Pregnant Guppy (I'Ve Been A Fish Owner Since Friday, Please Help&#

[Nastenka]

Hi everyone

I'd love some advice about my pregnant guppy. I've only had my fish from Friday the 30th October so it's not a cycled tank yet (which is another thing I'm worried about). Could you please give me some advice on what's best to do - how long she has to go, should I put her in a breeding trap (I have two male guppies, a cherry barb, two cardinal tetras and a catfish in a 63litre tank) and if so when (presumably it's not good for her to be in there for long at all)? Should I move the fry from the breeding trap to a net straight away? How will this affect the cycling of the tank? Etc etc! So many questions! Sorry, but I'm completely new. Please help if you can. I want to do the best for my prego little guppy and all the other fish in the tank, and the fry, of course.

I've attached a pic - please have a look. The quality's terrible though, sorry!! Hopefully you'll still be able to make something out.

Thanks lots!

 

[Jenste]

very first problem you have is having ONE female and TWO males - you should always have about three TIMES more females than males because the males can literally exhaust a female to the point of death with all of their mating attempts! What you could do, since you do not know how long she has until she delivers, is get a tank divider and section off a section just for her until she delivers. you do not want to keep fish suck as mollies and guppies in a bredder net/box for more than 5 days - the stress can make the mom terminate the pregnancy or even die.

Then - heavily plant her section to give the fry (baby guppies) places to hide, buy about 5 more females, and put her and the other females back into the main tank. at this point you can catch all the fry and move them to a cycled fry tank or even float THEM in a breeder net/box for a few weeks.

Check out the section on COMMON LIVEBEARERS - you will find alot of useful information there!


And until the fry are about4 - 6 weeks old they really do not contribute to the bio load of the tank so this should not affect your cycling.


If you do not want any more guppy births - please remember a female guppy has the ability to store sperm for up to 6 months! I would separate the female from the males permanently with the tank divider. the catfish and the tetras will get along fine with a female if you want to just split up your stock

 

[Nastenka]

Thank you very much for your reply. As I'm also new to forums I haven't been able to post the pic yet, pathetically... Hopefully I'll manage to soon!!

My plan was to find out how long she has left to go (from the picture, hopefully) roughly, put her in the little breeding tank as near as possible to the time of her dropping (I think it's called the Marina 3 in 1 Breeding Trap), put her back a little while after she's had the fry (once she has a little rest) and move the fry to a breeding net in the same tank, as you say. Unfortunately I can't really afford another tank to put them in and don't know anyone else with a cycled tank either. Splitting the tank up sounds like a good idea, though my local fish shop don't sell one of those and I'm worried it may be too late to order online. I'm also now very worried about my guppy being pestered by the males, the fish shop told me two males to 1 female is a good balance. It's too late now though I guess!! And I'm worried about adding any more females right now because of the tank not being establshied yet! Aaaaaah!

Is it generally okay to keep males without any females? Will they get aggressive towards other fish? Though it's too late for that now in any case... Unless I split the tank for the whole time, though it seems much nicer when they're all playing together


I've now figured out how to do the pic, by the way. Again, very sorry about the quality! Hope you can get a general idea:

Thanks again

 

[Jenste]

She looks like she still has about 10 days to go - and yes two males will be fine. Are you in the US? if so I can tell you about a 39 cent divider!!! go to Michaels or any craft store and ask them about the plastic mesh for knitting etc. you can make it fit best by just making it "Bow" (make a C or a U) Cutting it to size would require you to need sealant to secure it. just make sure you wedge to bottom well into the substrate and you are good to go! start by just leaving her alone on her own side, then after she delivers dump the fry into the net and split up your stock for a better balance on both sides

 

[Nastenka]

I'm actually in the UK, but I'm sure I can find something along those lines here as well. I'll get looking

Thank you for your advice! It's great to have someone helping when you're a complete newbie.

Just a few questions about the fry - what do I feed them and how often? And how long do they take to grow to a size when they're "big enough to not fit into any of the other fish's mouthes"?

