How does everyone manage guppies ?

[nwnittany]

My gosh, I started with three (rescued them from a neighbor who was going to flush them) - two male and one female (not the optimal mix, but I was trying to save the little bugges).

Everyone knows the next chapter in this book....in a few months, I'm seeing little specs in the tank....as soon as those specs get to a decent size, I get a fresh batch of little specs.

I don't mind caring for the fry and kind of like seeing them. But, obviously, I need some sort of long-term plan for what to do with all of these.

The CFO has nixed buying a new tank for each batch of fry, and I've given out about as many as I can.

The local fish store says they'll take them (and sell them), which is my plan. But, I'm worried they'll shut me off at some point and will need another plan.

What does everyone else do ?

[labnjab]

You can feed the fry to some of your larger fish. When my 4 females finaly give birth (very soon I hope) I plan on raising some, thats why I left some room in my 55 community, and selling some, but i also plan on using a lot of them for food for our goldfish, bettas, and anyone else that will eat them.

[jonruthy]

Hi nwnittany,
Well we breed guppies and a good few of ours are taken to the LFS, But we do and have to cull a few as some of the babies end up with bent tail or they just aint growing as they should do, so we do cut down on our numbers a good bit.
You could seperate the males and females, but then you would have to buy several tanks to do so...... or just let the perants eat them, as they will do cutting your numbers there (just depends if you can do that)
We started with 1 tank 6mths ago now we have 4 tanks and a spear 1 incase we need it lol so as you can see they take over a little lol.
We have found that the older babies that have had babies them selves don't eat there babies, but the old perants do, our first baby guppy has just had babies while we was away and she was happily swimming around with her babies, not touched them at all.

[nwnittany]

Will a tank full of guppies self-regulate itself ? Ie, will the adults eat enough of the fry to keep the tank from overcrowding and crashing ?

Not saying I want to go this route, just curious.....

[toddnbecka]

My gosh, I started with three (rescued them from a neighbor who was going to flush them) - two male and one female (not the optimal mix, but I was trying to save the little bugges).
No good deed goes unpunished... :hmm3grin2orange:

[troy]

My guppy has has had 2 batches of fry so far. In the first batch I counted only 2, and in the second batch she had 16. The 16 have gone down to eight, so I'd say at least half of the fry from each batch will get eaten if you leave them in the tank. Since you have angels, they should be able to eat up most of the fry.

[Red]

A south american bumblebee cat. Thats how i solve my problem
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[nwnittany]

LOL....

I guess I'll just let nature take its course in the 'guppy tank' and donate the ones that grow to the LFS.

If things get out of control, I'll try to catch the fry and move them into the angle tank.....

All part of nature, I guess.