sumplkrum

There is no way to 'control' guppies. You either have tons of them, or you have none. A larger fish will eat some, but if there's any cover in the tank they'll still propagate. The only real way is to re-set the tank. No babies, no females, keep only the males. It's sad, but it you have to euthanize some put them in a bowl of water in the freezer. The cold puts them to sleep - which in my mind is better than being eaten alive.

I use kitchen cling wrap around spaces where fish can jump out. It can also stop splashing from sponge filters and like that. Not being able to see your setup, you could probably place it across from the lid and over the filter. It doesn't need to be air-tight or anything. Just enough so water's not collecting on the lid. You can also lower the water level a bit ... but you don't want the level low enough that the falling water makes noise. That'll drive you crazy.

I don't have much space. So I have a 45 tall which is my community tank, then a rack of 15 gal cubes and a row of five 5.5 gals. Also a few odd ponds outside for the summer.

Got an order in today. Put everything together and realized how much I have.

1. The tail might heal a little bit, but guppy life spans are too short to recover chunky fin damage. 2. If you dump a guppy into a new tank they tend to 'reassess' the pecking order. It's not just males, females can do it too. They don't normally do damage. It's just an assertion of dominance. I'd dump them back in and observe. They might scrap a bit, but the damaged one should get the hint that he's not a boss any more and ease off. Put a little food in the tank before mixing them back together. That'll distract them from the new fish. It also helps if you have extra hiding places. Floating plants are convenient to dump in if you have them.

When the Amazon sword no longer fits in the tank, it's 'heavily planted.'

I agree a sponge filter would be easier, and I have a bunch outside setup like that. But if it was in my living area, I'd want something a little nicer. The blue bucket isn't exactly decorator eye-candy, but you can adapt the method to much nicer containers and create interesting ponds. I wouldn't mind them creating some fancy-looking ponds with simple plumbing and making a video about that.

On rare occasions I do find a male fish in with my separated females. I can't confirm that they actually change sex though. Small fish can be difficult to sex and some of them develop late. I chalk it up to human error. "I thought I saw a gravid spot, but it must have been late developing male that fooled me." I've never seen any evidence of older fish changing sex. I imagine if it was possible an adult could change ... but adults are drastically different physiologically.

Keep in mind that this is only necessary if you're breeding the same fish for many years. Guppies are hardy fish. Most people will get bored with a strain before they ever have to worry about genetic issues. --- Long-term you solve the problem by maintaining two lines. Keep the two lines separate. All breeding happens within each line. Each generation you're doing your normal culling and selection. You want to select for different traits in each line. Often breeders will maintain one line for size, and another line for color and fin shape. The point is that for each line your selection criteria is slightly different. After 4 generations, cross the line. (a male from one line and a female from the other line) Use the fish from this breeding to work into each of your lines (based on your selection criteria for each). Continue breeding the two lines separately for the next three generations. Then do another cross breeding. Etc. etc. keep doing the same routine. Keep the lines separate for 3 generations, then do a cross on the 4th generation. This is how you would maintain/correct a strain in line-breeding. If you're community-breeding, you can do something similar by keeping two separate communities. Estimate when you're about at the third generation, then cross-breed the 2 groups.

If you need to separate the male, you don't need anything fancy. A small tank or bucket with a sponge filter works. Even in the winter, as long as it's room temperature, he'll be fine. I keep my extra males in my community tank. There's nothing big enough to eat them and there's plenty of space for them to grow out and play around.

Probably the danios. If there's nothing to eat the eggs, they breed like crazy. ... And it's good that you have green water for them to feed on because they do hatch tiny.

As others have stated, those should be culled. Any deformity of the spine will just get worse as they age. Even if you're community-breeding, bent backs need to be culled. Normally, you should have many batches of fry before you see even one with a spine deformity. If you let the trait reproduce, you'll see more and more of them. It's not good for your line, or the health of the fish.

