Newbie Guppy Breading

[mreyeball]

hi
i am new to tropical fish keeping, and decided i would start breeding guppies as apparently its very easy!
i have 4 females and 2 males,and a small gibbicep pleco that hides all the time in a 60 litre breeding tank, 2 of my females look heavily pregnant
all the fish are in the tank together and the males are pestering the pregnant fish alot, is it safe to keep the males in when the females are so heavily pregnant? i am more worried about the males stressing the females out too much than anything else
also,can the males cause a miscarriage by continuing to mate with the pregnant females, also, what are everybodies thoughts on breeder traps or just letting the fry fend for themselves, i have a few hiding places that would provide good cover for the fry.
not overly worried about loosing the odd few fry to being eaten as i am breeding these guppies to populate my 180 litre tank once they are big enough, but i would'nt want to loose anymore than say 50% of each batch of newborns.(guppies give birth to between 20 and 100 fry, am i right?)
lastly, one thing i am curios about is will i get a mix of male and female from my new arrivals?
thanks

 

[KittyKat]

The sort of Gibby which is a common pleco or one of the other species which are tank busters? Please swap him for a much smaller pleco, he can't live for very long in a 60 litre tank.

Yes, it is safe to keep males and females together *as long as the females have lots of hiding places, of the plant variety*.

Yes, males can cause a miscarriage or for females to not give birth altogether.

My experience is between 5 and 150 fry.

The proportion of males to females in a batch depends on the temperature (and maybe the pH too?) of the water they are raised in. All fry will be female when born, and some will become male between weeks 2 and 5 of their life.

 

[mreyeball]

The sort of Gibby which is a common pleco or one of the other species which are tank busters? Please swap him for a much smaller pleco, he can't live for very long in a 60 litre tank.

Yes, it is safe to keep males and females together *as long as the females have lots of hiding places, of the plant variety*.

Yes, males can cause a miscarriage or for females to not give birth altogether.

My experience is between 5 and 150 fry.

The proportion of males to females in a batch depends on the temperature (and maybe the pH too?) of the water they are raised in. All fry will be female when born, and some will become male between weeks 2 and 5 of their life.

the tank buster i think,max size is 50cm's also known as sailfin pleco, its ok he is only 2 inches at the mo and when he outgrows the 60 litre he will be moved into my 180 litre (48" x 16" x 15")

will remove the males today, is there a rough temp where i can definately get some males? temp is currently 78F

 

[KittyKat]

What happens when he outgrows the 4 fter? That took only about 2-3 years for the one I once had..

Egh, I can't remember what the temperature is.. try searching the internet for it? At any rate, moving out the males is a good idea

 

[mreyeball]

What happens when he outgrows the 4 fter? That took only about 2-3 years for the one I once had..

Egh, I can't remember what the temperature is.. try searching the internet for it? At any rate, moving out the males is a good idea

i didn't think he would outgrow the 4 foot??? suppose i'll sell him when he gets too big for that then, shame as he's my favourite already!
males have been moved out, hopefully i will have some babies soon!
can you recommend a big pleco type fish that will get big but no too big for my 4 foot tank?

 

[KittyKat]

What happens when he outgrows the 4 fter? That took only about 2-3 years for the one I once had..

i didn't think he would outgrow the 4 foot??? suppose i'll sell him when he gets too big for that then, shame as he's my favourite already!

Well, think about it: if it does grow to 50 cm (and I have heard rumours of them getting to 60 cm), how would it go about turning around in a 40 cm (front to back) tank or doing any swimming in a 120 cm long tank? With two swishes of the tail, it'll hit its nose on the other end, pretty much. And talking of nose to glass, I know a number of people whose plecos took a swim from one end of the tank to the other and went straight through the glass, because they're pretty strong fish and glass on that size tanks tends to be quite thin! And what effect do you think the swimming space will have on its muscle development? Sell him.. who wants a 2 ft tank buster? It's pretty much impossible to sell them, you'd be lucky if a zoo takes it for free.

Think about it some more, there are still a few years before you have to decide. My personal preference is 4*2*2 ft for a 12" pleco, 6*2*2 ft for a 24" pleco as a minimum.

 

[mreyeball]

What happens when he outgrows the 4 fter? That took only about 2-3 years for the one I once had..

i didn't think he would outgrow the 4 foot??? suppose i'll sell him when he gets too big for that then, shame as he's my favourite already!

