Pregnant Guppies? Please Help

[chrisrbk]

i have had my fish tank for 4-5 weeks, its a simple 35ltr tank, looks bigger than it sounds

2 plants in 1 corner, 1 plant in the diagonal opposite corner and a moss ball thingy in the middle.

its heated to 25-26*

its just a small neat filter system with adjustable speed which i keep on medium and it seems to do a good job of keeping my tank clean

and about an inch of gravel stuff

as you can tell im new

ive got 4 neon tetras, 4 female guppies, 2 marble angle fish and 2 small catfish which i think are coreys of something not sure.



anyway...................

was just about to do a water change and i spotted a small fish hovering just above the gravel its about 8-10mm long including tail

im guessing the guppies had some babies and theyve all been eaten apart from 1



now im still learning about fish and as far as i can work out, 3 out of 4 guppies look like there ready to drop

there very fat and there back end is covered in lots of tiny black dots?

just come home from work now, sat 5th feb 2pm, and on 2 of them, there anus's look red and the very back of there black patch has also gone a little red

ive dropped a small guppy breader separation thing into the tank so they can get used to seeing it, but i need to know when im supposed to put the females in

very new PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE help


THANKS!

 

[Gytas]

first things first..... your tank is very over stocked ( sorry to tell you )... 4 female guppies for such a tank is about the right amount of fish if u dont want any problems later
neon tetras have to be in schools of atleast 6... if the catfish are corrys they are a schooling fish too so u need 6 or more
and if it was me i would not keep angels in a small tank with other small fish ( sure now they are small and harmless but when they will get bigger they will get very agrassive)
the guppy must have had the fry i'm sure that the angels or the other fish ate the rest

it is very hard to tell when the guppy is going to have the fry just keep n eye on them . it sounds like you will not have to wait for long


good luck

 

[fluttermoth]

Hi chrisrbk, welcome to the forum!

Ok, I'm going to sound really harsh here so don't take this the wrong way! I don't think you should put the guppies in the breeding trap at all.

I know this means the babies are going to get eaten, but this is the fate of most baby fish in nature; that's why fish have so many; guppies can easily have 30 or 40 babies every 30 days; you'd be over run if you tried to keep them all. In a 35 litre tank, you just don't have the room to grow them on properly; baby fish need a lot more space to grow than you think. I know it sounds awful and new fishkeepers always try to save every single fry that comes along; but give it a few more years in the hobby and you start to get a more relaxed attitude to the whole affair.

If you want to breed guppies and raise the fry, you'll need some more, larger tanks.

Oh, and you need to re-home those angels at some point too; they need a tank of at least 20 gallons and that is 18" from top to bottom; they can grow as big as your hand, so need a lot more space, sorry.

 

[chrisrbk]

so far ive got everything from pets at home pretty much, everytime i got more fish, about a week apart they ask you questions about your other fish and about your tank and theyve never said anything

you shouldnt be able to sell fish if you know nothing about them

and about this over stocking thing, is it a hard and fast rule because they all seem to hang about on different levels and never fight or bully

thanks

bloody hell, the only reason i chose 2 marbled ones is because there only 2inch top to bottom and they were kept in a small tank to mine, there going down the toilet sod it

 

[fluttermoth]

I agree with your point, but that's a lot of shops for you, they only care about taking your money and not the welfare of the fish.

Please, please don't flush the angels; it's terribly cruel; take them back to the shop and demand they take them back. Most fish you see in shops aren't fully grown and they shops have huge filtration systems out back, that's why they can use such small tanks.

Edit; If P@H really won't take them, then maybe someone on here could take them for you? Whereabouts in the country are you?

 

[Gytas]

in most of the lfs never tell people the right thing to do or what to buy they just want our money..

they are not fighting right now but when the angels grow they will pick on the other fish.... the quallity of your water in the fish tank will be very poor because of the amount off fish in there

if you want a clean nice tank where fish can be happy in you really have to do about the tetras the angels and the corrys


i agree with what fluttermoth said

 

[chrisrbk]

thanks for the advice, the angels are now in a 2litre carry tank thing there off back they just scared all the guppies too /

ill attach a picture if it works...

its a lot cleaner than it looks in the picture, the glass is dirty, ive avoided cleaning it yet because of the baby and pregnancies, its just so you can get an impression of the size of the tank compared to my fish, the guppies are up top (4), neons bottom left (4), and the catfish hid in the corner when they saw me

btw the temp guage in the corner is i bit ott i know lol

any tips/ideas, more plants, wood, rocks etc....

