Creating a guppy breeding setup

Hi all!

Saturday I got some guppies (being honest, wanted to created feeder fish stock), but since getting them I absolutely LOVE them!

Yesterday when I got home I had my first fry (6 that made it thus far).

Just the busy-ness of the guppies astound me, and I enjoy them thoroughly.

The added benefit of breeding them so easily and being fast growth, early sexual maturity all combine for a fish that is ideal to try and develop your own strain.

Now, I'm not saying I want to develop my own strain, but certainly I can do some selective breeding.....

My question: When doing a guppy setup, how do you go about it? What tanks can you use? 30cm? or 45cm? Also: in such small tanks, how do one go about filtration and heating?

I would really appreciate pointers from you old hands!

PB

 

There are so many different ways that you can go about breeding them. You can use small tanks with just the pair that you want to breed in them but then you will need a few tanks to raise the fry in. The advantage is that you know who the father of the fry is and can adjust your breeding accordingly.
I go the easy route. I have bought the best stock I can afford (ATFG guppies from Altum). I have limited it to 2 strains - the superior full red and the blue grass. Each strain is in there own tank. The Full Reds are in a 3ft tank because there are 4 males and 6 females. The Blue Grass is in a 2ft tank because there is only 2 females and one male. All the females have been prehit by the Thai breeder and I already have fry from the Full Reds.
Each tank is heavily planted with fine leafed plants and some floating plants and has substrate. The 3ft tank has 2 Aquaball internal filters (one on each side) and the 2ft has one Aquaball internal filter. Each tank has a heater. Nothing else. Initially, I have fished the fry out of the tank and placed them in a breeding net to grow a little bigger. Once this first batch reaches a size where they will not be eaten then they will join the adult guppies. I will keep adding smaller and smaller fry to the main tank over the course of a few weeks. The idea is that the adults will become so used to the fry being around that they will not try and eat them. I did this with a previous tank and it worked beautifully. Eventually the new fry are born in the tank with the adults and are left there. If I see any youngsters that do not meet the grade, then they are removed and sold.
I do not like the plastic breeding traps so I prefer for the females to drop there fry in the tank. This causes less stress to the female and does not result in premature dropping of fry. Obviously, some of the fry does get eaten but a lot of them survive because of the abundance of plants for them to hide in.
If you want to save the whole drop then you can get hold of the 5-way breeding trap and remove all the compartments. There are slots in the bottom of the breeding trap that will allow fry to fall through. I place the female in the trap in a seperate 1ft tank with no other fish. The fry will then drop through the breeding trap and into the main tank. This has been very successful for me. The trick is to place her in the trap just before she is due to give birth to minimise stress.
I feed the fry baby brine shrimp and finely crushed flake food 3 or 4 times a day.
I do 30% water changes every 3 days and I also use Aquarium Salt of 1g per liter.
I feed the adults baby brine shrimp, flake food and spiralina tablets. Every second week I drop a vitamin tablet, from Sera, into the tank.
Hope that I have not confused you further and have helped in some way.

 

Hi Irma,

Looks like you and I am the only really serious guppy groupies on this forum, but I am glad to see that there are others that are also getting interested (Jaco, you saw my guppies....).

I have many tanks in my garage, and since the guppy bug bit me when I brought some Endler guppies from Europe in 2009, I have increased the guppy tanks dramatically. Since then the Endler guppies have populated half of South Africa's aquaria, I know of a number of aquarists that have hundreds of offspring....

Well, I keep my guppies in larger and smaller tanks depending on numbers and whether I want to raise offspring. I also believe in keeping them as naturally as possible and use simple corner filters for filtration. These are good for me because I can add some shells to stabilize the pH here in our soft water. Then I add plenty of aquatic mosses to the tanks especially those in which I want the females to have their babies. I also really like ramshorn snails and add them to all my guppy aquaria. There is such a mania against snails and to me they are so useful for eating uneaten food and therefore eliminating anything that may rot in the aquarium causing problems, that I find them really useful, and not bad as many claim them to be.

I also dream of breeding the new miracle strain and I believe that Endler guppies with their new set of genes have a lot of potential. I want to try to make some targeted crosses with my Endler's. I already have one Endler x normal guppy strain. The normal guppy strain is a Japan blue crossed with a regular Endler. Mine are from Tyrone Genade, who got one male from Germany and then bred these back into his female Japan blues. These fishes are even more spectacular than the one which I show below, but this should give you some inspiration.

