Pregnant obsessed male, Guppy   12/30/07
I have a male guppy that has picked up a very odd habit. Out of all six females he is currently with, he obsesses over a single pregnant one.
<Hmm... not really odd. She's presumably bigger than the others, but whatever, male Guppies harass female Guppies. In the wild the males get eaten by predators very quickly, so the females get a break. But in the aquarium... we recommend providing lots of floating plants and swimming space to keep things as tolerable as possible.>
Three of the females I bought from a breeder are virgin, never been pregnant before girls, but he has absolutely no interest in any of them, even though they actively seek him out. The one he constantly chases after and tries to breed with, is the largest and very pregnant, one there.
<Annoying perhaps, but happens.>
He's stressing the poor girl out pretty badly and I'd hate to see her miscarriage my line of green cobra fry. I want to move her badly, but the only other tank currently in working condition is my fry grow up tank with is populated by about 20, 3 day old fry.
<Why not move the male to another tank, or even confine it to a SPACIOUS breeding net (not a small breeding box.>
The third tank of mine, my supposed emergency tank, got knocked out of commission thanks to an overzealous cat 2 days ago.
<Oh.>
Is there anything I could possibly do in the community tank to make him give her a break?
<Not really. Bigger tank, more females, more plants... all these things would help. But as fond of Guppies as I am, they aren't very smart, and nothing you can do will re-educate him!>
Or does this particular male have a preggo obsession?
<Looks like it, yes. Cheers, Neale.>

Weird guppy breeding mystery  11/26/07
Hey,
<What?>
I just got home yesterday from WVA and my older brother took care of the fish. Well, when I got home, I checked my pregnant guppy. Her belly was gigantic but her black dot wasn't completely black yet.
<The "Gravid Spot" is a very unreliable indicator of pregnancy. It's a clue, but not the clincher.>
So I decided to wait a couple of days till I would put her in my breeder. I found out today that her belly shrunk in size and her black dot was pink again. I didn't find any babies.
<She probably ate them. Breeders really don't work all that well. Next time stock the main tank with floating plants like Hornwort. Each morning, check for babies. They'll hide there away from the other fish. Collect the babies, and move to a trap or another tank.>
-Help!! I'm confused!?!?
-Sarah
<Hope this helps, Neale.>

Sexing Guppies   10/2/07
Hi,
How long does it take to tell the gender of baby guppies.
<Guppies are quite easy to sex (as well as fast growing) and it should be clear within the first month. Certainly by the end of the second month you should have the boys and girls separated if you intend to keep the females as "virgins" for a proper breeding program. Cheers, Neale>

Guppies, repro., Myxosoma   – 10/28/07
hi, i just emails you about the different color swordtails. this time i have a different question about fancy guppies.
<OK.>
one of my mollies died from whirling disease so i got a male and a female fancy guppies.
<Never heard of "whirling disease". Check water quality and water chemistry. Livebearers need HARD and ALKALINE water to do well. Mollies (arguably) need slightly brackish conditions; they are certainly easier to keep in brackish water. So adding around 3-9 grammes of marine salt mix per litre helps them enormously. Other livebearers are fine with this amount of salt, but most other tropical freshwater fish are not. This is why I don't recommend Mollies for beginners or for community tanks.>
the pet store also gave me a baby because all the others were eaten. my female guppies is pregnant but the male is chasing away all the males in the tank (actually all the males and a tetra that i cant tell) but he is also what seems to be him trying to impregnate all the females. is it possible to have a guppies mate with a tetra, molly, swordtail, or platy.
<Obviously there are two things going on here. Yes, male Guppies are promiscuous, and will try to mate with every female Guppy in the tank, and often with other small livebearers of similar type. But Guppies are also territorial; the males try to dominate a patch of water, and will drive away any potential rivals. In small aquaria this often manifests itself as aggression towards the other fish in the tank.>
please help me. he seems to be very territorial with the males too.
<Not much I can say except this is normal for Guppies. This is the importance of researching fish beforehand, so you know the potential problems. Throwing a bunch of species together and hoping for the best isn't wise. Your local pet store doubtless sells cats, dogs, mice and rabbits. But put them all together in one cage and there'd be carnage! Just so with fish: just because your pet store sells a variety of fish, doesn't mean they will all get along together. Cheers, Neale>
<<Hi Neale. Though there are several causative mechanisms for the descriptor "Whirling disease", one in fisheries is prominent: Look for the term/organism Myxosoma cerebralis... Cheers, BobF>>