h t t p : //www.flickr.com/photos/59181278@N04/5418836526/

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum chrisrbk.
The reason that a local pet shop has failed to inform you about fish density needs and cycling needs is simple, they are not in the advice business, they are in the business of selling fish. I no more expect good advice from them on fish than I expect expert advice on carpentry from my local home improvement center. In both cases, the reason they exist is to sell things, not to give me advice.
Do not add any more fish to your tank for several weeks, even if you lose some of the present population. As far as your present stock levels, you are a bit overstocked for a mature tank and way overstocked for a new tank. If you had a mature tank, a few extra gallons for each water change would take care of the overstocking issue and not be a real problem. For a newly set up tank, the situation is far more serious. If you do not already have a test kit, one of those ones with the little test tubes, you need to get one. You are in what we call a fish-in cycle. That means that your filter is not yet mature enough to take care of the nitrogen compounds in your water.
I am sure it does a fine job of keeping the water looking clear but that is not the essential characteristic that fish need from a filter. All fish produce some nitrogen in the form of ammonia from several sources. First is the most direct source which comes from the exchange at the fish's gills. When fish pass water across their gills they take in oxygen but they also release both CO2 and ammonia from their blood stream. Another source of ammonia is any rotting organic material such as excess food from a feeding. A third source of ammonia is fish waste that is often left decaying in the tank bottom or even in your filter. The CO2 is dealt with by simply circulating the water in the tank so that oxygen and CO2 can trade places at the water surface. The ammonia is what becomes a problem in most tanks. Ammonia is toxic in very low concentrations. We strive to maintain ammonia concentrations at less than 0.25 ppm at all times in our tanks. For a mature tank, that is easy. The bacteria that live in your filter will convert ammonia to other compounds continuously. For a new tank, things are more difficult. The bacterial colonies to deal with ammonia are simply not present in a new filter, or at least are not present in the required concentration. What that means to us as fish keepers is that we must do enough huge water changes to maintain those levels artificially low until the bacterial colonies can catch up.
With your present stock levels, I suggest that you do a 50% water change every other day unless you can measure your water and know that you need not do quite that much. This is merely my best off the cuff estimate of what it will take to keep your large fish population healthy. It is not guaranteed to be enough. For at least 3 months after setting up, you will need to either do those huge water changes or measure your water and adjust water changes based on testing results.
If you want details about doing a fish-in cycle, please follow the link I have provided in my signature area.

 

[mdohanl]

Hi - I have a 95L tank which has a combination of neon tetra, x ray tetra, guppies, platys, shrimp and frog. Over the last eight weeks, we've found at least three times a couple of fry hidding but that's it. We have some plastic plants, gravel and a couple of small but open ended ornaments in the tank. I know nature will dispose of most of the fry which I can accept but I would like to try and save one or two. Does anyone know of an ornament that has tiny holes in that maybe one or two may hide in and not be eaten. Any advice would be welcomed.

 

[fluttermoth]

Hi mdohanl, welcome to the forum.

You could use a breeding trap that floats in the tank, but I'd recommend you buy yourself a nice clump of a fine leafed plant, like cabomba or elodea and put that in your tank. You don't even have to plant it in the gravel if you don't want to, you can just let it float. The fry will be fine hiding in there. That's how my mum breeds her guppies

 

[mdohanl]

Hi - have done as you mentioned and I have one fry left who is swimming around merrily but lots of places to hide. I put in some marbles too which seems to have helped. I have a River Reef 50 - when I lost a shrimp yesterday, I found him in the heater separator but then...when I looked in the compartment where the pumps are, here are four little fry swimming around to their hearts content! Don't know how they got there but they are alive and happy. Have now fished them out so hopefully they will survive. Fingers crossed!

 

[OldMan47]

The marbles in a pile on the bottom of a tank looks a bit funny but it works well for fry cover. The small spaces between the marbles make an easy place for the fry to swim but are not big enough spaces for the adults to follow them. Other good fry cover is the elodea already mentioned or even bette than stem plants is the mosses like java moss. It makes a dense almost impenetrable cover that the fry use at will.

 

[mdohanl]

I have one quite large fry which is showing colour now. Don't know how old it is but he is getting braver and coming more out into the open. My neon, shrimps and endlers all ignore him but I have two mollies and platys which are quite big and he hides from them. When you do think it'll be totally safe for him to come out? I've had a look at some pics on the internet and he may be three weeks old. I'd hate to see him become a meal for one of my bigger fish but he seems to be doing a good job so far and I'm using a turkey baster to get the smaller flakes to him and keep him fed!