Guppy Fry Stress Eating Duckweed?

[PineSong]

On several occasions when sorting guppy fry I've seen them grab duckweed like they are eating it, and today I watched one of them closely and he sucked up a whole leaf and did not spit it out.

I'm confused-- if guppies ate duckweed my duckweed problems would be solved--I have approximately 45,845 guppies. Yet the fry tank needs weekly duckweed removal.

Has anyone else seen this? Are they just so stressed from being netted that they will eat anything?

[Guppysnail]

I don’t know about duckweed but my guppy fry and juveniles demolished every root on frog bit and red root floaters. They did not grow fast for me though. Mine also chow all the veggies I feed the pleco and my guppies are very well fed. I saw one pull a string from a green bean and slurp the entire thing down like spaghetti. They are just 🐷 and eat everything and anything they can. Perhaps they just discovered you duckweed is edible or it reproduces faster than they can eat it? 
My guppy fry never seem stressed for more than a minute when I move them. I always feed right away to distract them. Hope this helps even though it’s not directly duckweed info. 

[PineSong]

On 5/30/2022 at 9:02 PM, Guppysnail said:

My guppy fry never seem stressed for more than a minute when I move them. I always feed right away to distract them. Hope this helps even though it’s not directly duckweed info. 

You must have a much more gracious method for sorting fry than I have. I put a dozen or so in my container, then identify the males and remove them to the males tank. This means my net is going in the container at least a dozen times per batch and I am lifting the container a bunch of times to get it at eye level to really see up close, so they are up and down, up and down. I don't know another way to be able to see them eye-to-possible gonopodium. Once they are put in a tank, they immediately seem at ease because all the other fish are. It's the process that they wig out about.

[Guppysnail]

I sit on a bucket in front of the tank. I put my net in low and hold it there and wait. When a boy swims over top I lift the net. It takes forever but no one stresses. 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

You are a very patient fish keeper @Guppysnail

[Torrey]

On 5/30/2022 at 7:46 PM, PineSong said:

You must have a much more gracious method for sorting fry than I have. I put a dozen or so in my container, then identify the males and remove them to the males tank. This means my net is going in the container at least a dozen times per batch and I am lifting the container a bunch of times to get it at eye level to really see up close, so they are up and down, up and down. I don't know another way to be able to see them eye-to-possible gonopodium. Once they are put in a tank, they immediately seem at ease because all the other fish are. It's the process that they wig out about.

I have a similar approach:

As my body allows, I catch everyone I can by baiting my large aquarium co-op net (now that I have the net, this is SOOOOOO much easier).

Everyone goes to 5 gallon bucket with sponge filter in it, except the end stragglers get sorted immediately by going into the specimen container. I can see them more easily in the specimen container, and I use my hand (watch some of the Clapsaddle videos on sorting) to get the males I like and am going to keep for breeding: They go in a gallon jug with the top front area cut out, and half full of water. Only an airstone, until I finish sorting.

Confirmed virgin females go in a net breeder box in original tank.

Culled males go in 5 gallon bucket with sponge filter

Pregnant females either go back in original tank, or go in my cull 5 gallon with a sponge filter

YTBD fish (too small/too young) go in a grow out, homemade floating box

Young males that need to color up more go in the bachelor tank

Once I finish sorting, I count how many pregnant females I have, and what phenotype most of their young have been, select the appropriate number of males from a gallon "keeper jug" from a parallel tank with the genetics I am aiming for, and the remainder of the males go in the bachelor tank.

Males from my bachelor tank either get sold with a proven female and a virgin female from a parallel tank, or get matched up with a few of my virgin females later when I retire some breeders.

Why this works: I train my fish to eat out of my hand, and handle them in the tank semi-regularly. My hand is "safe" to them. The Co-op net doesn't catch scales like regular nets do, so putting a cube of frozen brine in the net, and then holding the cube in the net so they smell it but can't take off with it, allows me to catch over 100 endlers at once. I move them to the bucket, and sit down with the specimen container and scoop up however many swim in at a time. Generally I can put my hand in the specimen container to separate the one I am going after, and that fish will swim into my curved fingers and let me move it.

The females are the most chill about it, especially the breeder females because if they came out of the tank they've already done this a number of times and gotten back to their original tank pretty quickly, so it's a mild inconvenience  that is well rewarded with brine shrimp.

The juveniles are sometimes mellow about it.

My best show males?

They jump and fight getting in my hand and are absolute buttheads. It's almost become easier to sex sort younger fish based on how mellow they are... or are not... when I put my hand in the specimen container, lol

 

Oh, and my endlers and guppies both eat duckweed....

[Brian]

I have not seen this behavior.  Maybe it is learned?  And the fry are to small to eat it.  
I just don’t know…

[PineSong]

On 5/31/2022 at 4:49 AM, Torrey said:

Oh, and my endlers and guppies both eat duckweed....

Dream life!