Re: Myxosoma – 10/28/07
Cool! Learned something new today. But be that as it may, I can't see anything relating Myxosoma to Poecilia (Mollienesia) spp. Presumably more likely to be "the Shimmies" in Poecilia (Mollienesia) spp., and that definitely is brought on by improper water chemistry, poor water quality. As ever, please edit, fix my replies as you see fit.
Cheers, Neale
<I do agree with your assessment. BobF>

Pregnant Guppy  10/20/07
Hello,
I love your website and have found it very helpful.
<That's good!>
I am fairly new to the whole guppy fish thing and am experiencing my first pregnant fish. I currently have a 30 gallon community tank and my newest additions where 3 female guppies (unfortunately one recently pasted away) My biggest female guppy is pregnant, or appears to be so, she has the swollen belly with now a square-ish body and the black spot right behind her abdomen.
<That's the so-called gravid spot.>
When I purchased her, she was already pregnant, but it was hard to tell if she was pregnant or just fat.
<If she's been with males, she's pregnant.>
The reason I say this is because she is silver, but she has a black tail and orange fin. The black starts mid-abdomen.
<Don't get too hung up on the gravid spot. It isn't very reliable, and its visibility depends on the size of the fish and it's colouration.>
I recently noticed that she was watching herself on the side of the tank as she was swimming, she wasn't eating when I fed the other fish. So I put the breeding box in the tank, and place her in it, turned the overhead light off and let the fish be. I do have a black light behind the tank so I could
still see her. A few hours after I put her in the box I noticed that she started shacking and appeared to be pushing.
<Not a big fan of breeding traps. The problem is they often stress the females, leading to miscarriages. Guppies are usually fine, but Mollies, Swordtails and Halfbeaks go nuts.>
I left her alone, this morning when I woke up, I checked on her and there where no babies, but she was all silver now. The color had completely faded from her tail and fin.
<Hmm... I'd personally take her out the trap. The mother's health comes first. Eventually the babies will come out, and if you have some floating plants (even pondweed, like Elodea) then some babies will survive hidden there long enough for you to gather them up each day and put into the breeding trap (or breeding tank).>
After I put my son on the school bus and got ready for work, I checked on her before I left for work and she was starting to get some of the color back. Am I wrong in thinking she was in labor and should I let her out of the breeding box and is the color changes normal?
<Fish change colour for a variety of reasons, but stress is one of them.>
Thanks
Katie
<Hope this helps, Neale>

Pregnant Guppy Died   9/11/07 
Hi there
I not too sure if you could help me out here, I have had a few pregnant guppies over the last 12 months and we have only managed to save a few of the fry (not been able to get the time right for putting them in the breeding net). But this week the latest pregnant guppy died - she got a lot larger than the others did and started swimming at a funny angle with the head pointing upwards (I have been told that this could be sign she is about to have to her babies) so I put her in the breeding net.
About a hour later I went to check on her and she was still enormous, would not eat her food and just sitting on the bottom of the net. I honestly thought that she was on her way but about another hour later I went to check on her and she was on her side dead and there were loads of red lines on her tummy. We checked out water and it was fine so we ask our local fish store to check it and they said it was fine but could not give us any advice on what had happened with her, if you don't mind I would really like some advice as we still have another pregnant guppy and I DON'T want to lose her as well?
Thanks in advance
Mandy
<Hello Mandy. From your description, it's almost certain that the embryos in her uterus died and began decomposing, and fungal and bacterial infections set in, eventually killing the fish. Why this happens I cannot say, but genetics may be a factor, as are likely diet and water quality. Putting aside genetics, which you can really only fix by selecting stock more carefully, look at diet and water chemistry. Guppies need green foods. Lots of people forget this, and just give 'em plain old flake. That's not good enough. At the very least, they should be given algae-based flake INSTEAD of tropical fish flake. There are lots of brands, sold as Spirulina flake or livebearer flake. Guppies will also take a variety of green foods from the kitchen: squished tinned peas, sliced cucumber, spinach, Sushi Nori, and so on. Next up, water. Fancy guppies are just not hardy, and people are often surprised when they die when kept in "ordinary" aquaria. Wild guppies are practically indestructible, it is true, but not fancies. So you need to keep a close eye on the water quality and chemistry. Zero ammonia and nitrite, obviously, are important. But large, regular water changes are non-negotiable too. 50% a week would be a good starting point. Guppies absolutely must have hard, alkaline water. A pH around 7.5-8 plus hardness of 15 degrees dH upwards are required. Some people like to add a little salt to the water in guppy tanks. This won't do any harm (guppies can live in seawater!) and marine salt mix at least will help raise the hardness and pH if you live in a soft water area. Salt also has a mild therapeutic effect on livebearers particularly, reducing their sensitivity to nitrate. On the plus side, what you describe isn't "a disease" and won't be caught by the other guppies. All I can suggest is you optimise conditions for the remaining fish as far as possible. Avoid using breeding traps -- they stress the females. Instead, use the traps to isolate baby guppies once you've found them. Filling the tank with floating plants (hornwort is ideal) is the best approach. This gives the babies someplace to hide. You can then remove them every day as you find them, and put them in the trap. Don't "trap" baby guppies for more than a couple of weeks, and remove them to their own aquarium as soon as possible. That's the only way to rear substantial numbers of healthy, full-sized fish. Cheers, Neale>

