Thinking Of Breeding Guppies

[Ardvark]

I have a 64ltr tank with a max of 14 guppies in.
Over a period of time the fish have died leaving me with 3 males.
Me and me better half have been having a discussion about the theory of adding females to the tank.
Whilst the idea of having babies to restock the tank and avoiding buying any more I am thinking there is more to it.
If I add females to the tank they will have babies.
Some will die and some will be eaten by the adults.
Please correct me if I'm going overboard.
To control the situation I would need 4 tanks.
1 male tank 1 female tank a breeding tank and 1 tank with babies in.
The breeding tank has 1 male and 1 female in until she gets pregnant.
Male going back into male tank.
Female goes into babies tank until she gives birth then she goes into female tank.
The fry stay in the babies tank until they can be sexed the separated.
My theory is by doing things this way the fry have a better chance of surviving to the age of being sexed.
Also I can control the amount of babies I have.
I will be very interested in any comments members have about my theory.

 

[Munroco]

Breeding guppies isn't the hard bit. Breeding a good strain of guppies is. Maximising the number of living fry is pointless unless they are of a good enough quality that you can move them on to your local LFS or elsewhere. The likelihood, unless you have a proven strain, is that you will end up with dozens of guppy fry that you can't get rid of.

 

[Soccerfreak]

If you are thinking of breeding make sure you have a breeding tank / net just for the babies. Otherwise your guppies will eat them.

 

[Mrscmurray]

I actually do breed these, as a side job so to speak, so may be able to be of some help.

When putting the males and females in together you will want 3 females to each male otherwise he will harass the single female and she can get stressed and sick.

When thinking about selling them on you have to consider supply and demand. Have you got a lot of lfs near you? Will they take them off your hands when they're old enough? A lot of places will only give store credit ( and not a lot) for fry as they can get them cheap from importing.
As an example I give about 25% to my lfs for credit which comes in handy for food etc & then sell the rest through online advertising for collection to make a few pennies for our savings

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[Mrscmurray]

Also they can drop anywhere between 20-200 fry at a time so bear that in mind!

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