Are guppies inevitable? Like death and taxes?

[Cinnebuns]

This ended up being more of a stream of consciousness than I expected. Sorry. I'm just conflicted. 

I haven't been in this hobby a super duper long time but I definitely hit the ground running. It helps that I have chronic illness and therefore can't work. This leaves me a lot of time on my hands to sometimes spend literally all day every day on this hobby. I have had many different species and stockings and setups in my short time, but one thing has remained constant. 

GUPPIES!!

I love guppies. They are probably my favorite fish. They check all the boxes. Color, activity, they respond to you, I can play with genetics, just all around fits me well. I have tried to stop keeping guppies many times. Many times. Maaaaaany times. But guess how many times I've been without guppies in some sort?

ZERO!!!

Not once since I started. 

Here's the thing. As much as I love guppies, I'm yet again debating getting away from them. My illness has gotten worse lately and has caused me to re-evaluate what I keep, breed, or combination there of. The problem is I will sleep for days at a time. This means, some weeks I can't get much work done on the tanks. In the past this has been ok because I just catch up the following week. Lately it has been happening more frequently and it's becoming harder to catch up. 

Keeping is easier than breeding when it comes to maintance. I LOOOOOOVE breeding but it does take more work. When I look at the things I've been breeding, 2 stand out to me as needing more attention. Mystery snails and ALL THAT POOP and guppies with their tons of babies.

I haven't done pure strains in awhile so that it is less effort but I have been culling my mutts for specific traits. I love it. Genetics is fun!!  I also have been keeping a female betta with them to naturally cull the numbers and she does an amazing job. It took them longer to fill the 20H than I expected with her watchful eye, but they did fill it. 

I rehomed most of the fry I had about a month ago. I actually had plans to rehome the entire colony until I saw an excuse. They had internal parasites. Can't rehome them without treating them first!  But what do I do when the treatment is done?  Even when I was about to ship the colony off, I was planning to keep about 6 of them to restart things. 

Right now my tanks are kind of a mess tbh. I have 2 that have crashed and therefore refugees in various other tanks. After my tank situation settles, I need to decide if I'm keeping guppies or not. That will determine the direction I go with 2 of the tanks at least. Sigh, idk. I feel so much more attached to the guppies than other fish partially because of working on the traits for almost a year now but also because they do tick so many boxes. Maybe I just get better about rehoming. But I do have to know my own limitations too and I can't predict the future and if my illness will get better or worse. Idk...

 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by Cinnebuns

[Flumpweesel]

I love goldfish but they are a lot of work, my main tank when housing 2 goldfish was a water change and gravel vac very 2 maybe 3 weeks, same tank with less filtration and tropical community water change at 3 maybe 4 months and mainly because I feel like rearranging rather than urgent keep them alive maintenance. 

So I understand the dilemma you are in, I say try some "easier" fish you'll probably enjoy it and you might find the reduced stress of not having to manage a population a nice change. My egg layers do breed but never get out of control as I do nothing to protect eggs or fry aside from feeding fine powder foods every now and then and lots of hiding places due to my plants and hardscape. 

The joy of the hobby is with the right tweaks tanks can be set up and stocked to provide joy without being a burden on time and strength. 

However its the breeding you enjoy the most maybe get into shrimp their bioload  is so low they rarely crash tank so you can leave it be when your body needs you to and no harm will come to them. 

You will probably always have guppies though but maybe not in every tank 

[Cinnebuns]

On 8/30/2023 at 6:50 AM, Flumpweesel said:

My egg layers do breed but never get out of control

This is one reason I've decided to continue breeding my panda cories. Also, they are the ones I enjoy the most too. Well, genetic aside. Guppies are more fun genetically but i really enjoy pulling eggs and raising cory fry. I can also manage that much easier than the guppy reproduction. 

 

On 8/30/2023 at 6:50 AM, Flumpweesel said:

However its the breeding you enjoy the most maybe get into shrimp

I already have a shrimp tank lol. I actually got into shrimp more as a way to help with the cory breeding but recently it's become a thing itself. You are right, they are much lower biolaod and therefore less strain. 

I'm basically looking to slightly down size but mostly just make things more manageable even if that means the same amount of tanks. If that makes sense?  Like a 20 gallon with guppies and a clutch of mystery snails I hatched is much more work than a 20 gallon of fish I'm exclusively keeping and not breeding. Unfortunately, without doing an all male group, guppies don't fit the "not breeding" part of that. I'm not opposed to an all male group but if I did that I might play around with something else instead. 

Tbh, what i think it comes down to the most is emotional attachment to this specific colony. Sure I can also get guppies in the future but it won't be this colony that I've been working with for about a year to make it what I want it. 

[Flumpweesel]

I am also avoiding strong emotional attachment to fish the heartache when I lost my old goldie was horrific

[beastie]

Why don't you look for the same number of endlers in the guppy tanks? They are smaller this smaller bioload and one would expect to be able to survive longer without maintenance.

Could be sort of having your cake and eating it too if you look at endlers the same as guppies. Like i love the Santa maria color of endlers. Granted i only have males and only had them for a while to help with one tank. In ten years i am doing fishkeeping I had guppies once, for six months, fish i borrowed from a friend and returned, multiplied:) never was i tempted to get live-bearers because the idea of fry and cleanup simply scares me.

[Cinnebuns]

On 8/30/2023 at 9:17 AM, beastie said:

Why don't you look for the same number of endlers in the guppy tanks? They are smaller this smaller bioload and one would expect to be able to survive longer without maintenance.

Could be sort of having your cake and eating it too if you look at endlers the same as guppies. Like i love the Santa maria color of endlers. Granted i only have males and only had them for a while to help with one tank. In ten years i am doing fishkeeping I had guppies once, for six months, fish i borrowed from a friend and returned, multiplied:) never was i tempted to get live-bearers because the idea of fry and cleanup simply scares me.

Tbh, there's only a few endlers that have ever peaked my interest but not enough to want them. Usually it's the ones that loaned their genes to guppy strains. Tbh, I'd rather play with something else than do that. Not a bad suggestion otherwise tho. It's strange I like guppies so much but endlers don't appeal to me. 

On 8/30/2023 at 9:07 AM, Flumpweesel said:

I am also avoiding strong emotional attachment to fish the heartache when I lost my old goldie was horrific

I try too but it's sometimes easier than other times. One thing doesn't help too. I once had a blue dragon line.  Blue dragons are still my favorite. I made some mistakes and the line ended. I still have 1 female from that line but I kept her virgin for over 6 months so I never saw her get pregnant and drop. Until....last week!  I haven't pulled fry to save them from being eaten in over a year but I saved her babies. She really isn't helping this situation!

[Matt B]

Yes, Guppies are inevitable!  I don't think taxes are. 

I stuggle with some physical limitations as well. So far, I've found that the Guppy/Endler hybrid adventures are  crazy entertaining!  I don't try to keep them from doing their thing. So it is mass chaos in the 20 long!   Keeping it simple is hard to do in this hobby!  I always want another tank and a new fish... even though I know there's no way to keep up with another one.

I've actually been spending more time messing around with outdoor 20 gal wine barrel ponds. They are very forgiving.  

Simplifying is so hard to do !!  😅   I know your struggle!!