Too many guppy fry!!! (ah!!)

[Yajimari21]

I have now decided that getting my pet store's special deal for "guppy pairs" was one of the worst decisions of my fish-keeping career! I got 2 male-female pairs in July and there are now more than 30 guppy fry in my 75 gal community tank (without taking into account the fact that I have about 10 mollies + 5 fry, 3 neon danios, 2 leopard corys, 3 albino corys + 9 fry and 6 neon tetras already in the tank!) so I realize that my tank will soon be entering a VERY bad stretch!

I'm desperate to get rid of them, but I don't know what to do! Called the LFS just to hear that they won't take them until they are adults (so all around 8 months old... the oldest of the fry are 4 months old, the youngest about 2-3 weeks~ so yeah...NOT good)!!! The deaths of adult fish in my tank have already started (3 casualties so far) BUT I was lucky enough that it claimed one of the heavily pregnant adult females! (LOL) I was also INCREDIBLY lucky in that my aunt (who has a 10 gal which is already pretty heavily stocked to capacity) asked for some fish~ I gave her the other adult female who was likely to drop fry within the week! But now I'm up against a wall! Look how desperate I have become:

A) SIX of the older female "fry" had become heavily pregnant a few days ago, gravid spots and all... I was forced to open a mini "abortion" clinic by netting them and putting them all into a breeder box for the night! (weren't pregnant by the next morning~ I knew about this since I had accidentally done this to one of my molly females before :( )

B) I trapped one of my danios in the breeder box with one of the smallest fry I could find~ it wouldn't eat it!!!

C) Everytime one of my adult mollies swims by one of the fry I get excited that they might just gobble one of them up--- they don't! lol


I can't bring myself to flush them, so what should I do?! Luckily I managed to push out 2 more fry to my aunt and 6 to my mom's office, but there are still at least 25 young fry left who are growing quickly!! What should I do?! (No time to buy another tank as I'm leaving tomorrow, but I will be moving 6-8 of them into my now empty 5 gal) I didn't believe that there could be fish more highly prolific than mollies! Help!

[Lady Hobbs]

That must be the reason I don't have livebearers. LOL

I have no idea what you can do with them. Perhaps an ad in your local newspaper? Maybe in the "freebie" section. You're going to have to separate males from females if you don't want this to continue. They're worse than rabbits.

[Futureboy]

get some predatory fish to feed them too:wink2:

[country_boy454]

We know how you feel, we have a 5 gal with over 50 endler fry. Oldest are about 2 weeks and the youngest , 25 give or take a couple, are from last night! Tried to feed some to my cichlids and well woke up this morning to find all of them..... alive still. They wouldn't touch them! Maybe because they layed a batch of eggs last night!

[Yajimari21]

^ LOL... I feel for you!



Okay, I know this sounds horrible, but I was wondering if there was a "humane" way of killing some of them? I know that flushing is a definite NO in this department, but since none of my other fish will eat them, I'm not sure what else I can do. =X

[blu]

Well do you have a betta? There is no way a betta would pass up some little fry(they are very predatory).Or mabey if you know someone with a betta..or tetras they seem to really enjoy fry.Otherwise Im not sure what to tell you except to separate your males and females immediatley

[Yajimari21]

^ hmmmm... my neon tetras in the 75 gal have been pretty ambivalent toward them, but now I will launch Operation Doom.


I'm back at school now, but I just called my sister and told her to put all of the really small fry into the 5 gal and then to move all of our 6 neon tetras (who haven't been fed today) there as well~ We'll see how if 6 neons in a tank with about 20 fry can do some damage! Wish me luck!

[mitcore]

where do you live?
if i am close to you i will take them off your hands

[NickFish]

I know what you mean about the over populating and have put serious thought into whether or not i should continue to keep livebearers for this reason. If only they made some kind of fishy birth control...
A few years ago i talked to the lfs in my area and they agreed that i could bring in any livebearer fry past 3 months in age for 35 cents each in store credit. I would have given them for free if they had refused that. Just giving them a good home is good enough. Maybe talk to some stores they probably wouldn't say no to free fish.

