Is My Guppy Pregnant ?

[balajake]

I'm pretty sure my female guppy is having babies ( i have 3 females and 1 male) i would love to know peoples opinions if she is pregnant and how soon she is likely to give birth.i'm very scared incase the babies are eaten and i bought marina breeding trap ( its utter crap and wont hang onto the side of the tank and is a nightmare) i've had no modem for the last 2 weeks so have been worrying like mad over my guppies

my rena tank has lots of cover and is 340 ltrs but i think they would be eaten if i let them stay in the main tank









thank you

 

[the_lock_man]

I haven't looked at the photos, but guppies breed like mad, so given that there is a male in the tank, yes all 3 females will be pregnant. They will each give birth to at least 30 fry every 4-6 weeks from now until 6 months after the male is removed from the tank. The reason guppies have so many fry is because in the wild, the majority of them will be eaten - only the fittest survive.

I appreciate your are scared for the safety of the fry, but have you considered what will happen if you save them all? In 6 months you could well have upwards of 500 fish at various stages of development - you have a nice big 340l tank, but 500+ fish in there is still WAY overstocked.

Guppies are so popular that there are not many fish shops that will accept fry from hobbyist breeders, so where are the babies going to go? Callous as I may seem, I think Mother Nature has pretty much got it right - your tank has reasonable cover, you should get a decent few fry survive, but perhaps not in so many numbers as to overpopulate your tank.

 

[TropicalLad21]

Shes pregnant...

The marina breeding trap btw isn't supposed to hang onto the tank... you simply place in your tank where you would like it and it will stay afloat in that place.

 

[balajake]

thanks for the advice. can anyone tell how close she is to birth ?

 

[balajake]

well she just gave birth i managed to catch 1 of the babies so far. i have lot of plants in my tank so they are either in hiding or in a fish belly (again)


i shall call it

nemo

 

[TropicalLad21]

Congratz...

No need to try & catch them all as like lock man said you will end up with more then your tank can handle as they keep producing alot.

It's nice to catch a few and watch them grow.

 

[balajake]

I have my one baby, i'm happy with that.

 

[TropicalLad21]

Would be nice to post pics as your baby fry develop... keep us updated.

 

[the_lock_man]

thanks for the advice. can anyone tell how close she is to birth ?

I reckon she's very close indeed, within hours.

well she just gave birth i managed to catch 1 of the babies so far. i have lot of plants in my tank so they are either in hiding or in a fish belly (again)


i shall call it

nemo

Oh look, I was right!

 

[balajake]

Sorry for the rubbish photo

He's in the middle (slightly to the right)

haven't manages to spot any of the other babies but Mum got her figure back in lightning speed ( Victoria Beckham would be jealous) she's super skinny now which make the other two females stand out as heavily pregnant

the other girls are yellowy in colour and their gravid spots look more red. is that and indication of the babies colour ? i had a red male but it died a couple of weeks ago.

i have 1 black male guppy and he only ever seemed to be interested in and harrass the female who had babies yesterday. i'm hoping my red male is the father of one of the ther girls babies

she hasn't got a prominent gravid spot like the other guppy. is it because of her colouring or something else ?

 

[OldMan47]

If you look around near where the glass and the gravel come together, it is your best bet for spotting more fry. They often will slip down and hide between individual grains of gravel when they run into the glass. Another spot to look for guppy fry is in almost any corner.

You can ignore the "gravid spot" completely and do far better predicting a drop using just the shape of your female. The squared off look is unmistakable once you have seen it but a gravid spot can be nothing more than a good meal. On the other hand, almost all of the species I breed have too much color to ever see a gravid spot.

 

[balajake]

thanks, you've been really helpful. i'm going to have to be really careful when i use the gravel cleaner then

 

[balajake]

Nemo is just over 4 weeks old now and living in a breeding net inside my main tank. He/she is about 1 inch now in length. Yesterday i put a female guppy inside the net with nemo as an experiment to see if he/she was ready to go in the main tank with the other fish but the big guppy just chased him round furiously like it wanted to eat him so i took the adult out. i was hoping for advise on when he will be ready to put in the main tank. i'm a very attached to him so want to get this exactly right

 

[snazy]

I put 4 of my fry when they were about this age. I actually wanted them eaten as they have bent spines. They survived bar one who disappeared. They got furiously chased for at least 4-5 days by the adults, then that was it. I ended up adding all the females fry to the same tank about a week and a half ago and they range between 4-6 weeks.

If you have hiding places, it will probably survive, but I would wait a bit longer as all the adults will be concentrated on the one fry only. Two months old should be plenty I think.

 

[balajake]

I put 4 of my fry when they were about this age. I actually wanted them eaten as they have bent spines. They survived bar one who disappeared. They got furiously chased for at least 4-5 days by the adults, then that was it. I ended up adding all the females fry to the same tank about a week and a half ago and they range between 4-6 weeks.

If you have hiding places, it will probably survive, but I would wait a bit longer as all the adults will be concentrated on the one fry only. Two months old should be plenty I think.

Thanks for the great advice. i'll put nemo in at the end of january