For driftwood, just make sure to boil it. It'll sanitize it/leach out any accidental toxins. If it came from salt water, it'll remove excess salts/sand/minerals. There may be a surprising amount of tannins. It's good to remove some of that. You'll probably have to boil it anyway to get it to sink. Most driftwood will still be bouyant (if it sank, it wouldn't be driftwood). You'll probably have to weigh it down/glue it to rocks. Happy scaping!

If your lights are LED, you can connect an LED dimmer/timer to ramp the power on and off. I have the Stingray lights with a $13 dimmer connected to it. So it ramps on/off over a 15 minute time period. Not as good as the Fluval app, but way better than typical on/off outlet timers. The dimmer goes between the light and the power cord. So your connection is: LED light --> Dimmer/timer switch --> power plug connects to the outlet. Just check to make sure the dimmer connects will fit your light cables.

My tanks are always an experiment. The experiment may be 'breeding fish', or it may be 'can I get this stable enough that I barely have to do anything?' It's an exploration. A low-key seeking of knowledge. There are goals, but none of them are life-changing commitments. There are chores involved the same as there would be for anything. If your hobby is cars there's a mountain of stuff to maintain and pay for. If you like music or art, you have to practice to maintain them. If you like gaming, you're always putting time into playing or coordinating with others for group events. ... There's always a cost in time or money - usually both. Most hobbies are a choice you earn nothing from. In most cases everything is an investment with some intangible benefit. Thus an enjoyment or fulfillment.

I take the Krill Flakes, the Spirulina Flakes, and some of the Vibra Bites -> mix it all together and that's my main food.

Can confirm, they will definitely chase guppies. Basically snack minnows. They use their legs to launch themselves at a target and will gulp down anything that fits in their mouth.

I don't think I'd worry about the Arapaima. They're basically over-hunted in their natural habitats. Even if they got a toe-hold, they'd just be another food fish -> Slow growing and easy to catch. I'd worry about the Nile Crocs though. No one wants that.

I had some coated wire fencing I put over mine. Weighed it down with some old paving stones.

I have food mixed together (flakes and small pellets). I just dump it in at the same time. The feeding is heavy enough that the Ram gets what it wants and all the smaller fish are too busy eating closer to the surface. There's a healthy clean up crew of loaches and snails for whatever hits the bottom.

If you get tired of feeding them, it's too many. You can use plants and other systems minimize water changes, but if you can't get up to feed or it's a hassle - it's time to downsize.

I think my unused sticker collection just went up in value.

Yeah, it's probably a mixture of elements. Higher ph than they're used to, not quite enough air, then they get a dose of meds that stresses them. It could also be that they were sick when you got them. You didn't say the source, but with a lot of pet stores I assume the fish are already sick. I have had ammonia spikes when dosing meds but it's never been immediate. Either the tank was stocked heavy, or by the third day I needed to do a water change. -- If you're having that much trouble, observe the fish for a few days when you first get them. Let them acclimate and see that they will eat. Then stop feeding and do a big water change. Dose the meds and closely watch the ammonia. If ammonia is going up, full water change so it's clean again and redose. You should be able to get through a full five-day treatment. Assume that the filter isn't doing anything and water change your way through it. -- Another possible option would be trying to get the ph of the quarantine tank below 7.0 before you get the fish. At that point a small amount of ammonia won't be nearly as deadly. Not an option right now, but something to consider for future situations.

I've never seen any damage. Whichever one can stay on top is the winner, and the loser runs away. I think it's more of a dominance routine than real fighting.

I follow this procedure: Let the bag float in the tank for 15min to adjust the temperature. Water and fish from the bag get dumped into some temporary container. Jar, bowl, whatever. Check parameters of the bag water to see what you're dealing with. I add some of my tank water to the container to allow the fish to aclimate to new conditions. ... If the water is vastly different, I'll add it in several stages. After they've adjusted for at least 20-30mins, I dump the container contents into a net while it's over the sink. The fish are in the net and the water is dumped. Fish get plopped into your quarantine tank for observation. Lights stay off initially and don't feed them the first day. If the fish look fine a day or two later, I'll start the med trio as my quarantine procedure. Typically I don't add salt, but for guppies it can't hurt.