Well, think about it: if it does grow to 50 cm (and I have heard rumours of them getting to 60 cm), how would it go about turning around in a 40 cm (front to back) tank or doing any swimming in a 120 cm long tank? With two swishes of the tail, it'll hit its nose on the other end, pretty much. And talking of nose to glass, I know a number of people whose plecos took a swim from one end of the tank to the other and went straight through the glass, because they're pretty strong fish and glass on that size tanks tends to be quite thin! And what effect do you think the swimming space will have on its muscle development? Sell him.. who wants a 2 ft tank buster? It's pretty much impossible to sell them, you'd be lucky if a zoo takes it for free.

Think about it some more, there are still a few years before you have to decide. My personal preference is 4*2*2 ft for a 12" pleco, 6*2*2 ft for a 24" pleco as a minimum.

cant really fit anything bigger than the 4 x 2 x 2, but would still have to give the gibby away, just spoke to a guy at mylocal petshop, said he'd swap me a couple albino bristenose plecs for my gibby so i'll do that, shame though i love my gibby!

 

[KittyKat]

cant really fit anything bigger than the 4 x 2 x 2, but would still have to give the gibby away, just spoke to a guy at mylocal petshop, said he'd swap me a couple albino bristenose plecs for my gibby so i'll do that, shame though i love my gibby!

If you really care about him, LFS is not a good place because he's only gonna end up in a tank like that again.. On the other hand, 1m 2f bristlenoses for the 4 ft would work very well.

 

[mreyeball]

cant really fit anything bigger than the 4 x 2 x 2, but would still have to give the gibby away, just spoke to a guy at mylocal petshop, said he'd swap me a couple albino bristenose plecs for my gibby so i'll do that, shame though i love my gibby!

If you really care about him, LFS is not a good place because he's only gonna end up in a tank like that again.. On the other hand, 1m 2f bristlenoses for the 4 ft would work very well.

don't you need some type of breeder cave to breed plecos?

 

[KittyKat]

Yes, all plecos benefit from having anywhere from 3 caves upwards per tank. So for 1m 2f brisltenoses, I would use 5 or so caves.

Male plecos are quite territorial usually, so would fight.

 

[Crazycat lady]

I'm currently playing midwife to a “ready to pop” guppy! Let me know how your breeding goes, would
Love to swap experiences!

With regards to pleco's there's a pinned thread on the forum detailing pleco's under 10cm! Would link to it but only on my phone at the mo.
Try not to fall too in love with some of the L numbers, they can be pricey (well worth it tho)

I didn't know abt them all being born female, interesting!

 

[mreyeball]

I'm currently playing midwife to a “ready to pop” guppy! Let me know how your breeding goes, would
Love to swap experiences!

With regards to pleco's there's a pinned thread on the forum detailing pleco's under 10cm! Would link to it but only on my phone at the mo.
Try not to fall too in love with some of the L numbers, they can be pricey (well worth it tho)

I didn't know abt them all being born female, interesting!

yeah, once i have some fry i will post here, all my females are pregnant but my 2 biggest look ready to drop anyday, nice drak gravid spot, big round bellies, just waiting for them to square off, they are a little squared but not enough i think.
i'll miss my plec but sure i will be happy with the bristlenose,

 

[Crazycat lady]

I have 6 female, all pregnant but the one I'm tending too now has squared off.
I'm all excited

I have a gold banded pleco, he's lovely! I used to have a synodontys
Petricolor as the lovely (moron) guy in the shop said he would only grow
To 2 inches. At 3 inches I had him addopted!

 

[mreyeball]

I have 6 female, all pregnant but the one I'm tending too now has squared off.
I'm all excited

I have a gold banded pleco, he's lovely! I used to have a synodontys
Petricolor as the lovely (moron) guy in the shop said he would only grow
To 2 inches. At 3 inches I had him addopted!

yeah i am quite excited, i got the bug as i found 1 fry in my 4 foot tank, it was around for about a week and then vanished,maybe it got eaten or took into one of my filter or lost in a partial water change i had no males at the time just 3 females, one must have been pregnant already, so i got a small 60 litre, an extra female and 2 males, put the males in for the weekend to let them do the business.that was only last weekend so the 2 females that are heavily pregnant obviously fertilized themselves a while back so i should have the older 2 dropping very soon and then another 2 dropping in maybe 3 weeks.

 

[Crazycat lady]

I am now grand mummy to around 25 guppy fry