Bree

OK, I am new here and new to being a fish mommy . My daughter decided on guppies to start her tank. The day after we purchased a breeding pair, the male died. She was pretty upset about it. About 1 month after the purchase, we had babies. Being new, I didn't realize that you need to sepaerate the babies and the mom. We lost alot of babies, but still ended up with about 5 total. Tonight, when I went to feed them, to my surprise, we now have about 30 babies. My question is can a baby mate with his mom this early?? They are only about 1 month old. My hubby insists that they have all been hiding in the rocks and we just never noticed them. (Yup, there is a size difference and I will let him believe that to be true). Please help, we are kind of confused! Thanks in advance.

Richard

Hi and welcome aboard.. I'm no expert on Guppies, but I can tell you there are some livebearers that don't deliver the fry from the same batch at the same time, so while you're left thinking all the fry have been born, days to weeks later you'll suddenly see more.. your husband also has a point.. fry that hide, according to where that hiding place is, may not get as much food as other bigger, faster fry that may hide among plants, giving them first crack at food scraps and thereby helping them to grow faster than the others.. there are many Guppy owners here who'll be able to give you better explanations based on their own experiences though.

atmmachine816

Ok for starters a good rule is two females to one male or better yet three females to one male or else the male will stress the female out and possibly kill it. Yes the guppies where definately hiding, it happened to me, I just kept finding more and more of them. No the guppies are too small the mate with the mom and expect more fry as the female can have 4 or more births of babies after mating with a male once. Every month or so you should be having more. Yes they are hiding in the rocks and the one's that hide more will get less food, some good food for them are finely crushed flake food and baby brine shrimp. It will take I think if I remember correctly from when I was breeding them 3-4 months for the babies to be fully developed. Just out of curiosity what size tank do you have them in. Anymore questions feel free to ask and Welcome to fishlore.

Austin

Bree

Sorry, we just have a 10 gallon right now. (This is my daughters project. She used all her 10th birhday money to start her "collection") Thanks for the quick responses, just hate to admit to hubby that he was right I hate when that happens

atmmachine816

Eventually you might have guppies coming out of your ears. You might want to ask you petstore if they will take them back or even give you something for them though they probably won't but they'l take them as donations.

Stradius011

Your husband is wrong. I had a female guppy in my aquarium and it released 24 fry. Then I transfered her to a small bowl (I had no space). Next morning, she had another batch of fry.

atmmachine816

Yes the mom does not always release all her babies at once, she can sometimes have multiple bathces.