Aquarium Burnout: How live bearers (Guppies) has burnt me out

[MDBuckeye]

I know what I am about to say is a cardinal sin as an aquarium co-op member and a fan, but live bearers shouldn’t be advertised as a beginner fish. This is a story about how an accidental guppy was included in a purchase of cherry barbs that now has turned into my nightmare. This post is not meant for advice but to vent. Hoping  that after venting, I might get re-motivated back to the hobby. 

I am not a total beginner but recently got back into the hobby after a hiatus from when I was a kid. The best part of this hobby is actually going to the store and buying the fish. I chose a 75 gallon to give me room to add serval different schools of nano without worrying about space or increased maintenance. The aquarium is heavily planted to make it look as natural as possible. Everything was humming along until I decided to add a school of cherry barbs.

Going to the store, unfortunately a big box store due to the lack of a local store, I bought 8 cherry barbs (5 males, 3 females). Unfortunately, female guppies were also housed in the same tank, and instead of a female cherry barb, I received a Snow White guppy. I didn’t notice the error until the fish were home and in my quarantine tank. I know I could’ve taken the guppy back but I decided to take pity. I thought even if it was pregnant, the babies would be eaten. The main aquarium had a betta and 2 honey gourami. Therefore, No harm no foul. Boy was I wrong.

The guppy gave birth within a month to 12 babies. ALL 12 live.  I am like ok, there is lots of room so the population will remain stable. Except again I was wrong, she gave birth 3 more times. Now I had over 40 guppies I didn’t even want. That 40 quickly turned into 60. My aquarium was quickly becoming over-stalked with no room to add fish I actually want. My aquarium was the poster child of an invasive species.

Water quality started to dip, and I went from changing water every 2-3 weeks to every week. Started to take plants out to reduce hiding spaces. My aquarium was quickly becoming a choir rather than a relaxing hobby.

Then they started to over compete the other fish for food. I would overfeed to ensure that everyone got food but it was adding to the water quality issues. When I started to lose fish because of the guppies the frustration only great. I lost 1 Rummy nose, then 3 green rasboras, 4 neons, 5 cardinals, and then after a week vacation the betta finally couldn’t compete.  The betta was the final straw. 

Unloading these guppies wasn’t a possibility. I am a father of 2 young kids (3 and 7 months)so joining the nearest club (2 hours away) is out of the question. Just don’t have the time. Local store isn’t an option. Nearest one is dirty and fish always look sick. Doubt they would even take the fish. Cory and Dean make breading fish look so fun. I watch every video. But it only works if you have an exit plan.

With the guppies starting to develop crooked spines and tumors, I didn't know what else to do, so I resorted to clove oil. I hate death and never wanted to hurt a fish, but without any other options, I euthanized 40 fish but the tank was still over crowded. The population quickly rebounded, and I was back to square one. I feel like I just have to collect the remaining guppies and but an end to this. It’s made me not want to work on my aquarium and possibly leave the hobby again. Decided I am going to get the aquarium back under control and start rebuilding my schools back up again. I decided that live bearers are not my thing because I want to control how many fish are in the aquarium.  

If you made it to the end, thanks for listening to me rant.  Hopefully I can spark the joy again. 

[Sharon M]

I'm so sorry this happened to you! 

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/29/2023 at 6:56 PM, MDBuckeye said:

The guppy gave birth within a month to 12 babies. ALL 12 live.  I am like ok, there is lots of room so the population will remain stable. Except again I was wrong, she gave birth 3 more times. Now I had over 40 guppies I didn’t even want. That 40 quickly turned into 60. My aquarium was quickly becoming over-stalked with no room to add fish I actually want. My aquarium was the poster child of an invasive species.

Definitely tough. I often feel the same way and thought when I had my first live-bearers fry, "yeah, this can get out of hand quickly."

The unfortunate thing is that if you don't have anything to predate, there's not much you can do besides male only or female only setups. As you experienced, that's in hope that you catch it in time or have enough space.  It's not an easy thing to manage and emotionally can be very tough to manage.

