are guppys cool to have????

[cassandra]

i was looking at guppys the other day at the fish store,and saw some cool ones, but are they cool to have, and would it be cool to put them in my tank since i put my betta in there, he was the last fish i put in??

 

[Alien Anna]

Guppies and bettas are not generally a good mix. I like guppies - have several myself, and would recommend them, but not with a betta.

 

[Ron]

Guppies are not the hardiest fish out there (take it from experiance) And esspecailly if you get fancies, the ones at the LFS are uaually plain old mutts. I find that they are very prone to diease and do not have a good immune system because of being mutts. Guppies are the only fish I couldn't succesfully keep in my tanks. Yes, and your betta will probably kill them very soon. Thats one expenisve dinner for him. Good Luck,
Ron

 

[Fishy Jon]

I hear that guppies usually don't get along with bettas.

 

[colin5861]

Guppies are way cool. Get rid of that ugly old betta - they are so passe


love

Colin

 

[guppymonkey]

Guppies are not the hardiest fish out there (take it from experiance) And esspecailly if you get fancies, the ones at the LFS are uaually plain old mutts. I find that they are very prone to diease and do not have a good immune system because of being mutts. Guppies are the only fish I couldn't succesfully keep in my tanks. Yes, and your betta will probably kill them very soon. Thats one expenisve dinner for him. Good Luck,
Ron

This is just plain wrong. Guppies are a very hardy fish and one of (if not the) easiest fish to take care of. And they are really cheap.

Bettas and guppies sometimes do not get along. The betta sometimes thinks that the colorful guppy is a rival and will attack it. This is usually only with guppies that have long fins.

 

[Alien Anna]

This is just plain wrong. Guppies are a very hardy fish and one of (if not the) easiest fish to take care of. And they are really cheap.

I had some very fancy, expensive guppies a while back. Tank was fully cycled and water parameters were great, but I lost over half of the guppies I bought within a couple of weeks from some virulent strain of tailrot. I tried to save them but there was nothing I could do. I've since heard that the very fancy ones are not hardy at all - too over-bred IMHO.

I still have 4 of the original fancy guppies but I've also got 4 moggies (cross-breeds) in there that are very hardy.

 

[guppymonkey]

Moggies? They must be very strange looking. Its kind of strange that half-Mollies would be hardy because full blooded mollies are not hardy. Its my experience (very little, I admit) that many expensive guppies are very imbred to try to make their colors brighter. This imbreeding makes them less hardy of a fish. Many guppies that aren't bred for specific colors or styles are very hardy and a lot cheaper.

 

[Ron]

Even still, I know thousands of people who think teh same as me. No matter what the case, my guppies die, i know lots of people that have this happen to them, like Anna. I feel that the guppies are way ever bred and therefor thir immune systoms suffer from it. Its a very true fact. Ask any professional guppy breeder. They'll tell you that the ones at the lfs are mutts and a genetic failures.
Ron

 

[simon]

Recently I've been speaking to my local dealer regarding taking a mass load of guppy fry of my hands, which I might add he is happy to do. The reason for this he says is that commercial guppies die to easily. The reason behind this is that the commercial breaders feed the fry with a food that contains anti-biotics to try to maintain their health as much as possible. The change to regular food does then no good, and also has the effects of breeding resistant bacteria. At least this is what my local dealer says, but I would have thought this is accurate considering he'dd have to deal with the commercial breaders.

 

[guppymonkey]

The reason behind this is that the commercial breaders feed the fry with a food that contains anti-biotics to try to maintain their health as much as possible. The change to regular food does then no good, and also has the effects of breeding resistant bacteria.

Its advisable to vary the fish food so I am not quite sure this makes sense. I don't know how changing the food would be bad for the guppies. As for adding anti-biotics breeding resistant bacteria, this is possible as the same thing happens with those anti-bacterial soaps they sell that do basically no good but make the bacteria more resistant to anti-biotics. Sounds like a stupid idea that ends up being worse than the original problem.

 

[KnuckleHead]

At the present time I have a trio of guppies and several female battas in a 10g tank. They all get along great. Ive never seen any of them nipping or chasing each other. I have a male betta right next to the tank and he seems to hate it whenever the male guppie comes near the glass.

 

[ramesses]

I don't claim to be an expert on bettas and guppies but,I have some experience with both.Here it goes..........knucklehead was right when he claims that the male guppies are doing fine with the female bettas in a 10 gall tank,now if he was to introduce the male betta--------aka,Siamise fighting fish----- to this setting,you could say "hasta la vista,baby" to all the male gups.
Now whether or not guppies are hardy......yes and no.Wild ones are very hardy,more fancy varieties............ is a whole different thing all together.ALIAN ANNA is right when she says that fancy ones are weak.
You see.......I bought these very fancy guppies,three pairs to be exact for....are you ready?$110.including shipping.Yeap that's right.Do I think they were worth it?Of course.Anyone that goes in my room and looks at my fish tank usually goes...WOW!They are that pretty.
But just like in the case with alien anna,a pair die on me within a week of receiving them.To this day I know when something isn't right in my tank when I see more than one of these gups acting strange.I know is time to do some reading get the syphon out and do some water changes.
You see I only keep males in this tank,I have a dozen fancy males here along with others males not so fancy and the only ones that usually get sick are the fancy ones.Now,I am not saying that all fancy ones are weak,but as a general rule,the fanciest the weakest.
But going back to the original question,I do belive guppies are without a doubt one of the most beautiful and easy to take care fish,tropical or otherwise.

 

[Alien Anna]

Moggies? They must be very strange looking. Its kind of strange that half-Mollies would be hardy because full blooded mollies are not hardy.

No, "Moggy" is a term for something that isn't a pedigree and just came out as it came out, usually applied to cats of mixed parentage, but I'm using it more generally to apply to fish.

I mean guppies that are sort of fancy, but basically someone's bred a load of fancy guppies together at random and some blotchy, pretty but not spectacular fish came out of the mix. They're basically blue with blotches of different colours and tails that are not quite fan-tails, not quite veil-tails and kind of irregular. They're quite pretty, but they're not sleek like my expensive veil-tails. I'll post a photo if I ever get my hands on a camera.

 

[thebulk]

I agree with rameses.

The really fancy guppies, the ones you pay a heap for will die reletively easily as they are not hardy at all and have been bred in very exact conditions

The less colourful ones it is hard to kill them (not that ive tried) but they are very hardy. (hardy ha ha)

The very expensive male gups are like trying to keep Seahorses alive (My seahorse in my marine tank is going strong (1 1/2 months)) yeehah!

B)