Plain Female Guppy

[smithrc]

Hi folks.

I got a free guppy in with some Pigmy corries that we bought a few weeks back.

she is a she - BUT she has no colour. she is about 20mm long now.

I read on here somewhere about a fish that looks just like a guppy, but has no colour and is actually a preditor that will eat other fish if it can.

Can anyone remember what it is so i can check it out...

 

[littleme1969]

Oh yes...the fabulous silver Gambusia..lol
I fell pray to this little monster myself, sold it as a baby female guppy.
It was half the size of the other guppies, and in 2 days had killed a male and female . Its behaviour is very distinctive. hangs around the top of the water waiting for any insects to fall in. And is very aggressive, chasing and fin nipping everything in the tank. It even had a good go at my gourami nipping off the ends of its tenticles
I don't have a good close up of the fish but I hope the pic below helps. I destroyed it humanely as it was heavily preggers

They have a very distinctive flat top to the head going towards the back of the tail and a shorter tail.

 

[willywonka099]

smith RC i was thinking of trying to breed Danios (my first egg layers) andiwa wondering if u could get me pictures or explain more about the tuppawear trick plz ...... THX WILL

 

[Final Dynazty]

What an aggresive little fish.

 

[Guppylover]

Sometimes you can get plain coloured guppies... it is very possible.
But females guppies look very different from the silver Gambusia. Can you describ your fish a bit more?

 

[smithrc]

i think it must be a female guppy,
although it looks just like yours it hasnt attacked our apple snails tenticles.

 

[littleme1969]

You would know if it was a Gambusia. Their behaviour is nothing like a guppy. It was the first thing that alerted me. Within an hour of being in the tank it had set apon my male guppy and eaten his beautiful tail to raggs. I seperated it but it was too late for the male he was dead the next day due to stress. And my preggers female that I bought with it died 24 hours later too.
I watched it eat a small insect that dropped into the tank, you have never seen anything like it . bit of the head ...then chewed what was left ..then spat out the legs . It was one evil litle fish. But you to admire its survival instinct. It must have only been about 8-10 weeks old and was already well preggers.
If your having no problems with it then its is probably just a very plain guppy, because I'm sure you would know if it was a Gambusia.

 

[skimpy]

OMG that really scary.

Littleme in your picture she looks just like a guppy to me (I know I'm not that experienced) but if a lfs told me she was a guppy I would have not reason to disagree. Thats scary.

Are they always without any colour or can the come with a little colour on fins like female guppies.???

What other tell tell are there to distinguish them from a guppy.???




EDIT : Wow just found this on net Gambusia

Scary fish

 

[mandi]

Wow I'd never even heard of that fish! That IS pretty creepy how easily it could be mistaken for a female gup -- it could really ruin a tank.

 

[littleme1969]

There are several breeds of gambusia. They have been used with little sucess for mosquito control all over the world, with the only outcome being a masive decline of the local fish species due to its aggressive nature.

The problem is that certain people are actually crossing this fish with fancy guppies to get a bigger and more aggressive fish ... see the following link
Gambusia Experiment
This I find really sad .....as to think a fancy guppy had to endure such torture in order to be mated ..its bonkers to say the least.
I think the fish i bought was already a cross, hense the more guppy like apperance.
The ones used for the breeding seem to be the plain Silver Gambusia, and yes it looks so much like a plain guppy its scary. But the tail is shorter and always plain . They are Silver as youngsters and then get an olive green tinge to the scales as they get mature. They can breed from 6 weeks old too .
I did post about it on here about a month ago **see link** so you can read the whole story on there. People were very helpfull on here and without the info I probably would have been non the wiser
I was also surprised that people wanted me to keep the fish .. I'm mean she was a nice fish but with the thought of a tank full of minnie fin nippers I had to do the right thing. But I felt really guilty doing it I can tell you ...cos she was such a fighter and such a charachter. I fed her insects daily wich she went bonkers for so it was hard to despose of her. Afterall it was not the fishes fault now was it

 

[skimpy]

Hi Littleme

The problem is that certain people are actually crossing this fish with fancy guppies to get a bigger and more aggressive fish ... see the following link Gambusia Experiment
This I find really sad .....as to think a fancy guppy had to endure such torture in order to be mated ..its bonkers to say the least.

I with you on this.

But I felt really guilty doing it I can tell you ...cos she was such a fighter and such a charachter. I fed her insects daily wich she went bonkers for so it was hard to despose of her. Afterall it was not the fishes fault now was it

I simpathise with you it must have been a really hard decision to make, but for one i think you made the right decision. Yes its not the fish's fault, and some people choose to have agressive fish, but if you choose a peaceful comminity tank its obviously not the right fish to have. It's very wrong for lfs to sell them as guppies, its really not fair to people who wouldn't know the difference, so its not your fault, you did the best you could under the circumstances.

I missed you previous post about this, and I feel really shocked.

 

[smithrc]

Its the behaviour that has alerted me... its not just swimming merrily about... it tries to eat everything and almost prowles about the tank.

Its actually the only free swimmer in the tank (the 30gal office tank is its home - see sig) so there is nothing for it to chase and chew on.

I'll try to get a good picture - but its looking very similar to the piccy...

 

[skimpy]

Would be very interested to see pic if you can

 

[littleme1969]

I would be very carefull then. Believe me even things like loaches etc aren't safe from this little fish . One thing I did notice was the mouth. They don't have the classic wide mouth that a guppy has. Most guppies from the front look like they have a very square mouth. The gambusia is more rounded, you can see this in the pic I put up. Its almost like a sharks face..lol They are very different once you know what your looking for, and the prowling does sound like it to me. but don't be fooled if you don't see it having a nip. It took me a while to cotton on to what it was upto. It was In with my bad tempered Bossey gourami for about 3 days and I never saw a thing. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw it swoop across the tank take a nip then begger off just as quick ..leaving my poor gourami looking rather shocked as he was the one that normally does the bullying.
If you can get a pick that would be a help. They also have Silver and black eyes, another thing to look out for.
The fact that Igot one tells me they are making their way into the UK. The shop I bought it from was most helpfull and replaced all my fish and said he would pass it onto his importer.

I hope its just a bad tempered guppy Keep us posted

 

[willywonka099]

Smaithrc do you think you could give me more nfo on the tuppawear for the eggs ? plz THX WILL