Is It Okay to have an All Female and All Male Tank

[Guppy Mama]

I have a 10 gallon tank with 10 guppies (3 mature and 7 that are 4 month olds). I have a good filter and I check my water every day. Things are just great...except:

20 new babies were born last night. I have an empty 10 gallon that I can start cycling, but I am going to run out of room if this population keeps a boomin'.


I am not willing to feed my babies to the others to keep the numbers down...
So, do guppies do well if they are in tanks with only members of the same sex? Can I have an all female tank and an all male tank and then select who I want to reproduce?


I think that this would be a good solution unless all male tanks and all female tanks make for angry guppies.


Please lend me your thoughts, as I want to have happy fishies. Thank you so much!

 

[William]

Female guppies can store the sperm from the last mating for several months (so thats several batches of fry!!) and so even if seperated you'd still have approx. a hundred fry from each female over the 3 months!

 

[Feline]

That would be a real good idea to seperate them as soon as u can sex them, because if not, the population will grow exponentially!!

 

[Guppy Mama]

The 4 month olds are easy for me to tell...the others, I will have to wait a while. As for storing sperm...I HAD NO IDEA. Yikes.


So they CAN live happily ever after in same sex tanks?

You guys are quick, and i APPRECIATE it!

 

[MAM]

the females all together, well as said, they can store sperm, but anyway, females all togther would work most likely, would be a trial and error situation (some of the females may bully some of the others or they may not, varies from fish to fish really), but if you had a tank of all males, that could cause some problems. the males may very well get "bored" without females and start to bully each other and stress each other severely. when you get an excess of babies, separte them off, if they don't get eaten. call some of your lfs and see if any will take them. many will since guppies are a popular fish that will sell quickly. usually places take them when they've reached an inch or so in length

 

[Guppy_molly_lover]

take the babys to a lps like petsmart! they will take them!
congrats on the 20 new borns!

i had one female guppy and i got her preg from the store and she went into laber 2 days after and 7 days after the laber she gave birth to 13 fry!! and 17 days after birth mommy died! but i still cant sex the babys!and its ben about 4 months i think!

 

[Guppy Mama]

I just called the petstore, you are right. They'll take the babies. I am going to wait and see what hey look like and then pick wich fish to keep! I am still going to set up my other 10g. Thank you very, very much!


Oh, by the way, same thing happened with one of females...she too died after the second round. Weird, though, huh?

 

[Chilled Babe]

My first fish were a male and female platy and 2 days later 12 babies appeared. Since then I added 4 male guppies as I did not want any more babies. As soon as they got in the tank it was frantic - fish everywhere - manic!!!! They totally annoyed the platys - chasing them all night. Things settled down and the male platy started chasing the male guppies. My female platy has now gone into hiding and I am thinking about taking the guppies back as they seem to be ganging up on the male platy again.

Not that I'm an expert, but I would not buy all male guppies again! (going by my experience only)