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Plants for Guppies?


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I'm going to be getting a few nicely bred guppies for a 20 gallon tank. I've never had guppies before (aside from that one terrible experiment in 7th grade where the science teacher had us keep sooooo many in a 2 liter coke bottle!). I would like to give them some nice aquascaping, but I haven't ever worked with live plants. Suggestions?

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If you are wanting to breed the guppies and produce as much fry as possible, you'll want a bunch of plants that the babies can hide in to not be eater by the adults. Guppy grass is good, hornwort, anacharis, ludwigia. If you aren't worried about breeding and just want to keep the guppies in a nicely aquascaped tank, as mentioned above, anubias, java ferns, crypts are good.

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4 hours ago, Andy's Fish Den said:

If you are wanting to breed the guppies and produce as much fry as possible, you'll want a bunch of plants that the babies can hide in to not be eater by the adults. Guppy grass is good, hornwort, anacharis, ludwigia. If you aren't worried about breeding and just want to keep the guppies in a nicely aquascaped tank, as mentioned above, anubias, java ferns, crypts are good.

Great! I'm thinking I'll start with focusing on keeping the adults happy. When I have some stability, I really do like the idea of breeding with some focus! We have a great LFS, and I would love to be a provider for them.

 

Thanks everybody!

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As mentioned, guppies will work with pretty much any plant. So that’s more of deciding what you like and feel comfortable growing. I would suggest some fast grows to help with nitrates. Since they’ll reproduce whether you setup for it now or not, and can cause those nitrates to jump up.  
And I’m still kind of testing it myself. But there’s been some research showing that higher temp and ph will contribute to more male guppies and short gestation periods. I had a 20gal cube setup with guppies, ph around 7.8 but temp at 72 degrees. I wasn’t keeping exact counts, but there was more females to males. I’ve recently moved them to a 75gal and bumped the temp to 75 degrees. Hoping at that temp I start getting more males. That’s pretty much all the LFS wants, since customers tend to only want males. 
That study was going a good amount higher in temp and ph, but they were also getting into the parameters that were reducing their lifespan as well. 

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12 hours ago, FishyThoughts said:

And I’m still kind of testing it myself. But there’s been some research showing that higher temp and ph will contribute to more male guppies and short gestation periods. I had a 20gal cube setup with guppies, ph around 7.8 but temp at 72 degrees. I wasn’t keeping exact counts, but there was more females to males. I’ve recently moved them to a 75gal and bumped the temp to 75 degrees. Hoping at that temp I start getting more males. That’s pretty much all the LFS wants, since customers tend to only want males. 
That study was going a good amount higher in temp and ph, but they were also getting into the parameters that were reducing their lifespan as well. 

Interesting! I'll keep that in mind for later. I have been reading that lower temperatures mean less overall breeding in general. Has that been your experience at all? 

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4 hours ago, Gestaltgal said:

I have been reading that lower temperatures mean less overall breeding in general.

The study I read stated that at lower temperatures the females will hold the fry longer. Which correlates to less breeding and more stress on the females as well. I’m not being that serious with their breeding. So haven’t monitored their gestation periods, with mine it was more just noticing that most seemed to be females. 
 

@Daniel thank you for that information. 

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On 12/30/2020 at 11:38 PM, Gestaltgal said:

I would like to give them some nice aquascaping, but I haven't ever worked with live plants. Suggestions?

 I found mossy carpet to be a very efficient hiding place for guppy babies. Java moss, Christmas tree moss, any fluffy moss which is happy in your water will be great for them. 

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