[OscarFan]

You could get a school of pictus catfish.They would eat them but leave the bigger ones alone. An OScar would take care of them or you could try selling them or giving back to the pet store.

[Yajimari21]

I think I've finally found a solution! My sister's friend has a nice pair of hungry turtles that would love a small snack-worth of guppies. I'm getting rid of all of the juvenile females and all of the fry this way (if my sister can convince her friend) so I'll only have males left!


On another note: the tank deaths have begun already, but I don't get back from school until wednesday! Two of my favorite mollies are gone and one of my baby corys! ;___;. I had my sister adjust the water temperature (it had fallen all the way down to 73!) and add a few gallons of fresh dechlorinated tap since she doesn't know how/want to do a water change to try to offset the poor water conditions until I get back.

[Darkstar824]

wait! i will take some off your hands. for me, lol i only have 8 guppies currently. and i want/need more. i have room for more. where do u live? maybe you could send some through the mail?? i would love to have them. but it would have to be next month sometime as i will be gone for about 10 days on vacation this month.

[jweintraub]

Dwarf Cichlids like apistos or rams would certainly take care of the fry and be a nice colorful addition to a community tank.

[William]

Some barbs would also take care of a lot of the fry.

Apistos females sometimes start protecting guppy (and other) fry as their own so that can be conter productive. I've also had a few Betta males that have done the same.

[Yajimari21]

wait! i will take some off your hands. for me, lol i only have 8 guppies currently. and i want/need more. i have room for more. where do u live? maybe you could send some through the mail?? i would love to have them. but it would have to be next month sometime as i will be gone for about 10 days on vacation this month.


Believe me, you'll have MANY more than you ever wanted soon enough... LOL. I live in Pennsylvania though.


jweintraub: My LFS basically has 0 variety in peaceful dwarf cichlids (I just checked online for pictures, and I've never seen apistos or rams there!) is there a way that I could order them somehow?

[Siamese Fighter 1]

u made mistake buyin those guppy pair, u should have read more about them.
my younger brother is a guppy addict he has loads! he gets fry everyday but manage to have space for them, dont how he does it.
he does not like people that treat guppy bad, but he does not like gettin fry of people cause he said it would ruined the pattern of his guppy genes.

1 question why dont you get the female guppy to eat her fries? they eat thier fry immediatly as soon as they finish givin birth.

[Tjones]

yea my guppy had like 12 fry that i ever found and i have 10 tiger barbs in there with them that ate every last fry.... could have been the frog too though... but the best part of the story is my guppys school around with the tigers :) its funny to watch, its like the cat that thinks he's a dog

[NickFish]

Talk to your lfs. I was able to make a deal with the manager for 15 cents every guppy 4 weeks old and 20 cents for every guppy over 6 weeks. (this is all in store credit)
I have to give at least 15 guppies every two months as part of the deal which is easily doable. He requested pics of my breeder tank and of my main tanks. I recommend getting a 5 gallon breeder tank with no substrate if you are serious about keeping the guppies.

[mitcore]

how about a buble bee goby
he will drop your supply fairly quickly

[Tigerbarb]

You could sell some to a local pet store and make some $$$.

[JoJo99]

I just took 2 dwarf blue ram cichlids to to Pet store becasue they were eating all my guppy fry. They ate all of them in my heavily planted tank. They actually hunt them. They are othewise peaceful to all the adult guppies, mollies and swordtails,zebra danios and corys. They only grow to 2". They will keep the fry population down, I promise.
Before you put them in there make sure your water tests ok, you may have high nitrites from all those fish. Frequent partial water changes will helps take care of that.
Good luck.

[GuppyFan]

Being a community tank, the pictus cat would be your best option. Warning, they can get somewhat large depending on environment.

[Eileen]

Try craigs list on the internet in your city that you live at. That is how I got 2 mystery snails for free for my small tank. One of my black Mollies is pregnant. I plan on getting rid of the babies for free in the pets section of craigs list. I live in San Diego. In the pets site if you type in fish . All the people that are looking for fish is on that site. They also have a free section also. You should post it there. Good Luck! You can include a picture if you want and also put the area that you live at so people that don't want to drive far to pick up the fish.