 

[Jenste]

take the fish flakes you feed them now, pour a little into a plastic sandwich bag and PULVERIZE! grind it between your fingers until it is dust - voila! baby food! Feed several TINY TINY TINY pinches a day, and keep the water very clean. if you do seperate the mom from the dads, they can go in with the mom at about 2.5 weeks of age - if there are going to be other fish with the mom, wait until they are about 3.5 - 4.5 weeks of age. then you should be fine!

 

[Jenste]

if you have more questions once they are born etc you can send a PM to me or email me at [email protected]


good luck with your babies!
Don't forget to start asking around at your local fish stores to see who will take in fish - some will take them in for a little bit of store credit - but they won't take them until they are about 2 months old so start looking so you can have a plan for all the fish!

Female guppies, depending on age, can have any where from 8 - 100+ babies at EVERY pregnancy - and being able to give birth every 28-35 days, even using stored sperm - you could have alot of babies to deal with!!!

Right now in my baby trap I have fry from 23 days to 2 days old! The ones that are 23 days old will be moved in a couple days - I have other fish in my tank and want to give them a little extra time to bulk up.

 

[luckyd]

I'm very interested in your post as I have a similar situation. I bought a dalmation fish, a type of molly livebearer, and she delivered babies within two weeks. They're adorable, and we're working hard to keep them going in an uncycled tank and I have gotten lots of great advice from this forum.

I have about 10 fry in one tank and the Mom in another. I had the same question about when I can start to put the fry back in with her. I'm also interested in how long it takes dalmation fish to become "adults", or mature enough to start breeding. I don't have a big enough set-up to handle constant new babies so I'd like to separate by gender or find new homes for the offspring before this happens. Any thoughts on this? Thanks!

 

[Jenste]

* Seperate sexes before they reach 3 months of age

* To prevent future births have gender specific tanks - since you have the Mom, keep her daughters as tank mates and rehome her son's. or simply buy a tank divider to seperate the sexes.

* female live bearers can store sperm for up to 6 months and continuously impregnate themselves so be prepared for more babies

* babies can live with same species / sized fish once they are about 2.5 - 3.5 weeks of age. if they can fit in a fish's mouth - they qualify as food!!!

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Nastenka.
As has already been said, the female to male ratio is better if you have more females than males when the population is low. Once you have several males and females, that becomes less important. Isolating a female in a large area, such as in a divided tank, is a good idea from the standpoint that the female can relax and get on with dropping her fry. If the part of the tank where the female is located is heavily planted or has good cover like java moss, most of the fry will survive without use of one of those breeder traps. Personally I do not use the one I have and mine is bigger than the ones available these days. I really don't like to subject my females to the stresses of a breeder trap. I find that I get lots of survival of fry, more than I really want, just by providing good cover and keeping the female well fed. Once the female drops her fry, she becomes just one more predator hunting the fry, so it is best to remove her from the birth tank. At that point you will be faced with returning her to the larger community of fish or finding a way to keep her isolated if she is being harassed in the main tank.

 

[Nastenka]

Thanks very much for all your advice, everyone! I'll try and seperate her from the rest of the tank asap. I'm not sure how well a tank needs to be planted for good cover for the fry. I have 6 plants in bunches of 3 together, though I don't know what they're called (oh, to be a novice!). Is Java fern particularly good for guppy fry? I'm so nervous!!

I'm sure I'll need much more help as I keep going so be ready to hear from me again

Thank you all again!

 

[OldMan47]

The advantage of java moss or any of the mosses is that the mass of plant matter is very hard for adult fish to swim through but the fry treat it as easy to swim through, because of their size. It means the fry can easily get away from the adults and have some peace to grow stronger and get bigger. This is a picture of some in one of my tanks.

Actually any of the mosses will do a good job but java moss is just the easy one to find. A dense plant mass might look like this picture. It is just a clump of anacharis that I allowed to stay together in a clump and grow out and become tangled with itself. It is not quite as good cover as the mosses but still works well enough.