A Couple of Guppy Questions

[Zac]

Hey all,

Once this heatwave is over I’m going to order some guppies with hopes of doing a casual breeding setup. I have a couple questions:

-Will a male harass a pregnant female to mate?

-How long can I keep a male in a breeder box to let the female have a break? I have an extra 10 gallon tank but it’s not setup yet. I could set it up but if there won’t be troubles with a breeder box I would rather do that. I don’t know if it’s worth setting up a whole 10 gallon for one guppy that will only  be in it sometimes.

[Fish Folk]

On 6/18/2022 at 7:04 PM, Zac said:

Hey all,

Once this heatwave is over I’m going to order some guppies with hopes of doing a casual breeding setup. I have a couple questions:

-Will a male harass a pregnant female to mate?

-How long can I keep a male in a breeder box to let the female have a break? I have an extra 10 gallon tank but it’s not setup yet. I could set it up but if there won’t be troubles with a breeder box I would rather do that. I don’t know if it’s worth setting up a whole 10 gallon for one guppy that will only  be in it sometimes.

Guppies can be really satisfying to keep and breed! I recommend (1) Add a load of plants. Some down low, some floaters. This allows fry to hide, and females to take cover as well (2) Buy 3x females for every one male if you can. This spreads out his obsession with breeding between a few females.

[TeeJay]

I have my guppy's in a 29 gal with a 10 gal grow out tank. They breed like crazy. Usually about every 6 to 8 weeks I have the next round of fry grow up enough to take into my lfs. Remember once they get started you will have alot of fish quick. Right now after my last round to my lfs. I have 3 adult females with 1 adult male along with the most current round of fry. You can see I just mostly keep plants with a few bits of driftwood and one cave. Seems to work very well for me. 

[Zac]

On 6/18/2022 at 7:29 PM, Fish Folk said:

Guppies can be really satisfying to keep and breed! I recommend (1) Add a load of plants. Some down low, some floaters. This allows fry to hide, and females to take cover as well (2) Buy 3x females for every one male if you can. This spreads out his obsession with breeding between a few females.

I have a decently planted tank. I’m still working on the layout but it should hopefully come together soon. It have a nice dense background of pogo octo. Along with some pearlweed and other plants. I’m working on propagating everything to really give the tank some density but I think right now I should be good 

[lefty o]

best thing to do other than separating them, is to have 2 females with 1 male. not as big of deal with a big population, but in low numbers, a male will run a single female ragged.

[Brandon p]

I agree with @lefty o.  Try to give fry a place to hide. I’m not sure there is casual breeder of guppies though. There are so many you my have to make a choice to remove the mail at some point or cull. One guppy female can have over 50 fry.

Here is my setup. The fist pics has gold guppies. Fry. Last pic is a parent. Send are purple snake skins or so I was told. The third is 3 of the 4 ponds that I brought in due to the tropical storm last weekend in Florida. I sell mine to LFS but the plan was to have a pair in a 20 gallon.l

[CJs Aquatics]

To your first question:

in my experience a male guppy will definitely harass a pregnant female to mate. He will harass her nonstop if she is the only one in the tank only taking time off to explore, eat, and when he can’t find her due to line of sight breaks within the environment. I have also noticed behavior which appears to look like when she is closer to giving birth they harass even more but this is just a speculation based on my keeping of guppies. 
 

To your second question:

depending upon the type of breeder box you buy whether it is in the tank or cycles tank water and sits outside of the tank or if it’s the net, as long as your water parameters remain optimal, theoretically a male guppy can live in the box indefinitely, there is no amount time limit however: just because a dog can survive in a closet doesn’t mean they will be happy, your guppy will want to “stretch his legs.” 
 

Reccomendations:

1. Multiple females for every male guppy 

2. line of sight breaks within the tank or hides/ plant cover etc.

3. 10 gallon tank set up anyway bc after u breed guppies your inevitably going to want to mess around with more and more or different strains etc bc it’s so much fun 😋

4. if you don’t have one already the 10 gallon would make a great grow out or qt tank as well

Good luck and enjoy 

[dylaneff1]

I agree with what has been said: multiple females per male and places to hide (e.g., plants). If you do decide to keep the male in a breeder net, it's super important to keep the net clean of uneaten food and keep the water turning over inside the net. In my experience, there's not as much water flow through the mesh/fabric as you would think. Any uneaten food will sit in the net and produce ammonia which can only be processed by your beneficial bacteria if it actually makes it to the bacteria. I've accidentally killed a few otherwise healthy fish by assuming that my established tank was processing any waste being produced in the net. Just something to be aware of! (As a side note, breeder boxes with flowing water like the Ziss one that the Co-op sells don't have this issue.)

