Guppys..

[sebastien]

Alright, you know the guppys you buy as feeders..? I actually like these in tanks and was interested in breeding them..So here are the questions..

1. Will these "feeder" guppys breed?? I dont see why they wouldn't..but who knows?


2.How many should i start out with?? It'll be in a 30G..


3. Safe to breed them and shrimp in same tank?

[Cristoff]

1. Yes - you simply can't stop guppys from breeding. you can slow them down by lowering the temp of the water, but if you keep it around 78 or so they WILL breed.

2. 2-1 ratio of male to female always worked for me. in a 30 gal I would start with 4 female and 2 male personally. It won't take long for them to raise that number exponentially on their own.

3. Never bred shrimp, but I wouldn't personally do it.

4. Feeder guppys tend to be inbred and a bit weak genetically from what I've seen. It may be difficult to get a great gene pool.

[sebastien]

I wouldnt try to ...breed 'show fish'..so long as they are not deformed..lol

[troy]

I would think that that "fancy" guppies would be more inbred than feeder guppies.:sconfused: By all means go ahead with breeding them. The males are actually quite colorful. The guppies will eat the baby shrimp so you probably won't be able to breed the shrimp very successfully in with the guppies.

[Nemireck]

Are you concerned about death rates of the shrimp? If not, it shouldn't be a problem to breed both in the same tank, their populations will naturally grow over time.

Another option would be to breed crayfish. The mother will actually care for the young crayfish for a little while, and 6-10 of them will survive from each generation in a guppy tank, even more if you have enough hiding places. And 3 or 4 bigger crays walking around the tank at night will work wonders on the population control of your guppies. I often turn on my light in the morning to 4 happily feasting crayfish in their favourite hide-outs.

[Cococrunch]

Yep Just like any other Live bearers They breed ALOT In a 30g i Would start with only 1 Male and 3 Females with Lots of Hiding Places for the Fry e.g Plants they'll breed like crazy and before you know it you'll have a population explosion!

-Coco

[Scrup]

1. Yes - you simply can't stop guppys from breeding.

Not entirely true. As cruel as it is, they used to cut off the males manly parts to keep them from breeding.


You will only need one male and at least three females (two might work, but the male will harass them quite a bit). More males will get you a little more diversity in the colors and give you some options to go with, but you would need more females to compensate. More females will result in the numbers coming up much faster. 10-50 babies every month. Remember that.

[WhiteDevil]

pay shipping and ill send you fancies for 10 bucks a dozen. I am getting out of guppy breeding, lost my job in january and the dwarf cichlids being in more money per fish then a dozen guppies do.

The "feeder" guppies are either culls which arent breeding material, deformed ect.. sometimes there are endlers in there with them so watch what you get.

OR

they are wild types which will be mainly grey to dark grey with jet black eyes, those ones are GREAT to start with but only the females, you wont get color by using a wild male.

good luck, its a trip.


ok, my only question....what are you looking to achieve with this venture?
it gets expensive real quickly and can get out of control. I went from a 40g tall for them to 10 10 gallons on a rack in my laundry room. and had 3 tanks in my bedroom before I knew it. save your money on breeder boxes, keep alot of floating plants in there and mosses, low lights as well(anubias ect the adults like them) overfeed and please prefilter your intakes and double to triple the size of the filter for the size of tank you are using, it does help alot.

as long as you keep the adults "full" the fry survival rate drastically improves. I keep all of them in a 40g after learning this trick. I got rid of 3 dozen this afternoon and it doesnt look like I put a dent in the population.

[sebastien]

whitedevil, i am getting another tank soon..so i will probably use the babies...once they get big enough to catch..as feeders...same with shrimp...



these are feeder guppys...can you explain a little more on what you said? culls?endlers?