old enough to breed. But was excited to see the orange/blue fry too. Will share pics when they're bigger

 

[AilyNC]

Those Platies are lovely! I don't know what dad of first lot was like but all 9 fry are orange with black fins like mama. These grey ones are hard to spot as they're practically camouflage with the gravel

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Those Platies are lovely! I don't know what dad of first lot was like but all 9 fry are orange with black fins like mama. These grey ones are hard to spot as they're practically camouflage with the gravel

I'm excited to see what your new ones look like as they get bigger too!

 

[AilyNC]

I found a LFS that will take the fry once they're big enough for them to sell. It's a big further a drive but happy to bypass that other place. Limited stock and very little plants. I'd probably trade for plants though #Addicted

edit typo. Again. All my life. Plagued by typos.​