Re: Pregnant Guppy Died   9/11/07 
Thanks very much for the quick reply: the water quality is fine the LFS checked it also for me no ammonia, nitrite or nitrate I checked the hardness using strips I it says GH 120 mg/L and KH40 mg/L but I have no idea what that means though - I feed the fish Tetra Pro colour once daily one day a week they get live blood worm and a couple of times a week I put in a couple of Algae wafers and then about once a fortnight I put in a few fresh peas which they really seem to like. I do have a lot of plants in my tank but I don't what any of them are called so I am going to go to the fish store and see if they have any of that hornwort and whilst I am there I will look for some livebearer food - however would this cause problems for the Rams?
I do only do a 15% water change every week so I guess I will need to do more in future then however I do add salt at every water change as I have been told that fish really do need it
Regards
Mandy
<Greetings. Your water is not ideal for guppies. Assuming that the general hardness is quoted in mg/l of calcium oxide (10 mg/l CaO = 1 degree dH) then your hardness is borderline between slightly soft and moderately hard. One degree of carbonate hardness = ~18 mg/l calcium carbonate so you have about 2.5 degrees on the KH scale, which is a very low level of carbonate hardness. You need to kick these up a bit for long-term success with livebearers. I'd suggest adding crushed coral to a box or canister filter, but any aquarium book will reveal some of the other options available. Moving onto diet. Colour-enhancing food is fine as a treat, but that's not what these fish need. They are algae-eaters and insect-eaters, and you need to respect that. Make NOT LESS than 50% of their meals algae-based flake food. Spirulina flake is ideal. This is really non-negotiable with livebearers. Colour-enhancing food doesn't really have much of an effect on their colours, and frankly a healthy diet will bring out the best colours too. Just as with people, beauty comes from the inside. Your cichlids will happily eat algae-based food, and in fact most cichlids are at least in part herbivorous and the change will do them good. Hornwort (Ceratophyllum spp.) is easy and cheap to obtain. It's sometimes sold as pond plant. Yes, you need more water changes. You are correct about salt, most fish don't need it. But in some (few) cases, salt can be helpful. If you live in a soft water area (as you seem to) adding marine salt mix to the guppy aquarium helps. Never, EVER use domestically softened water in an aquarium, by the way. One last thing: rams and guppies are completely and utterly incompatible. For one fish to stay healthy, the other must be exposed to the wrong conditions. Rams need warm (28-30 degrees C) water with very low hardness (< 6 degrees GH, < 5 degrees KH) water with a high level of acidity (pH 5-6). Guppies want moderate temperatures (24-26 C), hard water (15+ degrees dH, 10+ degrees KH) with an alkaline pH (7.5-8.5). Guppies have a high tolerance of salt (up to seawater salinity) while rams have virtually none at all. There is no way, in the long term, to keep these fish healthy in the same aquarium. Zip. Zero. Nada. Nix. When kept too cold, rams become prone to Hexamita, hole-in-the-head, and other diseases. When kept in acidic water, guppies are prone to finrot and fungus. And I could go on. Please, take some time to read about the requirements of what different fish need to coexist together in the same tank. Just as penguins and elephants have different needs, so too do different species of fish. Cheers, Neale.>

Re: Pregnant Guppy Died   9/12/07
Thanks again - I had no idea about this difference and the man at the pet shop knew what fish we had - will really have to make a decision now - thanks again
Regards
Mandy
<Indeed all fish have particular needs. Establish what water chemistry you have "out of the tap", and then choose fish to suit that. Any aquarium book will list hardness and pH requirements. When you choose fish that *like* your water to begin with, everything about the hobby becomes an order of magnitude easier. Cheers, Neale>

