Breeding Guppies
Bringing The Underwater World To Your Home
Breeding Guppies,
Breeding Guppies Couldn’t be easier, it really is a good fish to start with. Breeding can be done one of two ways - you can either place the guppies in there own breeding tank or your can breed them in the community tank. There are good and bad points of both ways and here they are,
Separate Breeding Tank.
Breeding guppies in their own tank is a very nice way to go about breeding them, you have a lot more control over the conditions that they are bred in. You can also control the parents, selecting the colouration of male or female of your choice of which you couldn’t do in a community tank. There is also the upside of having no other tank mates that could eat the fry and once the fry are born the parents can be moved to another tank and there you can raise your fry. The down side to having a separate breeding tank is one it will take up more space and two is more equipment layout costs.
Community Breeding Tank.
Breeding guppies in the community tanks can be great fun and very exciting as you just never know the colouration you will be from the mixed breeding which is great fun because you do get some really nice colours and combinations. The down side to breeding guppies in a community tank is that you don’t have control over the breeding colouration mixing, you don’t have as much control over the conditions as you would have in there own breeding tank because of other fish may require specific conditions and the greatest down side it the tank mates just love to feast on the guppy fry and it can be hard to catch the guppy fry in such a large tank and yes I know that you can place the female into ones of those breeding traps but unless you know that they are going to drop within a day or two I wouldn’t advise them as they can really stress the female guppy out which is in turn bad for the guppy fry.
Colourful Male Guppy!
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Dull Female Guppy!
Ok How do you breed guppies?
Right I’m not going to waffle on with all the scientific jargon that some sites do because you really don't need it with guppies because they really are so easy to breed but here are the things that you should know.
You tanks water temperature should be between 23-28°C
(74-82°F) and the water quality isn’t to important to be honest as guppies are quite a hardy little fish overall.
When guppies breed the male will approach the female from below and extend his gonopodium, the female guppy can store sperm for up to 3 months within her from one mate, meaning that she could have 3 births for just one mating session which is pretty cool if i say so myself but is good to know if you are select breeding you should isolate her with no mates for at least 3 spawns to allow all the sperm to be used before introducing your chosen male.
The gestation period for the female guppy is usually 28 days but can range from 21 to 40 all depending on the female and the amount of fry she is carrying. The female guppy can give birth to between
20-200 guppy fry per spawn again this depends on the age and size of the female.
Whilst the female guppy’s is pregnant she will develop a large round belly and will also have a dark patch on her belly which is the fry which we call the gravid spot.
Pregnant Guppy with Gravid Spot.
Try to not cause her any stress when she is close to giving birth as this could cause her to give birth prematurely which would more than likely kill the babies and another thing that could happen is she could absorb the fry and not give birth at all.
Within the tank that the guppy fry are to be born in regardless of it being a breeding tank or a community tank there should be plenty of cover for the fry to take shelter in once being born to escape being eaten by the tank mates or even the female herself! The perfect plant to use is java moss as this is quite thick and dense making it hard for bigger fish to enter providing a safe shelter for the guppy fry to grow.
Within hours of the fry being born they will be eating anything they can, you can feed the guppy fry freshly hatched brine shrimp and liquid or powered fry food. Make sure not to over feed them as the uneaten food will pollute the tank and will kill your guppy fry.
New Born Guppy Fry.
Whilst the fry are growing make sure you do regular water changes to keep the water quality ok and in turn will promote growth.
It will usually take between 1-2 months until you can determine the sex of the guppy fry.
I hope this information has helped you breed you guppies and hope you have great fun and success in breeding your guppies.
Aprox 2 Week Old Guppy Fry.