BTW those two female reds that you gave me are doing fine in their new home and I also hope for some offspring soon. I have been warned that the albino red Moscows are particularly good at finding their babies and eating them because they are pale coloured so I will load my tanks with plenty of mosses once I see that they are planning to have babies.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thank you for the replies!

As for temperature: I've been coming across contradicting literature, some saying cooler, some saying warmer..... what is the ideal temperature for guppies?

I've seen 45cmx32cmx32cm tanks which I think will be perfect for housing a trio. How much truth is in the following statement (which I read):

"guppy males tend to have more breeding vigour with more than one male per tank, single males doesn't seem to be that interested in breeding".

I read this on a website, but if this is really true one will have difficulty keeping accurate track of who the father is.....

 

How I have it and use temp ..
higher temperature = faster growth, more drops, more feeding required and shorter lifespan
lower temperature = moderate growth, easier to keep the water quality stable
temp AFAIK also plays its part in male vs female ratio in the fry but I never get that right

Guppies don't like a temp under 15 degrees will survive at 18 over a long period but with very little breeding.

I do not breed guppies, but have them currently in 17 tanks - they are good it kick-start a tank and them just grow, stay in that tank.

Filtration - anything - I still use HMF mostly - but always planted either hornwort in bare bottom tanks of full substrated tanks with whatever grows.

Lights ... enough for the plants to survive - but not critical. I have noticed that guppies that get loads of sun seem more colourful after a few generations.

Later Ferdie

 

I keep my guppies at 25 - 26 degrees. I know that temp does have an influence on lifespan and amount of fry. I agree with f-fish. I will have to see with these babies when they mature as to the female to male ratio.

"guppy males tend to have more breeding vigour with more than one male per tank, single males doesn't seem to be that interested in breeding". - I have one trio of the Blue Grass and I have seen the male chasing the 2 females but not as much as the other tank with the 4 males and 6 females. But I cannot say for sure if this statement is correct or not. Maybe Dirk can comment?

Lovely Endlers by the way!! Very colourful and striking!! Dirk, the 2 females you got from me are from the Superior Red strain. I keep the Red guppies in a tank with light cream coloured gravel and the Blue Grass guppies in a tank with red brown gravel. This helps the fry to not be so visible.

 

Thanks for the info! My guppy tank currently don't have a heater, stable at 22 degrees..... will pop a heater in there the weekend.

If I get myself a 9-tank guppy stand, I fear for my electricity bill..... (mainly because my tanks are in the garage, so almost zero heating required in summer, but winter.... eish!!) To use a room heater for a room that isn't isolated seems folly, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.... first have some cichlid tanks I need to fill up.....

 

I just love guppies. I have 4 tanks with guppies of which
One has endlers in them with about 40 endler fry and 4 females and 2 males
I'm moving one of these days and going to have pay my own electricity
I'm also planning on using corner filters.
@Dirk Bellstedt what do You use in your corner filters? What is the best way to
Stack them?

 

Hi Jaco and Heinrich,

With electricity prices being what they are, I am not heating my guppy tanks at all and switched off all the heaters in October last year. I will switch them on as late as possible in winter, but as far as I am concerned, guppies must be tough enough to withstand this and so far they are all doing very well.

Heinrich, in my corner filters, I have about 1/3 course gravel or siporax, then about a tablespoon of course shells and then filter wool on top. I clean these filters once very 4-6 weeks depending on how many fishes are in the tank.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

agree 100% .. I let my tanks drop to 15 C only when the guppies get really slow do I add a heater - and then that is set to 18 - 19 C ...

 

@HeinrichvH,
Happy to hear the Endlers are doing well.
Did the plants survive ?

 

@Irma,

Please let me know if you want so sell some of the ATFG guppy fry ?

 

Will do but it will be a couple of months before they will be ready.

 

@gdt78

Yes I must say thanks to you again for the andlers. And al the
Plants are doing well and some already have new shoots

Thanks again gdt78

 

With all these guppie breeders on this post.

Is there any one in pta (hatfield) or Sandton that would be willing to sell me a few guppies for my new tank?
I guess Midrand Could work too as its on the way to pta.

Please pm. Thanks

 

Not at the moment. I first need to increase my stock.

 

@Zapnologica,
I can help you with Endlers.

 

Show us some photos.

 

@gdt78 .. you might have posted this in the past .. do you know how your endlers got into ZA? Prof, Vis, some other dude or a LFS import?

 

@f-fish,

That is a good question & long story.

I dont want to hi-jack this tread so perhaps we should start a whole new thread for these little guys.