Dead pregnant guppy  8/16/07
Hi,
<Hello.>
I had a pregnant fancy guppy who was in fine health. I put a new male fancy guppy in the tank with her 2 weeks ago, he was quite active and a bit aggressive which is why I chose him, as my previous male guppy had been picked on by my tetras. (I have 3 balloon mollies, 2 painted tetras, 1 pleco, and these 2 guppies).
<Surely the better solution would have been to remove the tetras? Painted tetras are, I believe, albino Gymnocorymbus ternetzi that have been injected (into the muscles) with with fluorescent dyes. Do you realise that this is done without anaesthesia and large numbers of them die in the process? It also weakens their immune system. It's possibly one of the nastiest and more venal aspects of the fishkeeping hobby, and if I could, I'd run up to the guys who do it and inject their muscles with massive amounts of fluorescent dye and see if they liked it! Please please please do not support this evil trade, and do not buy painted fish. In addition, Gymnocorymbus ternetzi are notorious fin-nippers. A guppy is a swimming buffet as far as they are concerned.>
The male had always 'bothered' the female and constantly swims by her side (maybe trying to mate??). She has given birth before (by mating with my previous male) and been fine afterwards.
<Yes, he's partly trying to mate, but he's also "guarding" the female to prevent another male from mating with her. This way, he monopolizes what, in his mind at least, is a limited resource: fertile females. Now, guppies should ALWAYS be kept either as single sex groups or in mixed sex groups where the females OUTNUMBER the males by at least 2 to 1. No-one listens when experienced fishkeepers tell them this, because they think it's cute to have a boy and a girl, and the boys are prettier anyway. And then, they end up with stressed or dead female guppies.>
I did a 30% water change 36 hours ago and they all were acting fine. She may have had a slight decrease in appetite, not too sure. I did not see any signs of health problems with her. She was a big slower due to her swollen belly. In any case, I came home today to find, sadly, my pregnant female guppy dead with her tail and fins bitten off.
<Well, the Gymnocorymbus ternetzi may well have eaten her fins, and the Plec will eat a dead fish given the chance.>
I was expecting her to give birth within a week or so. (I'm so sad she died!).
<Yes, I understand, and I'm sorry for your loss.>
1) Is it possible the male killed her?? If so, how can I prevent this in the future? I'd prefer not to get him more females as I am afraid of overloading the tank.
<Yes, the male could well have stressed her. In a small tank (anything less than 20 gallons in this case) the female would have had no place to hide. He would stress her by chasing, and also preventing her from feeding properly. While male guppies generally don't kill the females outright, what they do is make it more difficult for the female guppies to stay healthy.>
2)The male guppy is now swimming alongside the mollies and bothering them... Is he trying to mate? Does he need a female guppy's company?
<Yes, he's treating the mollies as if they were guppies. Mollies and guppies are members of the same genus, Poecilia, and will even (occasionally) hybridise. Both guppies and mollies should be kept in groups. They aren't schooling fish as such, but they are sociable.>
I'm very upset about her death, and would really like to prevent it from happening again. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
<My advice is that you go buy or borrow a book about Livebearing fishes. Or at the very least read some of the articles here at WWM (see here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwlivestkindex.htm ) on the subject. Lots of people get even the basics wrong. These fish need hard, alkaline water. Some (mollies for example) need brackish water to do reliably well. All are more or less herbivorous, so at least half the diet should be green foods, not standard flake. Get these things wrong, and livebearers won't do well. Simple as that. Cheers, Neale>

Re: dead pregnant guppy  8/16/07
Update:
I decided to try and dissect the female to see if I would see any eggs/embryos in her, and when I dissected near what I thought was her gravid spot I did not find anything (however, it was a messy, not too accurate dissection... I don't usually keep a mini dissecting kit around =)) Anyways, I found some pale yellowish gel-like liquid, and other organs/intestines... nothing resembling offspring, although I'm not too familiar with fish anatomy. Is it possible she wasn't pregnant? I noticed her 'gravid spot' getting larger and darker in the past couple of weeks, and she definitely looked more swollen this past week. I did not see what she looked like the last time she was pregnant, so this was my first time observing what I thought was a pregnant female.
<Interesting. To be fair though, after a couple of hours in a tropical aquarium, decay of the insides of a fish is significant, and you won't see all that much. So it's difficult to explain things from your observation. Female guppies when kept with male guppies are almost always pregnant, but at the early stages of gestation the fry are very small and difficult to see.>
Also, could the water change have been too stressful for her? I had my hand in the tank to move around some of the plants/decorations and fix the filter orientation. It took about a half an hour.
<Water changes, done properly, aren't a problem. Even a 100% water change is fine. What matters is that the pH and hardness of the new water and the old water are very similar, and the temperature difference is small (a sudden drop in temperature by a degree or two is harmless, and even therapeutic, prompting many species to spawn).>
Thanks again for your help!
<Good luck, Neale>

