Can 3 month old guppy fry give birth??

[Elisabeth83]

I have a 14 gallon tank with guppy and swordtail fry in it. All are about 3-4 months old. For about a week I had an adult female guppy in there.

Anyways the day before yesterday I was so surprised to find 2 TINY guppy fry swimming around. I mean they are so small I can't even believe they are real So I am wondering could one of the 3-4 month old guppy frys actually given birth herself already???

I don't think it was the adult female guppy as she wasn't even big and she's given birth before and her fry were all regular size.

I'm stumped

 

[Tempestuousfury]

I don't think the fry are capable of breeding since they are so young. It'd mean thatthye get to sexual maturity at 2 months, since it would take 1 month to incubate.

I htink it's the mum. If adult females are stressed out or suffer from malnutrition, they are prone to drop fry well before they are due.

 

[ferrikins]

I had a female birth at 4 months, I watch her being born, and watch her birth her fry.

non suvived, and the mum died an hour after birth.

 

[snowyangel]

Guupies become sexually mature at 3 months old. It's NOT reccomended at all to mix sexes at that age as the stress on such a young female will kill her. You should seperate your sexes at 3 months, even if you do plan to breed them. Best to wait till the female is atleast 6months old (I wait 6-7 months) and capable of a healthy labour.

 

[Leigh1316]

I read on a guppy website, that you should seperate the males and females at 4 weeks of age. I have babies that are 2 weeks old today and they all look like a mini female(no color). Will they change colors that much in 2 more weeks? Can you tell the difference at that age?

 

[Tempestuousfury]

No, I don't think you can. It took over a month for me to be able to figure it out.

 

[Elisabeth83]

Yeah I've seperated the males and females now. To be honest I couldn't tell the difference until the boys started developing their colors and only until this last month could I see them developing a gondulum (sp?).

I ended up taking 8 females to my lfs who didn't have any colors at all and only kept 5 females with pretty tails. Not sure if I'll keep them or not either