Bizarre Guppy Breeding Experience

Somebody is going to tell me I am blind or crazy and that's OK but I have been very attentive to the tank because I feared some very expensive breeding stock was going to die. Not my first time with fry. Probably not my 50th time and I have never seen anything like this. Has to be stress induced. I'll try to be very brief so ask questions as needed.

Ordered two breeding trios of show quality guppies and received them last week. This is about the halfblack purple strain. 45 hour trip via mail. Fish arrive and I segregate the two strains. Follow breeders acclimation recommendations which took a few hours. HB Blues are active in an hour or so like nothing ever happened. All three HB purples head to the bottom and are lethargic. One female is just huge and obviously very pregnant. She has lost her color. I am expecting her to die. Young female has good color and not very pregnant. Appears she is clearly weeks away from dropping fry.

Day One- All purples on the bottom, so I throw a bunch of floating weeds in the tank. All fish head to the top and rest on the weeds eventually. Not gasping for air but very lethargic.

Day Two- Same deal, remain in the weeds. Not swimming around unless I spook them. They are all skittish in my presence. Male starting to show a few signs of life but mostly lethargic. Nobody is eating so I am getting worried.

Day Three- I hatch out some live brine shrimp and they start to eat just a little, but not normal live brine shrimp frnezy. Swimming around the tank just a bit by end of day.

Day Four- All looking fairly active and a couple fry appear in the morning. Has to be the huge female right? I know they all have to be hungry after a long fast so I try to feed them and pull the male and small female into a 1G container so I can save some fry and protect the strains future if this ends bad. I really hated to do that and cause more stress. The big female drops about a dozen more fry. I segregate them in the fry tank as they drop. After a few hours it seems to be over. Thought she might drop 40 fry but only about 15 total. She still looks heavy. I decide I better put the male and small female back in the tank. To my surprise there are five fry in the temp container the small female obviously dropped.

Day five-six. Everybody looks great. Eating and very active.

Day seven- I notice a couple fry in the tank this morning. Clearly newborn with yolk sack. I buried the tank with weeds and killed the lights. She has given birth to at least 8 more today and getting a little skinnier finally.

Just strange. I've had fish drop a surprisingly low number of fry before but its usually over for a month after that. Not this time.

 

It could be that she gave birth prematurely to some of the fry and held the rest.

 

It has to be that. Premature drops are not rare. I've just never seen fairly large and successful fry drops three days apart. They all look healthy.

 

Did you happen to take readings of the water they came into before you acclimated them to your conditions? I have found that doing that helps me out a lot better knowing what they are coming from...if needed I can acclimate them even slower if they were in less than ideal conditions.

I think the fry drop is due to stress, the low numbers could be many things so I won't speculate on it. I'd feed them good quality food and see if the next drop isn't a bit higher (although it may not be if the fish is younger or older than you suspect it is. A fish dropping fry over 3 days time isn't something I've seen before either, but I have seen them happen a couple of days apart. I'd link that to stress as well.

 

Did you happen to take readings of the water they came into before you acclimated them to your conditions? I have found that doing that helps me out a lot better knowing what they are coming from...if needed I can acclimate them even slower if they were in less than ideal conditions.

I think the fry drop is due to stress, the low numbers could be many things so I won't speculate on it. I'd feed them good quality food and see if the next drop isn't a bit higher (although it may not be if the fish is younger or older than you suspect it is. A fish dropping fry over 3 days time isn't something I've seen before either, but I have seen them happen a couple of days apart. I'd link that to stress as well.

Yes I did check the water. Fish was raised in 7.5 PH. Mine is 8.2 which is fine for live-bearers once they acclimate. I dumped some distilled water in my tanks to temper the PH a bit but my water is so buffered with calcium so it's a futile exercise. My water was/is very clean. Well has a slight amount of ammonia (.25) so I do frequent small WCs in my little tanks with Prime.

 

Agree w APierce sounds due to stress. Small drops a few days apart sounds like she was trying to hold back until she was more comfortable or couldn't anymore happily fry adapt better then adults to new tanks so you are in the clear with preserving the line.. way better place to be then her reabsorbing the fry!
Sorry you had to worry!

 

It's going to be OK but here's an update.

-The HB Purples who were all sickly now look outstanding. I have about 20 or so healthy fry.

