Guppy Journal

[SugarBassJoe]

     Hello to whoever might read this, hope you are doing well. First off, I've decided to start this journal to 1: track my progress in the venture, 2: open myself up to feedback, both positive and negative, and 3: hopefully meet some potential friends who share this hobby with me. A little back story on me, I've been keeping fish off and on since I was 8, typical start, betta fish in a bowl, goldfish in a 10G (before I knew any better) community's in larger tanks, all the way up to two large Oscars in a 125 and a most of everything in between. Around ten years ago I took a break for a myriad of reasons, but finally about a year ago I got back in. started back in slow with a 5.5G desktop with a betta and some shrimp and snails. As time went on, I was getting more ancy about expanding my hobby, which is hard to do, my current land lady does not like the fact I like to keep aquariums and is very limiting on what she'll allow me to keep, but i am allowed a few smaller tanks. 

     About two months ago a former co-worker of mine gave me 10G halfmoon style tank his family didn't want anymore, which has been up and running since.

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     Couldn't really decide what to do with it, I thought I would do something new to me, like pea puffers, small killifish or even a small colony of shell dweller for example. After going back and forth for a while, I started watching some older co-op videos and came across Cory's presentation on guppies, after watching his in depth talk, I was sold on revisiting my once favorite fish, and I must say I'm really excited too (didn't think I would be since I have kept them more than any other fish), but I'm back at it again. 

      I was originally going to go to my local big box chain store (unfortunately the LFS's are little far for me) and pick out a nice trio to start with but came across a beautiful strain of neon blues from an online retailer ( I do trust them, never had a bad experience with them so far).  They came in a little while ago, and after a brief quarantine they are in the tank, and seem to be adjusting well.

     So to wrap things up, I'm hopeful they will do well, i would like to develop the strain further and breed them for my local water parameters, and eventually trade to a local shop, i have a few ideas for grow out setups for the fry (would really like to do it outdoors, my land lady wouldn't be as opposed to that, i do live in southern California). I'm grateful to be back in this hobby that i love and wish to further my knowledge, If you've taken the time to read this far i thank you, and please all advice, tips and feed back would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

[Guppysnail]

Beautiful guppies and that tank is stunning. I’m looking forward to following along with your adventure. Although I outbreed vs in breed my guppies are blue as well 🥰. I think that guppies are just the most personable fish. 

[Solstice_Lacer]

Nice looking tank, I like how you filled it out with plants. I know it can be hard to work with that shape. 

[SugarBassJoe]

Quick update, guppies have been in there new tank little over a week now, and the goal is to keep them happy and healthy for now. I am working on a PH issue right now, it was reading low at around 6.5, which i find surprising since i have really hard water, the GH is off the chart, and my KH reads between 80-120, (going by API test strips for KH), so i can only guess its all the organic material in them ( all tanks have driftwood and are fairly heavily planted). I've added a bit of crushed coral in the HOB's and the PH is slowly creeping up, sitting around 6.8 now. If any one reading has experience with this, any advice would be appreciated. For now though life seems to be going on just fine for everyone, so ill keep a close eye on everything and hope I'm doing everything right. Posting a short video and a few highlighted pics if interested.

[Solstice_Lacer]

They look beautiful. Crushed coral should help. You could also try cuttle bone

[SugarBassJoe]

So my suspicions were confirmed. A few days ago, right before bed i was watching what i thought was a shrimplet on the glass, turns out one of the females had dropped her fry (I was wondering if the seller housed the males and females separately, guess not). Unsure how many were in the original drop, I've found 9 so far, and they are now in a catch cup turned improvised refugium. feeding them easy fry food, twice a day (just got the auto feeder, going to set them up today) Looking forward to seeing these guys grow and developing their colors.

[Patrick_G]

Congrats on the fry. I bet they would love some frozen baby brine shrimp. 

[SugarBassJoe]

Well, its been a long and rough couple of weeks at work for me, finally have some time post another entry in this log/journal. Overall the guppy tank seems to be ok for now, but I'm seeing some concerning signs, that i will address later today. First off, because I'm been so busy with work ( a lot of overtime these past two weeks), I've fallen off my normal maintenance schedule (Tuesdays and Fridays are days i normally perform any and all necessary tank maintenance), so its been about two weeks since I've done anything other than checking my water parameters. yesterday i did my water tests and I'm still seeing a low PH on some of my tanks, (guppy tank sitting around 6.5, while one of my 5.5G's dropped close to 6.2) using aquarium co-op test strips, so i believe them to be accurate. I've added the whole 1LB of crushed coral to the guppy tank and a Wondershell to the 5.5, and will be doing a some what larger water change for both of them later today. I'm worried i might be seeing the first signs of old tank syndrome, if anyone can tell me if this is what it seems to be i would greatly appreciate any advice on the subject. Next I'm now seeing blooms of what I'm guessing is black beard algae, its grey/ dark grey hair algae looking that's only affecting some of my floating plants for now ( Anacharis primarily, though I'm starting to see it on a floating piece of java fern). I'm assuming its from a combination of overfeeding ( knowingly been overfeeding, to keep the guppies big an happy, which might not be the case anymore) to much light (currently running from 11:30AM-7:30PM, 8 hours but i know they do get some, but not a lot of ambient sunlight in the mornings, so I'm not sure if this a big factor or not) and I'm guessing a higher temperature (summer in San Diego, air temps are getting to around 90 where I'm at, tanks read close to 80 most of the time, been leaving the lids off to help with evaporative cooling). Lastly I'm now seeing a hydra bloom ( not an infestation yet, but more than id like to see) which i think the previous part factors into. Thankfully they are not in my DIY breeder box yet but are hanging off the sides, which is a little concerning, don't want them actually in there, though I've been reading they are not too detrimental to the ecosystem. The plan as of now is to get back to my regular water changes and decrease the amount of food going in. Any one reading, please all comments, advice, experience and info are welcomed. Thank you if you took the time to read all this, i realize it was a bit of a long update, looking forward to hear what y'all have to say!

