Guppy Fry

[jaarus]

Hi all,
Hoping someone may be able to help me out.

We bought 6 guppies (2m 4f - one of males is a juvinile but has great colouring!) about 5 or 6 weeks ago.
All the females were full grown looked pregnant already.

The day after we bought them - we had 6 fry
About a week later we had another 4 fry

Went out and bought a 20g long tank for the adults and would use the 10g for fry.
A couple of weeks passed and the fry were now quite big, too big to be eaten and I figured it wasn't really worth having two tanks running, so I shut down the 10g again - everything is now in my planted (2.8wpg, CO2, ferts etc) 20g long.
It is quite heavily planted with an abundance of hiding places for the little fellas in amongst them and the bogwood.



The females are all swollen to some extent, gravid spots galore. For the last week I have been convinced I was about to be over run with the little guys - but nothing.
Now this morning we have more fry - after an hour watching I can confirm our collossal total this morning is .....
...... 3 fry ???


I was expecting batches of fry to be 12-40 not 3-6?
What is wrong with my guppies?
Where they live is wonderful - water conditions are perfect - hiding spots for young - big enough tank (and layout is perfect) for quiet time...

What am I doing wrong?

 

[dwarfgourami]

Count your blessings, mate Small batches mean you can keep enjoying this process for much longer before placing the fry becomes a constant stress fry in your lives. Also remember that those fry will themselves be sexually mature at 3 months, so that's when the 10 gallon comes into its own, to separate siblings. It may well be that batches will increase when as the parents mature, and get settled in. There are probably also genetic differences in how many fry different females have, some may have fewer but bigger, others lots and smaller. And feeding well is always going to help, some live food and a good supply of vegetable matter.

 

[jaarus]

Yeah probably right ....
still want to see millions of tiny babies though

As long as its not something I am doing that is causing this - thats cool.
I will wait them out - they cant hold them in forever!!

 

[lilfishie]

mine tend to have fewer bigger fry rather than lots of smaller fry and i have found the smaller lots are much healthier, i never loose 1

 

[dane261]

mine normally produce around 15-18 fry at a time but to start off thou there was only about 6 fry from one batch

 

[jamiequin]

you should feel lucky, my guppy female gave birth 2 loads......... i counted ...........5 i was expevting loads, they look lonelt in there huge fry tank lol so i bought a pregnany molly so her fry can go in

 

[wei0204]

Heee... I think i prefer less fry than too many till have to worry on how to house them.

 

[Fishymommy]

exactly..mine just had about 30...and with another preggy female due in a week or so im looking for homes already lol...

 

[Neo8223]

When i was younger, my highest fry count was around 80 or so! It was amazing. Recently, i had been having only 5 guppy fry each time though. Its good to have small amounts though, unlike other fish, your LFS normally do not accept guppies, so you wont have to get rid of any.

 

[matt295]

my brother has an all livebearer tank and he had tons of babies. at first we found two babies, then the next week we had like 10 and then 20 and now we have like fifty!

 

[theotheragentm]

1. You may only be seeing survivors. Some may be eaten.
2. Younger fish have fewer fry. You may see larger batches in the future.