I need some answers... Guppy repro.   8/12/07
First of all - I am really new at having livebearing fish. I have a 10 gallon tank with 2 Mickey mouse platys, one yellow molly and 3 guppies - 1 male and 2 females. One of my guppies, became pregnant, I don't know if by MY male or one at the pet store, but that doesn't really matter I guess. Anyway, I ordered a brand new 5 gallon fish tank off of eBay, because they had a pretty purple one, and I wanted it... I was going to use it for the fry when she had them. But I misjudged how far along she was and it hasn't arrived yet. So the other day, I was getting sick of waiting for it and knew she was going to pop any day, and I went out and got a breeder tank with a nursery in the bottom. The minute I got home, I cleaned it and put it in the tank with the pregnant female inside. Within 10 minutes, there were 4 fry in the bottom.
<What timing!>
The next morning I woke up, and there were still only 4 in there, so thinking she was done giving birth, I released her back into the tank with the others. The fry are doing well, but the mother still looks VERY pregnant, and her gravid spot is still very black. What does this mean? And what should I do??
<Very likely this female will have more young... I would place her back in the breeder tank... and feed frequently, small amounts, add a sprig of real or artificial "grass" (like Myriophyllum, Parrot Feather...) to discount cannibalism... and enjoy! Bob Fenner>

Baby Guppies - 08/11/07
My guppy just had her babies last night and this being the first time having any kind of baby fish, I am very excited! I read somewhere that feeding them cooked egg yolk is good for the babies when you have nothing else, is that true?
<Mmm, can be... better for most folks, times to simply grind up fine some flake or pelleted foods... feed frequently, but small amounts... a few times daily>
Because they seem to love it and are very happy. There are 4 of them but since I wasn't watching her have babies I don't know how many she ate. The most important question I have is out of the 4 of them, 3 are happily swimming around and are healthy, but the 4th one is curled up in a ball and is swimming in circles kind of fast, so it shows he has just as much energy as the other 3. I want to know if that's something he/she will grow out of it and develop normally. It's kind of sad to watch. Thanks!! ^_^
<I do hope your little fish rallies... Nothing to do here but hope really. Bob Fenner>

Guppies, repro.  8/6/07
< Hi Linda, Twothless here with you>
My granddaughter was given three male guppies and two female guppies in a jar, can you believe that?
<Certainly. You can win a Goldfish in a bag at Fairs/Carnivals. It's sad that these poor animals are subjected to torture due to ignorance. But, I digress.>
Well, I bought her a ten gallon tank with filtering system, gravel, plants, sea shells, a castle. I wanted the best for these little guys. I got up last week and saw something in the water and realized someone had babies, lot and lots of babies, I'm counting 20+. So, not knowing anything at all about these guys I found your site and read several hours, great site by the way, and found that I needed to get the babies safe, so I bought another 10 gallon aquarium and moved the adults to the new one. The babies are growing, eating and are playful little guys, they are doing great. My question is, hmm, well, the three male guppies will not quite chasing this one large female, it seemed cruel to me that they just won't let her alone, so I have taken a small minnow bucket my husband had in his work shop and he cut the top off and I sank it in the aquarium so that she has her own little house to live in. It gives her half the tank and what I feel like is some much needed rest and privacy. The males can't get to her, ha ha. I am not going to put yet another aquarium and I would like to know if I should give up a couple of the males, which I would hate to do, they are real beauties, or in time will the leave the female alone? I can't put her back in with the babies yet, they are only a week old. I just feel like its cruel for her to be chased by the males all the time. They didn't bother her before, why won't they leave her alone now? What would you do?
<Good question! I would utilize a breeding net/frame for the babies. They hang on the tank and the holes are too small for babies to fit through. The mother should be fine back in the main area with the males. However, the ratio needs to be at least 3 females to every male so that no one female gets too stressed. So, raise a couple female fry to add to the main population to keep a good ratio. Put the rest of the fry, and all ensuing batches, into jars and give them away to children... Hahaha, I'm kidding! The fry will either need to be given to a local pet shop or some other scenario will need to be worked out. I keep guppies in my turtle pond but I let nature run it's course. Guppy breeding is pretty well known and they are well adept at controlling their own populations through many contrivances. Good luck with your new Guppies!>

