Prevent breeding between guppies

[nateb34]

Hi all,

Been a while since I posted here. Back in December, I got a 105L Tetra Tank and set it up in our office.

We started with some lovely colourful guppies (male) and along the line, we seem to have picked up 2 to 5 females. It was cute at first when the first one had babies, but now they mate like rabbits...

Nearly every 2 weeks we are finding brand new babies in the tank, mostly hiding in the live plants. The first lot have grown up to the point where I can tell I've now got 10ish females and around 15 males. I don't want my tank to fill with fish but it's starting to get crowded in there with the shull of neon tetras and corydoras.

Can anyone suggest a way to stop the breeding? I did try to catch the females and put them in a little enclosure (still inside the tank but seperated from the males) but the adult females are so damn fast that I can't catch them. As mentioned, I do have quite a few plants in the tank and the babies love to hide in there with the shrimp.

Cheers in advance,
Nathan

 

[Essjay]

The only way to stop them breeding is to separate the males and females. Even then, the females will be carrying sperm and will use it to have fry for many more months to come. If the fry are not separated as soon as the males become obvious, the female fry will be impregnated and they too will continue having fry.

The only realistic way to stop fry being born is to rehome all the females, including the female fry when they grow big enough. And if you ever buy more males, make sure they are males

 

[emeraldking]

If you really want only females in your tank but no wish for babies, get yourself some young virgin females from a private breeder. Or just keep males instead.

 

[DAnCSF]

Alas with most live bearers yours' is an impossible task...guppies will breed like rabbits that's just what they do. you can always add a decent sized angelfish. I have a similar situation with a tank of red sword tails. Luckily my LFS will take em.