Month Old Guppy Fry Eating Plec Pellets......

[Ellieabbott4]

3 of my guppies gave birth over christmas, one had 6 fry, one had 20 fry and the other one had 45 fry (and she even ate a few! so there would have been more) i managed to save them and they are now happily swimming in their own 90l tank which they look like they love and are growing lovely and starting to show a few colours, some have some black coming through and some have just started to show some yellow coming through on thier tails. i have put an albino cory in the tank to help clean up what the fry dont eat but i have also been giving the cory half a plec pellet everyday just in case their isnt enough food left from the fry. the problem i have been having is that the fry are also enjoying the pellet as well.....im not sure if it is doing any harm but i was just wondering if it ok for them to be eating it? this is a picture of the fry just so people can have a little look at them at a month old

it is very interesting to watch them grow up and it was quite cool to sit and watch my female guppy giving birth

oh and i forgot to mention that they have 8 cherry shrimp friends in there as well, just to keep them company

 

[Chad]

I agree, breeding fish and watching them grow is great fun and very interesting. The cory doesn't seem to mind sharing.

 

[Paradise3]

Guppy fry will try and eat just about anything lol. In the wild guppies would graze on Algae and Mosquito Larvae so it's actually doing them some good

 

[jonny-5]

they will be fine,in my opinion the more grown up food they eat,the quicker they grow,sorry for stating the obvious
I had Bronze Cory fry(about 50 of them),after about 10 days they were eating solid food,flake & pellets......i had no room for them at the time so i took them to my LFS & swapped them for food........really wish i would of kept some of them to watch them grow

 

[PrairieSunflower]

Agreed, that's why I move my babies back into a tank with a few adults once they are big enough not to be eaten... eating some adult food too seems to make a difference.

 

[snazy]

they will be fine,in my opinion the more grown up food they eat,the quicker they grow,sorry for stating the obvious
I had Bronze Cory fry(about 50 of them),after about 10 days they were eating solid food,flake & pellets......i had no room for them at the time so i took them to my LFS & swapped them for food........really wish i would of kept some of them to watch them grow

If you kept these bronze cory fry until they grow up you may have found out that most of them would die of starvation if the food is not small enough, not easily breakable in water, or doesn't fall to the bottom. 10 days old cory fry are tiny. So it's really not a good example. They may have been trying to eat solid food but not necessary able to swallow it. It may take from 2 weeks to a month for a fish to starve so in reallity you may have had a sudden unexplained die off after feeding unsuitable food. Or they may have grown very slowly due to the little amount of small size food.

I've got the opposite experience. Fry grown with the adults grow slower in my tanks. It's possible they can't get enough food because of the larger fish. Also, I feed the adults with food with less protein content than that of the fry. So I guess it depends what you feed your adults and what type and variety of food you give to your fry. Adult tanks are normally the larger, cycled tank with better water quality. If you are keeping newborns in a small container full of fry with no regular water changes it's obvious that they can get stunted and grow slower, also most fry tanks people setup are uncycled. Hence why leaving them with the adults they get a better chance and possibly grow better. If it's a community tank they also have access to more different types of food compared to some generic baby powder food.

So there are a lot of different factors to consider in regards to growth rate. The more space, the better the water quality, the more variety and good quality of food, the better they would grow. Fry need food high in protein not suitable for adult fish.

 

[Ellieabbott4]

feeding time at the zoo!
 
http/s1275.beta.photobucket.com/user/ellieabbott4/media/IMG_0595_zps20453248.mp4.html
 
the fry are getting so big now!

 

[Chad]

I love the reaction of the cory.

 

[snazy]

feeding time at the zoo!
 
http/s1275.beta.photobucket.com/user/ellieabbott4/media/IMG_0595_zps20453248.mp4.html
 
the fry are getting so big now!

 
I don't think you need a cory to eat left over food at the bottom in this case
They look big and healthy. Well done.

 

[Ellieabbott4]

So I woke up this morning to find that another of my guppies has given birth! But only two fry so far.....she didn't even look pregnant. She wasn't fat and has only just got the dark area by her bum.....so I'm not sure what's really going on. I know it is her as she is my only female adult guppy left now as the others past away a few days after they gave birth I'm not sure why but it looked like they were bleeding in their bellies . And also my dwarf gourami is not looking to good either, last night is was swimming head up and tail down and now this morning it's laying on its side and not looking good. It's still breathing and tries its hardest to eat but I know it won't make it. I was just wondering if anyone might know what has happened. I think that tank is doomed, I'm glad I've got my little fry in another tank

 

[Chad]

Sounds like a premature birth or spontanious abortion. This can happen for a number of reasons. If the mother is sick, if something is wrong with the environment, if the fry are in some way messed up etc.

How old is the tank and how large?

 

[Ellieabbott4]

The two fry that were born and I managed to save seen to be fine, very small but they are swimming happily withy other older fry. The tank is 4 months old and 60l

 

[Chad]

4 months is a pretty young tank. I'm wondering if the bacterial filtration hasn't quite kept up with the bioload the fry put on it.

 

[Ellieabbott4]

I have put the fry in another tank. I have two. The one that the adult guppies are in is the smaller one and the other tank is 90l and two months old and I've had no problems in that one

 

[Chad]

So in the 15 gallon (60L) tank what do you have living in there? I'm just asking because you're worried about the gourami and in my experience keeping them they are sensitive to water quality issues.