-The HB Blues are having their turn scaring me now. My small female dropped at least 20 fry yesterday which was just a little much for her age. They are clearly premature but half of them lived. The other half lived about 10 minutes. Hopefully the survivors will eat some fresh brine shrimp by tomorrow. They are tiny fry. Momma went from fat to looking really bad after the birth. It took her about 10 hours to drop all the fry yesterday. Now she has clamped fins and real skinny. The birthing was very tough on her. I am watching her close. Probably just stress of travel and birth in a week. The other blue female is just huge. I thought she would drop a week ago. Probably going to be tough on her too but I think I will get some more HB Blue fry.

Wish I had more spare tanks. (I already have five dedicated guppy tanks lol). These males are ridiculous and not helping. I swear they don't leave the females alone much over ten minutes at a time. They stress out when I segregate in the same tank and bang their faces on the the divider all day so I'll just leave it be.

 

I'm glad to hear the Purples or doing well. Hopefully the Blue will get through it. I have 11 total tanks stocked and running, and I am about to get even more. I'm also about to either move or fix my unfinished basement. My husband got tired of me complaining about running out of room for tanks in my current fish room.

 

I have 11 total tanks stocked and running, and I am about to get even more. I'm also about to either move or fix my unfinished basement. My husband got tired of me complaining about running out of room for tanks in my current fish room.

If my wife ever comes upstairs I'm in trouble lol. I've only been back in the hobby four months and I am out of control. Keeping these guppy strains separated is a hassle. I also have some Koi Swords with three females so that will get interesting soon. Wish I had skipped the large community tank for now. I have seven tanks and that doesn't include the tubs on the three seasons porch. The pet store guppies live out there. I really need some 40G Breeders, weed them up and let nature do a little more of the work.

And thanks again Jocelyn. You really saved me by giving me some floating weeds or I probably wouldn't have near the fry survival rate.

 

MTS strikes again. The 11 are not counting the tanks running empty or sitting in storage. There aren't that many of those though. I have to get have more space before I stock them seeing as the ones running are barely visible. Most of my other tanks are sitting in storage though.

 

MTS strikes again. The 11 are not counting the tanks running empty or sitting in storage. There aren't that many of those though. I have to get have more space before I stock them seeing as the ones running are barely visible. Most of my other tanks are sitting in storage though.

I am going to try not to make this any worse for awhile. My daughter is off to college and her old room would hold 30 20Gs without crowding lol. I can't afford all the lighting I need now. Can't grow guppy grass in the dark.

 

I've got 70 tanks overhere and 7 tubs outdoors. Not all with guppies in it but a reasonable number do. And those which are indoors aren't all in my fishroom. It just didn't fit!
So, other tanks are in another room and in my shed. Yesterday, I was playing with those tanks as well for some strains had to be replaced. And by the end of this week I will have more fish and now it turns out that I should be placing some more tanks... It turned out that I've miscounted the available space. Obviously, my brains couldn't handle the maths . Good thing that I've got some extra tanks in my storage. But on the other hand, I do have to admit that I'm a kind of lazy today to pick them up from my storage and prep them. Shame on me...!!!
But I'll do the set ups... If I want those fish, I should put some efforts in it...

 

Omg 70!

I also have 11, all planted, one without guppies. 2 are community (breeding rejects, one male one female) the rest are for breeding... five empty in the garage...have to pull out before my hubby can enter the passenger side, spare tanks are there...he loves that!

As for spare lights, I recently (two months ago) got chihiros series a leds, they are amazing. Realistically too much light for you, but they have seven light settings, if you keep it four or below you should be fine, only about 30 on eBay (a301 for 10 gallon tanks)... far superior to my finnex 24/7s or stingrays.... but that's in plant terms, not specifically for the fish.
Also, I mistakenly ordered a 12 inch stingray on Amazon for $30, it fits beautifully from front to back (not side to side) and grows lower light plants (wisteria, moss, anubias) just fine....

Edit for light pictures

12 inch stingray (tank in my 7yr olds room)



Chihiros series a 301 with the stand it comes with on a ten



Chihiros 301 on a 20long with separate stand ($4 for stand)



Older more established 40b with finnex 24/7

 

emeraldking Wow, my LFS does not even have 70 tanks.