Have fun with them! Guppies are a great project. 🙂

[Vince C]

On 6/18/2022 at 7:45 PM, TeeJay said:

I have my guppy's in a 29 gal with a 10 gal grow out tank. They breed like crazy. Usually about every 6 to 8 weeks I have the next round of fry grow up enough to take into my lfs. Remember once they get started you will have alot of fish quick. Right now after my last round to my lfs. I have 3 adult females with 1 adult male along with the most current round of fry. You can see I just mostly keep plants with a few bits of driftwood and one cave. Seems to work very well for me. 

Will your LFS only take certain types of Guppies - for example no mutts? or will they only do trade?

[PineSong]

On 7/18/2022 at 11:22 PM, Vince C said:

Will your LFS only take certain types of Guppies - for example no mutts? or will they only do trade?

My local mom and pop store will only take certain varieties that they try to always keep in stock. For some reason, they don't rotate different varieties.  The box stores around me will take, but not pay for, any kinds of guppies.

On 6/18/2022 at 7:04 PM, Zac said:

I don’t know if it’s worth setting up a whole 10 gallon for one guppy that will only  be in it sometimes.

What I have done is put my male guppies in with female platies, or with white clouds or neon tetras. That way, the males are not harassing the female guppies non-stop, they aren't breeding non-stop, and I don't have a tank that only has a male guppy in it.

Others have recommended multiple female guppies per male, which will help spread the harassment out over the group of females, but it's important to remember that each one of those females, after spending 24 hours with the male, can produce 20-50 fry every month for the next six to eight months, even if you remove the male on day 2. The females can store the sperm and activate it whenever they want.  So with one female, you may have 20-30 fry per month, with three females you're up to 60-90 per month, which crowds your tank pretty quickly. And it takes longer to grow them to sellable size when they are in small tanks, and when they are crowded. So if you're breeding them to sell, you may be slowing yourself down by having more fry per tank.

[bryanisag]

I firstly agree with everyone else who has responded to your question already. I would like to add that by picking a variety of guppies with large females and long finned males, you don't have to worry as much about harassment. The males with long fins are slow and the females are big and strong. Also if you get big females they will eat their fry and do some population control for you.

I bought red dragon guppies from twin city guppies and pulled fry into a separate tank for the first few rounds to ensure my colony would grow but after those fry grew out they sort of flattened of the population growth and now I have a nice tank of guppies that is heavy on maintenance but the fish aren't getting too out of control. 

[lefty o]

On 7/19/2022 at 9:31 PM, bryanisag said:

I firstly agree with everyone else who has responded to your question already. I would like to add that by picking a variety of guppies with large females and long finned males, you don't have to worry as much about harassment. The males with long fins are slow and the females are big and strong. Also if you get big females they will eat their fry and do some population control for you.

I bought red dragon guppies from twin city guppies and pulled fry into a separate tank for the first few rounds to ensure my colony would grow but after those fry grew out they sort of flattened of the population growth and now I have a nice tank of guppies that is heavy on maintenance but the fish aren't getting too out of control. 

those tc guppies females are fantastic. i have a tank with a growing colony of them.

[Vince C]

On 7/19/2022 at 9:58 PM, PineSong said:

My local mom and pop store will only take certain varieties that they try to always keep in stock. For some reason, they don't rotate different varieties.  The box stores around me will take, but not pay for, any kinds of guppies.

 

Thanks for the response - I never thought about the big box stores taking fish in. Definitely could help in the times you have a few too many guppies.

[PineSong]

On 7/20/2022 at 10:07 PM, Vince C said:

Thanks for the response - I never thought about the big box stores taking fish in. Definitely could help in the times you have a few too many guppies.

Yes, I parted with some before vacation to reduce bio load in my tanks when I’d be unable to tend them. I didn’t give them males and females of the same strains— if people want to breed $10 guppies they can buy them off Aquabid like I did, lol. But I took some mutt boys and a variety of girls so anyone who buys a pair can have fun seeing what they get.

[sumplkrum]

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.