What can live with a breeding colony of guppies?

[redmare]

I'm thinking of making my 30 gallon tank a guppy breeding tank! But I like variety, so I want something else to live with the guppies. I'm definitely thinking cories, wondering if there's a centerpiece type fish that could join the guppies without eating all the fry (I don't mind a few going) but I understand that might not really make sense. Any ideas?

[Ryan S.]

I've had a pair of German blue Rams living with my colony.  They def eat some fry but it's heavily planted so a bunch make it.  Only downside is that Rams take a higher temp than I'd like for my guppies.  I'd do apistos next time instead.

[KBOzzie59]

I have red cherry shrimp and bristle nose plecos in my guppy mutt hut.

[StephenP2003]

I keep a breeding platy and guppy colony together, along with cherry shrimp, amano shrimp, and panda corys. 

Corys I think are an essential part of a guppy colony. All the powder food (and heavy feeding in general) ultimately sinks to the bottom. 

[Kat_Rigel]

I keep mine with white cloud minnows and Beckford's pencilfish. Pencilfish are underrated!

I previoisly had a dwarf  gouramj as a centerpiece,  but it just never rwlly thrived and one day I just didn't see it anymore. Same with my peacock gudgeons. Now I just stick to schools of different species.

[Daniel]

Just to underscore how flexible the question, 'What can live with a breeding colony of guppies' is, I once had a breeding colony of Endlers in a large tank with a breeding colony of angelfish. And even with angels eating Endlers, the Endler population still got out of hand!

The Endler population grew because the tank was both large and heavily planted.

So I guess the lesson is, if the guppies have plenty of places to hide, you have a *wide range of choices for tank mates.

 

Edited August 21, 2020 by Daniel
*I am not suggesting you put angelfish in with your guppies

[Mr. Ed's Aquatics]

I keep several breeding colonies in my show tanks with all sorts of other stuff. Most have a neocaradina colony, so far I've got cherry, pumpkin, blue dream, black rose and jade green. I also like to keep corys and plecos as the clean up crew and tetras for dither. 

Really have a ton of options for tankmates. I took a quick picture of one of mine for reference. Besides guppies, you can probably see some penquin tetras, lemon tetras, bristlenose pleco, albino corys, adolfoi corys, mystery snails and shrimp.