Having a shop or a place to re-home fish is a great option, but not available to many.

My go to beginner fish recommendation will always be a Bolivian Ram. You just need one, and having one ram is a nice tank to me.

[Remi de Groot]

Sorry to hear and totally feel you on the stress of the numbers of fish getting out of control.
I experienced a similar feeling a few months ago when i started with Endler guppies.
I knew they go fast. But didn't expect the numbers to grow that fast.

Only luck i had was that i found out that my Diamond Tetra's in another tank don't mind some 'live food'.
When seperating males and females as an sollution for the overpopulation and putting the females in that tank problems ended.

When i was sure the Diamond Tetra's ate most of the baby's i've added the males to that tank a few weeks later as well.
Now i do it the other way around. I place some pregnant females in a seperate tank if i need more Endlers (i do sell some online).
Grow out the baby's in that tank and when they are big enough so they won't be eaten i place them back in the community tank.

[Guppysnail]

I’m sorry you are disheartened. You do not need to belong to a local club to reach out to them for help. If you contact the club and explain the situation they can help you find someone to take the guppies off your hands. Many club hobbyists stock summer ponds with them. 

[jwcarlson]

Live bearers are absolutely relentless and I feel your pain.  Years ago I had lots of guppies, but it helped that I had oscars and so would feed some of the unwanted guppies to them, but that's not an option for everyone.

I'm not sure if there's a good method of controlling population without actively removing fish.  Obviously if there's less cover most of them will be eaten, but in my experience that doesn't necessarily resolve the issue.

Hopefully this doesn't discourage you completely out of the hobby!  

 

[Lennie]

The only reason why I don't keep livebearers. Their population go out of control so easily and it makes me super anxious as well. I also really don't have any option to home fish easily, and I don't wanna give them to lfs not because they don't take care of them well, but because people who buy fish are generally don't always have a clue about how to take care of them well. Finding people to take care of them well is hard.

I love  the look of some  guppys  and platys. But not planning to keep them whatsoever. I don't understand how so many people hate "pest" snails but livebearers are super popular at the same time. Is it just the look they have? Cause generally people complain about the breeding rate when it comes to snails and scared of taking over. Well, thats what livebearers do. You cannot really limit livebearers number by correcting something that is going on.

Btw, I feel like you may find lots of people that are willing to take guppys. People find homes to their common plecos.

I would probably seperate males and females as the last option I guess.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Lennie

[mynameisnobody]

@MDBuckeye I appreciate your honesty. If I were in your shoes, I’d immediately acquire either 1 Bolivian Ram like @nabokovfan87 suggested or 1 Angelfish. Either way, they’ll snipe all the fry in no time, then you’ll just have adults for their lifetime. I’ve resorted to this and it works 100% of the time. I have a 15 months old so I totally relate to not being able to get to the local club. If you do have the time, you can shoot them an email and see if they have a better suggestion. Good luck dude, hope it works out for you. 

[Robin]

On 1/30/2023 at 5:52 AM, Mynameisnobody said:

@MDBuckeye I appreciate your honesty. If I were in your shoes, I’d immediately acquire either 1 Bolivian Ram like @nabokovfan87 suggested or 1 Angelfish. Either way, they’ll snipe all the fry in no time, then you’ll just have adults for their lifetime. I’ve resorted to this and it works 100% of the time. I have a 15 months old so I totally relate to not being able to get to the local club. If you do have the time, you can shoot them an email and see if they have a better suggestion. Good luck dude, hope it works out for you. 

I have a 75g and as I'm reading this thread I'm beginning to despair because while I don't want guppies my list is Platys, Rosy barbs, 1 apisto cockatodia and 1 Bolivian Ram. You're post has given me renewed hope that I have the right mix.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Ugh, how frustrating and I can see where this would cause you to just want to give up! Terrible situation/choices you have to make. Honestly I'd contact the box store and ask for the manager and tell them you didn't even intend to keep guppies let alone breed them. I've heard many of them will take the fish back. I would empty my tank of all of them unless you are inclined to keep a few males. 