Platies and guppies? Crosses   8/4/07
Hey there WWM crew,
I couldn't find an answer to this question on the site nor anywhere else in my books or other online sources, so maybe you can still help me out. The other day I saw my female guppy mating with my male platy, and a female platy trying to mate with just about everyone and anyone. Is this normal first of all?
<Mmm, yes... Poeciliids are wanton this way>
And secondly is it possible that my female guppy may get pregnant with a half platy half guppy group of fry? Thank for your continuous help!
Sincerely,
Erica
<And yes, can occur... Please read here: http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/livebrrreprofaqs.htm
and some of the linked files above. Bob Fenner>

Best Tank to move fry to  7/29/07
Hi Jamie! Twothless here.>
Hello! My name is Jamie and I am very glad to have found your site. We started our hobby with my son who saved up his money to buy a 48 gallon bowfront tank. He purchased (among others) two green cobra female guppies and one black-tailed red male guppy. As can be expected, we have had a guppy fry explosion. =) In order to better (and more safely) house the babies, we purchased a cycled ten-gallon tank locally, and added the fry - The 15 or so one-week-old babies that had survived "Natural Selection" - to the ten-gallon tank. It's now about five weeks later, and we have the original 15 six-week-olds, about 7 three-week-olds and probably thirty to forty (they are hard to count!) or so two-week-old groups of fry. The last batch we moved the second female into the ten-gallon to deliver, so they all survived delivery. I purchased a second tank - 29 gallon cycled tank from a private party with the notion of trading the fish that came with it and moving some of the babies into that tank... however, we've since grown attached to the fish that came with that tank... apparently, this is how the "addiction" begins!
After that lengthy introduction, my question regards the now six-week old babies. We have a LFS we plan to bring them to, but at their age they'd be sold as feeders, so we'd like to grow them larger first. I would like to separate the females from the males and move them to another tank (since the two original girls should have another batch in a week or two. We are doing partial water changes two or three times a week right now on the baby tank. The fry are fed often and I think the six-week olds should just about be old enough to cut back a bit. Plus -- the thought of 15 breeding guppies (although most of them seem to be boys at least that we can tell) is a scary thought! Would either of our tanks be a good location or should I be looking for another tank? We do plan to bring the male guppy to the LFS (My husband is friends with the owner) to give the girls a break (and us!) after the next six months. Although, that plan may change if we find a green cobra male locally.
48 gallon --- Semi-planted, lots of hiding spots - friendly tank. The Columbians and the Blue Powder Gourami can get a little grumpy around feeding time, but otherwise they all get along well)
Currently houses the following:
12 Neon Tetras
2 Cardinal Tetras
2 White Cloud Minnows
2 Glo-Light Tetras
2 Columbian Tetras
1 Long-finned Zebra Danio
2 Kuhli Loaches
1 Powder Blue Dwarf Gourami
1 Flame Dwarf Gourami
2 Ghost Shrimp
2 Green Cobra Female Guppies
1 Half-Black Red-Tailed Male Guppy (Will be brought to LFS)
1 Common Pleco (about 5" -- Purchased before we knew how big they get -- we will have to make a decision about him soon)
29 Gallon - Semi-Planted with Driftwood - This was bought as an established tank. The fish all get along with each other, although the larger SAE will chase the smaller one occasionally. The Clown Loaches are pretty inseparable)
Currently Houses the following:
2 Otos
2 Large Siamese Algae Eaters (one 5"-6"; one is 3-4")
2 Clown Loaches (One 5" or so the other is 3 or 4")
1 Boesemanni Rainbow Fish (About 3"-4")
Any thoughts that you have on this would be very appreciated. There is another 20 gallon tank that I am looking at locally (is there a twelve-step program??) for a good price... but of course, it comes with a Black Tip shark <Bala Shark?>(which we would absolutely trade in -- we don't have any aggressive fish), a Kuhli Loach, (we would keep! We love these little guys!) an algae eater (hopefully not another one that gets big), Skirted Tetra, and a couple of others that she can't identify.
< Well, you certainly ARE pushing the limits of stocking densities there. But, if your a nitrAte testing water change freak like I am, then all is well... Well, if you're asking which tank I think the fry would be better off maturing in, I would say the larger of the tanks. It seems to have an environment conducive to the guppies growth and reproduction anyway. So, why change what seems to be working, right? Your only problem now is how are you going to keep the young males from flying in under the radar and sowing his seed. -Twothless>
Thanks very much for your time!
Jamie
<No worries! Good luck with your fry and... ahem.... addiction. -Paul

