Minimum temperature for guppies?

Hi guys, ive been breeding a few expensive strains and was wonder that winter is coming soon and what is the minimum temperature guppies can handle I have my breeding tubs under our ourning, it's usually get hot over there due to it traps heat,was wondering if I would need a heater for them as I don't have space in my house for more tanks,but will be putting them in the garage shortly,my current strains are :blue neon,sunset micraff, red flamingos and some yellow cobras,please let me know what's the best solution as I've spoke to lot of breeder in KZN and pietermaritzburg and are all advising me to either put a heater or bring them inside which I would still maybe need one, thx

 

I've found feral populations in water as cold as 15°C, but of course these are not fancy strains, so their tolerances will naturally be a little different. For fancier stuff, I would try to keep things subtropical to tropical, bare minimum 20°C.

You must consider your options here. How warm is "warm" under your awning? Have you measured the maximum and minimum temperatures over time? You might find it already falls within the ideal range. If not, you can look to heating your tanks (can be costly), or insulating your systems (works well with saving costs if you do decide to heat).

Indoors is a good option only if it is a bit warmer there than outdoors, because otherwise you're wasting your time. The main advantage indoors is less exposure to the elements and less temperature fluctuations, but if your house gets pretty cold you're going to need heating and insulation anyway.

Cheers,

 

Hi,ok I think I will rather go with the heater as I order a few black Moscow's and don't wanna take a chance,when it's really hot outside the awning gets aslo hot,when cold it isn't very cold but sutaible

 

Winter and cold in KZN us never really cold like in GP. When I was kid and first started with fish keeping, I used to keep gold fish and guppies together un the same tank no heater as i could not afford one and they always survived GP winters. So I guess its hard to specify an absolute minimum temp and also each strain is probably different.

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Running heaters outside are super expensive - only did that in my first year - even with loads of blankets for insulation.

Best you look into ways to get your breeding going in a more permanent structure ... or a grow house or something.

Later Ferdie

 

every year i bring in some fat imported females about 300x, put them in my swimming pool around sept, when temps still drop to 14° at nights in pool, im talking of a actual pool of 50k ltrs not a intex, and had no problems, sometimes when winter arrive the babys and juveniles unfortunately have to stay in there as i cant sell them, so they stay in there right thru winter, temps going down to lowest recorded temps of 10°. and amazingly enough when summer arive they all made it thru winter. of course its not ideal, neither do i recomend it, but it happens. remember as long as the temps drop and go up gradually it wont kill them, the cold just slows their metabolism, they eat very little, grow slow and dont breed. then in daytime the temps climb a bit again and they eat some. now before i get cursed and other members swear at me, i do not recomend or say it is cool to put them thru that at all, but if it happens that you do heat ur tubs and theres a long load shed happening on a cold winter night and you have no means to keep tubs hot, dont stress to much. or take 5 ltr water bottles and fill them with hot geyser water and float them in ur tubs, change them every 1 to 2 hrs .

 

oh, and guppies are some really tough little buggers, they dont die easy. even fancy ones. its a fish you can put in a tub outside with plants, go on holiday for a month and come back and find them all happy and all still there, with tons of babys to show off to their owner

 

Trick with most things are to boil the frog slowly, so yeah guppies do ok at 15 - will start getting slow at 12 and after that it really is survival of the fit. Thing is it all depends how fat that low temp hits them, drop your tank in a wc from 20 to 15 in one go and they might not like it or have a longer term impact to health like ich.

Later Ferdie