This is why in the livebearer category I only keep either sex period (it has been males so far -endlers- guppies- even my solo Bolivian) otherwise I keep egg layers and purposefully pick "hard/impossible" to breed fish species. I don't want/need the stress!

[KittenFishMom]

I feel your pain. While I was caring for my mother, my small guppy population exploded. I had them in 1 of my 5 10 gallon tanks that was getting over populated and wasn't able to get home often.  Friends advised adding a lot of plants for water quality and moving the fish around to distribute the bio load. I am guessing I didn't mention that some of the fish were guppies. After 4 months of exhausting care for my mom, I came home to some where between 300 and 400 guppies and all other fish had died and having to do several water changes daily. It took 5 months to get them all rehomed.  

I wish you the best of luck. 

[Darax]

As a fairly new keeper let me echo your cry. Suggesting guppies to new fishkeepers is perhaps not the best. 

- the are not strong fish tolerant to a new fishkeepers water parameters. I lost a lot of guppies starting out and I had given up on them. Three surviving females forced me to stay in the guppy game. Now I have at least 100 in less that a year. 

-- frankly I suspect they aren't tolerant to an established fishkeepers water parameters. The quest for color and shape is a quest for inbreeding. It amazes me that we learn in middle school about recessive genes and professional breeders (of all fauna) tend to succumb to inbreeding. The result: pure breed pets get sick. Guppies are the purebred fish of the tank. 

- they breed fast. Like another poster I have a goldfish to sacrifice excess guppies to. Like the OP I'm not a fan of being the hand of life and death. Even so, I'm starting to see a colony form in the tank with the goldfish. 

It is further frustrating because the guppies are pretty and it is exciting to see the fry grow up and color.

There are four stages of learning. I suspect experts advising on beginners trying guppies have forgotten what they didn't know as a beginner. A beginner is looking for a fish that is hard to accidentally kill off. An expert might only draw upon their population explosion experience of guppies. Heck, some very seasoned experts might remember a time before excessive selective breeding in the hobby, when guppies were sturdier. 

[KittenFishMom]

@Darax I bought a tank of mixed guppies off craigslist. They had been neglected and they owners had only used RO water in the tank. The ones I got had been through a lot before I got them, and were very sturdy. When I couldn't feed or check the water for 3 or 4 days at a time, they still thrived. I gave them wonder shells and spring water and high quality food and they would be an asset to anyone that mixed them in to their breeding stock. A lot of them had very fancy traits, so some had mixed some very fancy guppies in with them. I thought about keeping a tank of males, but they don't live very long, I think about a year or 2. I didn't want to watch them die off so soon. I hope most got good homes and will be able to pass on their strong traits to future generations.

[Bev C]

MDBuckeye bless your heart and i agree any live -breeder  fish  is not good for a beginner or someone with limit space 

i did not get in the hobby till I was a  adult but’s heard guppies multiply fast i told the sells person no guppies or any fish that multiple like guppies,, i was lucky in my main tank  for 15years babies or eggs was not liked by my tank dwellers my shrimp tank is different though  are having babies like crazy but thankfully my pet store will take my shrimp 

wishing the best for you and hope you will continue on and get the enjoyment back in fish keeping 

[PineSong]

@MDBuckeye, I feel your pain; I’ve been knee-deep in guppies and it definitely impacted my enjoyment of my tanks. 
I agree with you that it’s too easy for beginners to get in over their heads and most stores should do a much better job of protecting the average new fish keeper by selling only male livebearers or at least by stocking males and females separately and making people aware one female guppy = 500 guppies in nine months. 
I do have a fish store that will take guppies and I’ve also been able to sell them on Craigslist, and even so I got to the point where overpopulation was unhealthy for my fish. I was only 98% successful at identifying and removing male fry… so my females kept getting pregnant.

I added a juvenile angelfish to eliminate fry. It worked completely, so even though it’s unpleasant to think about it is a way out of the fry situation. 

I hope you can regain your enjoyment in the hobby!