Birthing without a mate? Guppies   7/28/07
My daughter's guppy gave birth to 4 live guppies on May 20. We purchased her pregnant from a pet store. She was removed from the babies immediately and has been alone since. On July 24 we found 3 new babies in the tank with the mother! There has not been any other fish with her since the birth and I am trying to figure out how this happened? Is this common and is she done? Yikes!
<Greetings. Yes, this is normal. Guppies practise something called "superfetation" which means that they can divide up the fertilized eggs into several different batches of embryos. Each batch develops at a different rate, allowing the female to give birth to a succession of broods following a single mating.. Their close relatives the dwarf mosquitofish can actually stretch this out to no fewer than 6 broods from a single mating! Anyway, welcome to the wonderful world of livebearers! Cheers, Neale.>

Is my guppy pregnant?   7/16/07
Hello,
I have recently purchased two Blue Neon Guppies. One male and one female. I was told that the female is pregnant and should drop fairly soon. But It has been a week now and she hasn't seem to have gotten any bigger or smaller. Is there any other way to tell besides the gravid spot whether she is in fact pregnant?
<Mmm, not practically, no>
I cannot seem to get a clear picture as of yet but I will try extremely hard to do so. All I can say is she is much bigger then the male but not as bloated as some of the pictures you have on you web site of pregnant guppies. I am really interested to know if you have any other information for me. Thank you for your time
Stephanie Hall
<Patience my friend... all in good time. Livebearers don't "like" being moved... give her time here. Bob Fenner>
 

Small guppies pls help – 07/03/07 Hi <,> my problem is i <I> had brought a mix of average size guppies about 1 year ago, but when they had babies they came out very small and have stayed like it... They have now having babies of their own, and id like to know if the babies will be normal size or really small, and as to why they are so small... <Mmm, could be either... perhaps the smallness of the F1 generation was due to mainly environmental factors, nutrition...> Will having average size babies be a problem for the female guppies? <Mmm, no, not likely... will/would just have fewer> My fish tank is quite large and all tests are fine.. Am at a loss please help.. In reading some of what other people asking u <you> about how to tell preg guppies i took a close picture of a light large preg guppy, which clearly shows her babies i hope this might help other guppy keepers.. Thanks pls respond soon dawn <Thank you for your image... Will indeed help others. Please run your correspondence through a grammar, spell checker before sending. Bob Fenner>

Guppy fry and Sailfin catfish (L83)  6/12/07
Hi,
<Ave!>
I have several aquariums with fancy guppies fry. I keep 1 sailfin catfish (L83) in every tank and they do a great work.
<Very good.>
However - I have 2 questions:
1. How much salt can be added to the aquarium while the sailfin is there? what about Epsom salt? (due to guppies with constipation).
<I'd personally not use Epsom salts here but instead simply feed the right diet. Guppies shouldn't get constipated because they are so easy to feed on the right foods. Stop using generic fish flake if that's what you're using. Instead, use livebearer flake, Sushi Nori, thin slices of cucumber, tinned peas, etc. The good thing is any leftovers will be scarfed up by the catfish. Only add small amounts of animal protein, ideally "high fibre" things like brine shrimp and daphnia. The problem with Epsom salts is used routinely they can interfere with the normal digestive processes of the fish. Think of Epsom salts as the equivalent of laxatives in humans. Used to treat an acute case of constipation makes sense, but if the person is regularly constipated, then laxatives aren't the solution, a change of diet is.>
2. Can it be that the sailfin will eat live guppy fry? I'm also certain that I've seen one do it yesterday, while it was looking for the algae wafer. It was moved to another tank.
<Potentially I suppose it's possible but hardly likely. Under normal circumstances the guppy fry should be at the top of the tank and swimming too quickly to be eaten by this catfish. Possibly your catfish will eat a sick (or stupid) guppy, but hey, that's Nature taking care of culling the poor quality stock!>
Thanks,
Shay.
<Cheers, Neale