Jocelyn Adelman I will check out the lights you recommend today. An aquarium specfic light truly good enough for plants is so much more expensive than I realized. I was about to buy a shop light just to have something for my 60G. Sun has moved so I am not catching the indirect light I was a month ago. That was a temporary idea anyway. I have most of the plants you sent on smaller tanks and they are thriving. They are also green algaed up which the fry love. Is that model of light advertised measurement total size including brackets. Looks like I would need two 60cms for my 48" wide tank. Still economical and I wouldn't mind a light that needed turned down.

Back on thread topic. Momma HB Blue is still enormous. She appears to be over 1/2" wide. I think these strains are going to yield the largest guppies I have ever owned. That doesn't necessarily make them great breeders but I think she is going to pop 40+ fry. We'll see.

 

emeraldking Wow, my LFS does not even have 70 tanks.

How small is that LFS?
I do breed specific strains of livebearers. So, you don't want to mix up certain breeds to avoid crossbreeding. So, that's why I need a certain number of tanks.

 

Small. They have 50 to 75 tanks. They try to stock better stuff. They can't compete with the chain stores who sell all the cheap fish.

 

Overhere, we also have some smaller lfs's which struggle to survive among the chain stores. But I myself love to go to the smaller ones. In general it's much more comfortable how they treat you. But like I said "in general" for there are also smaller ones that only focus on "just selling".

This afternoon I'll be going to deliver 5 bags of livebearers to an lfs again. This coming monday it's a holiday overhere but specific stores will be open that day. And this lfs likes to have some rare ones as an eyecatcher for the day.

 

Employees at my chains stores are nice. The stock is awful though. Particularly during summer. Literally only two or three fish of a species left to choose from. The terrible one's nobody wanted. I only have one great LFS, and he is the one I am breeding for. Just guppies and Koi swords for now.

 

I have a guppy tank with 12 female guppies, all pregnant when I bought them from the lfs. I find between 1 and 8 fry in their tank every 2-3 days. I have over 50 fry from these little drops in a separate fry tank now. I have lots of plants but I'm sure some fry have been eaten before I've saved them from the adult tank but it's still weird to keep finding just a few fry every few days. I thought multiple day drops was maybe a lfs guppy thing?

 

Most likely you just aren't finding them the first day... they usually drop overnight, but they can drop for ~48 hrs (would be very long for them though, not common, but can happen...usually only when first introduced to new tanks, stressful situations, etc)
12 huh, that's a lot of fry to come!
Most of my fry survive in the big tanks, you would be surprised that while some do eat them, most don't.

 

I agree Jocelyn. Most of my fry drops are 95% over in 4 hours or so, with just a few before or after that window. I only started this thread because I had fairly large drops 72hrs apart.

Chris, all bets are off when they come home from the LFS while very pregnant. It's pretty common for them to drop fry whether it's time or not. It can be tough to tell what's going on if they are not separated because they can drop just a few live fry, maybe some stillborns and it's usually over until next month. Young adults will frequently have a small batch the first time. You'll have all you need in any event lol.

 

And I continue to get a lesson how much I don't actually know about guppies. I have a HB Purple dropping fry for the third time. I'll have to check my records but I know it's well under 30 days. They look healthy so I guess it's OK. About 15 fry so far. Probably not a big drop. I have never had a fish do this before.

 

I could certainly miss a fish or two but not in the quantities she is dropping. I believe you on the 48hr part though. She has even stretched it to 72 hours which I have just not seen before. In my experience they drop 90% of their fry in under eight hours. At this point the 48 hour drops have just become normal. You would think these episodes would be about 28 days apart and they are not. I had her in a 10G with virtually few weeds yesterday so I could see what was going on pretty well. I had set up a larger tank for the main breeders so I took everybody else over. Anyway she dropped 15 total fry yesterday ending about 20 hours ago. She remains fairly large. I left her overnight to destress without the male harassing here. No fry this morning so I moved her over this morning so she could be with the good male at the right time and you guessed it. She dropped 24 today so far, in the past few hours. Maybe she is finally gong to get skinny. Jocelyn you are going to have to trust me that I didn't miss these fry because I moved her and the tank had no water in it yesterday. Or maybe the male is dropping fry? She is still fairly heavy and the male is on her bad so I expect a few more. Gotta move the floating weeds again lol.

Anyway it is unmanageable. I just need to weed these tanks up stupid thick and be happy my adults don't hunt them. Both of the quality strains are good about that. I can net them out and throw them in the grow out tank.