[SugarBassJoe]

First spawn has been out of the box and been swimming freely in the main tank for about two weeks now. Starting to color up and I'm definitely seeing more females than males in this group. A new spawn has arrived and I've deiced to go the more natural route and raise them in the main tank and not in a breeder box. I've let the Anacharis grow thicker for this reason. It seems this new group is growing at a noticeably faster rate, i assume from more access to the micro fauna in the tank as a food source, they also seem to be coloring up much faster as well. The Anacharis is doing its job as I'm seeing more fry survive this time around (though it could likely be due to a bigger drop in fry), so far this approach is proving to be more successful than separating fry from adults. Haven't had much time to go through photos to post, took a quick one the other day just to have something to look at, also while playing around with a editing program i came across this filter that i might have made into a canvas print, if anyone is reading this i hope you like it to.

[redfish]

Nice tank!  The canvas pic looks really neat.

[SugarBassJoe]

Three generations in, the oldest being about two months. I've been watching the developmental trends of this particular strain and now after seeing the older males develop their gonopodiums, I can confidently infer the sex of the younger fry (I seem to be producing way more females than males, but maybe that's normal). The 10G is getting close to the tipping point, hopefully in another month ill be able to bring some to a not so local fish store. Not expecting to get any thing for them, which is fine, hopefully others will get to enjoy them. Who knows though, maybe over time I can build a good relation with this LFS and maybe get some food or other supplies in the future, that would be awesome. Its felt like a crash course these past few months, mistakes were made, I should really be adding those moments to this log, not just the good. If any ones reading, feel free to ask me if you want, the bad is part of the experience for me, or just enjoy these pics I took (don't know why, but I really enjoy photographing these guys, just wish I could take better pics).

[SugarBassJoe]

Back from vacation, two weeks away and aside from overgrown water sprite and duckweed, no issues with any of the tanks. Another generation has arrived in the blue tank, and the oldest fry are more or less adult fish now, its obvious whos male and whos female now ( pretty confident with sexing the younger fry now). I'm seeing the population balancing itself out now, when I started with two pairs the population increased dramatically, but I'm seeing less and less newborn's each month now, which I'm ok with for now (would love to move the fry and grow them out in separate tanks to share them with others, but my current living situation makes that difficult). The cherry shrimp and MTS population also exploded while I was away, seems the ecosystem does better when I'm not around. lastly I did decide to add some more variation to the population with a new strain, a pair of midnight galaxy's I believe they were called. Either way the male galaxy is loving it, always showing off his colors and "dancing" for the females. I did notice the the neon males (which I'm calling silver backs, you'll understand if/when you see them) seem to be twice the size of the galaxy, I'm no expert but I believe them to be roughly the same age, but I don't know for sure, any experience/knowledge  with differences between strains would be appreciated. the galaxy seems to be fully colored, while mine just started to really show their colors, and I do believe they still got a little ways to go. So far so good with this tank, I know I'm still rusty with fishkeeping, but I cant help but feel some pride with my tanks, if anyone cares to see, got a raw video of the blue tank from when I got back.

 

 

[SugarBassJoe]

Finally went ahead and redid the scape in the blue tank. Been hoping to avoid doing it since I don't like putting unnecessary stress on the fish but a week ago I found another guppy with a torn tail fin. So with that plus the fact I've been wanting to get more light to the bottom, I went ahead and moved 99% of them out ( couldn't get all the fry, just to many) and rescaped.

 

Removed the Malaysian driftwood, which I suspect (hope) was the problem, washed some dragon stone (which I'm hoping is smoother and less snaggy) and set them in. Worked out, I finally get to use the java fern mat that's been sitting in my plant clipping pot outside, I realize the java fern doesn't look great, most of the leave were dead on arrival, removed the worst ones, and got new growth slowly filling in. Definitely opened up more swimming space, and I hope solved the torn tail issue.