Verrrrry Serious Problem Here!

[LilyRose Tank]

what about 2 massive, huge, tanks, separate them out and then sell by sex, some lfs would take males or females or a mix....see what they say. i think shipping around your country may be a good idea....look into it see what postage would cost etc...then find a website that seels animals/ fish, and place an advert, you may be surprised at the response, and run out of fish....then you could control future breeding by keeping them separate...hope that helps. i know two huge tanks would be problematic to begin with, but more problematic than the ponds are now? think about your options before predators and culling become your only option, after all you had, what was it 7 fish,...you should have separated them, long before it got this bad xxxx

 

[fry_forever!]

Oh my, this thread made my mouth drop open! To be honest, I am sort of jealous. (Actually, very) I can never seem to get my livebearers to breed healthy strains, if breed at all, and here you are, getting 200+ a DAY!

If you lived anywhere close to me, (Which I know you don't, because I live in Canada) I'd take TONS off of your hands! I'd PAY to take those guys off of you!

Sorry if I'm not being much of a help, but my goodness! I am seriously shocked! With how many did you start?

Oh yes, and I think you should add a predatory fish to the tank, that would help the numbers. It's not cruel, (as many of you quite obviously think) because it happens all the time in nature.

-f_f!

 

[saz326]

Blimey fella - most of us are Trying to breed fish - you get all the luck.

I would seriously consider selling these fellas as frozen food! One of the biggest problems people have with feeder fish is that they need to be housed until its dinner time. You need one tank for your prized fishies and another tank for their dinner to live in until lunch-time.

If you sold as frozen feeder fish then there would be more interest as they would be a lot less trouble. Worst come to worst.

Scoop a load out - toss back your most colourfull/healthy males and females and chill a load of the rest down. Maybe keep just a handfull of males and females as you're moving house. Otherwise keep just the females - some will be pregnant!

 

[Ludwig Venter]

As it is, I am no longer selling/giving away any females... (total sold/given away in the last year is about 200 females).... I sold about 3500 males during the same period of time... then I also notice that in each brood, of say about 40 fry, there are less males (I'd say about 15 males to 25 females).....

I've seen the "freezing the fish" method being recommended as a means of euthanazing.... I just wonder if I have to freeze batches of about 200 per bag if there would be a market for such frozen guppies as feeder fish (like we get the frozen bloodworm etc.).... at each feeding (to your big fish) you just break off a little corner of frozen guppies and chuck it into your tank??....

 

[loraxchick]

As it is, I am no longer selling/giving away any females... (total sold/given away in the last year is about 200 females).... I sold about 3500 males during the same period of time... then I also notice that in each brood, of say about 40 fry, there are less males (I'd say about 15 males to 25 females).....

I've seen the "freezing the fish" method being recommended as a means of euthanazing.... I just wonder if I have to freeze batches of about 200 per bag if there would be a market for such frozen guppies as feeder fish (like we get the frozen bloodworm etc.).... at each feeding (to your big fish) you just break off a little corner of frozen guppies and chuck it into your tank??....

this is actually the best idea anyone's come up with. is there a public aquarium anywhere in SA? give them a call, im sure they just might need feeders.
best of luck with them all. if ther eis a public aquarium even remotely nearby, it would certainly be worth making some calls to see if they could use them.
cheers

 

[Ludwig Venter]

Actually, the Pretoria Zoo is proclaimed to be the biggest Zoo on the African continent and they have a large aquarium section and they are also the only South African institution licenced to keep Pirhanas..... Maybe if I suggest a donation to them??

 

[-Craig-]

My Angelfish won't stop breeding in my community tank, and im glad hardly any of the fry are not surviving because i don't want to get out of control again, if my turtle was still alive he would have a hell of a time eating them Lol.

On-topic:
Good idea with donating them to a zoo.

 

[saz326]

I was thinking more of chilling them down to low fridge temp, (2 or 3 degrees C) so they are completely out of it (really slow metabolims/not concious of surrounding) and transfer maybe 3 or 4 to a hole in an ice cube tray or similar to knock them off while giving you more ease of use/handling- depends on their size i guess as to the type of tray used but you get the idea. When its feeding time then somone can simply chuck a couple of cubes in their main tank, or defrost them in a cup for use.

If you are selling to zoo sized aquariums then if you asked them they'd probably say they'd use 50 or so feeder fish at a time so you could freeze in "take away box" type containers. Could always tip the frozen contents out of the box/tub once solid and wrap in clingfilm/sandwich bag or similar so you could re-use the tub and save a little cash.

edited due to really bad spelling!

 

[Ludwig Venter]

Being an animal meself!!!... I will not sell to the Zoo, but donate as many as they require....

 

[mr130gallon]

thats a good idea, because why would they say no if theyre free, especially if they are paying for what they are currently getting

 

[hughessomefish]

even going the preditory way might not clear the problem there looks like thousands in there and if you think about it,a colony of preditory fish eat all together 200 fish per day but the guppy colony is producing 400+ fish a day

 

[Ludwig Venter]

This is the current situation.... I filter through a 200l drum, which is emptied and refilled with tap water every 2nd day.... I just wonder... the water I'm discarding ... what additives can I put in to refurbish and re-use the water (it is approximately 2,400l of water I'm chucking into the garden per week - 3 ponds)... surely if I pump this into a pool and add something... I'll be able to re-use the water??

Top down view on Mollies & Platies (the Molly numbers are depleting and the Platies increasing)

The Guppies.... Top down view... (anybody care to count those for me please)???

The Swords ..... Top down view

The Convict tank is unchanged as those I can control by simply removing the eggs.

And can you believe... I moved house with all of these and only lost one Guppy female???

 

[Larkspur]

I'd take lots of guppies off of you if you were in the states. I've been paying upwards of $3 a piece for my guppies and I have six of them. They're mutts of course. Pretty, but dang...I'd love free fish.

 

[Bobtastic]

Did you contact that zoo Lud?

 

[nurglespuss]

Personally I would do two things:

Introduction of 'specific' predators - e.g. egg eating cats, pim pictus for the guppies etc. Things that arent too large but make an impact where it counts.

The other thing, I would do to save money, would be to turn some of those baby fish into fish food, catch em, freeze em, dessicate them, and turn into flake food.

Then I would seriously think about seperating the sexes as much as is possible, also removing some cover from the ponds will discourage breeding as the fish find it harder to form territory or find secluded areas etc.

There are commercial hormones used in the fish breeding/food fish industry, but I don't know if any specific effects have been examined on your stock (although guppies and convicts are common laboratory fish) might be worth investigating at your local trout (or similar) farm.