Re: Guppy fry and Sailfin catfish (L83)  6/12/07
Thanks for the answer.
<No problems.>
About the feeding:
I mainly feed the fry with live or frozen baby brine shrimp, Kenfish.com kens premium growth meal (size 00 and later 01), Hikari Tropical Fancy guppy and Hikari Tropical first bites.
<All fine foods, but the accent with these foods is on protein rather than vegetables. There's no escaping the fact guppies are partly herbivorous, and they need some algae in their diet. Just the same as with humans: give us a high-protein diet and we may put on weight quickly, but our health isn't otherwise very good.>
I use automatic feeders to feed all of the above 5 times a day, and give the baby brine shrimp twice a day after the dry food.
<OK, but do try and focus on the veggies.>
It might be that the constipation isn’t really constipation. Occasionally a fish will have a swollen up belly, becomes grey, doesn’t eat (even live brine shrimp), stays at the bottom and dies after several days. Growth rate is good, and water is kept at 25-28c, changed every 2-3 days 50%. What could be the cause to that?
<There's always a certain number of baby fish that don't survive. The reasons are various. Diet is one factor. Genes are another. Water chemistry/quality a third and fourth. At the end of the day you can't really expect every single baby fish to make it. You seem to be doing all the right things, so I wouldn't worry too much. Optimise water chemistry and quality. For guppies, a fairly high pH and hardness level is needed.>
Thanks again,
Shay.
<Cheers, Neale>

Guppies, repro.  - 05/01/07
Hello. My name is Sharon Goglin and I'm 11 years old. I bought a female guppy and a male guppy.
<Hello, and welcome to the hobby.>
I can't tell if my female is done having babies but she still looks pregnant. She only had 2 the first time but I can't find the gravid spot because the female has a clear body and you can see through her. I don't know if it's the inside of her, or the gravid spot. I don't think I'm over feeding them. Because I feed them right when I wake up and when I go to bed. If it will help, I can send a picture of her.
<Females guppies are almost always pregnant when kept with males. The gravid spot isn't easy to see sometimes, so don't put too much  significance into it. The number of baby guppies varies. But your biggest problem is that adult guppies will eat the babies if they catch them. Always put lots of floating plants in the aquarium so the babies have someplace to hide. Look for them each day, and when you find some, scoop them out and put them in another aquarium or into a breeding trap instead the main aquarium.>
PS - Also one of the baby guppies back is shaped in a weird way. It's head is normal, but the tail slants diagonally upward. How can I fix this?
<Yes, it is very common for guppies to have deformities at birth. Breeders usually kill these babies or feed them to larger fish. They can't be "fixed" In nature, fish produce lots of babies, and let Natural Selection eliminate any that "don't make the grade".
Thanks, Sharon
<Cheers, Neale>

Superfetation  3/30/07
My son bought a female guppy nearly two months ago, and within the first week she had 8 babies. She has been kept in a tank by herself for the time since, and yet she just had three more babies tonight. As they are live bearers,  I am not sure what is going on, and I came across the term superfetation, and  wanted to know exactly what all this meant? Will we have any more babies to deal  with?
<Mmm, plainly put, this is the capacity to store viable sperm in (this case female guppies') reproductive tract. A useful strategy for when it "takes two to tango" and there are no males about. You may indeed have more young from this "lone" female. Bob Fenner>

Have a stocking question, platy repro.  3/16/07
Good evening,
I find your website most helpful, although overwhelming at times as I am a beginner at all of this.
<"A few steps... at a time...">
  We have a 10 gal. tank for our 7 year old that we established in October.  Heated, has filter and currently has 2 male guppies and one male platy and one female platy who has gifted us with 13 fry over the past 4 weeks (we got her the beginning of January already pregnant~surprise!  we thought she was a male).  The male platy is not doing so well and is behaving much like the previous 2 male platys did before their demises in December and January.  We plan on giving the fry to our local Preschool's tank when they are big enough.  The guppies are pretty aggressive so I know we need to get another female or two in there to help with that
<A good idea>
but are afraid another female platy will come into our home already pregnant.  Is there another breed we can bring in to balance the female/male ratio to minimize aggression but also prevent us from being a nursery?
<Mmm, not really... all potentially interbreed...>
Of course this is assuming that the male platy doesn't make it.  I know the female can store sperm for 6 months so we are prepared to "parent" until she is done, but would prefer not to become full-time breeders.  
Thanks for a great website!
Bridget
<Am curious, wanting to help with the anomalous losses... If you'd like, please write back re your system, water quality tests, maintenance routine matters, behavioural notes. Bob Fenner>