loki

I want to start a tank with fancy guppies. I really don't want to breed them, just enjoy the beauty of them. Can I just have males or will they not get along without a female? Some sites say if you don't want the babies just leave them alone and the adults will eat them. I really don't want that either. Help? Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

armadillo

Hi Loki. I have no direct experience of this, but have read many accounts of people who keep male only guppy tanks successfully. They often recommend to have more than 3 males, so the pecking order can be established without a constant bully/victim relationship between the same two fish. Am going to try this with my mollies as they keep breeding.

COBettaCouple

yea, male gups can be kept without females and like armadillo said, they need to be in a group of 3 or more. how big is your tank? do you plan to add any other fish to it?

sirdarksol

Not only is it possible. It is often suggested, as many fishkeepers don't have the experience necessary to maintain the balance in a tank with a constantly fluctuating population, and may not like having to watch papa guppies and mama guppies eating lil' baby guppies.

In addition, male guppies are way more colorful than females, like bettas (and most other animals), but unlike bettas, they don't kill each other.

guppiemaster892

Yeah the adults will eat them. So just get some males and you will do just fine. They are just so pretty.

angelfish220

are you going to get show guppies to put in or 'petstore guppies' both are pretty but specifically bred show guppies tend to get a little bigger so remember that when stocking

froggypat

Iam pretty new at this put I have 2 male blue diamond guppys they seem to be fine with each other they just follow each other around.

sirdarksol

Yeah, males are fine with each other. The issue comes in when there is at least one female in the tank, but there aren't at least 2 females per male. The males will harass the female(s) excessively unless there's a 2 to 1 female to male ratio.

Blub

angelfish220

Really they just dont have the big fins, some female guppies I have seen have just as much color and patterns.

sirdarksol

Muted colors doesn't even mean not pretty. Yeah, the bright colors are neat, but the more faced colors can be really neat, too.