29 Gallon Tank Feeder vs fancy guppies

Hi, a couple days ago I purchased a fancy guppy, along with 4 feeder guppies. The feeders were a lot smaller than the fancy guppies, and were in cold water. One of the feeders I bought looked like a smaller version of one of the fancy ones. I got the feeders so I could watch them grow, I thought that would be cool. I read somewhere that feeders may be runts, but are just guppies bred without their mates being chosen for them, not for specific looks. Is this true? What is the difference? Should the feeder guppies have heat, but didn't only because they're just for food?

 

Feeder guppies are still guppies so need the same care/treatment.

I don't know for sure, but it seems that 'fancy guppies' don't have their mates chosen either. I would tend to think that the feeder guppies are either females (therefore not as 'fancy' as the males) or young guppies. Often, 'feeder guppies' turn out to be endlers or endler/guppy hybrids.

 

I thought they would need the same care.. I bought them at my local pet shop near my house, so the trip home was short, making sure I would have enough time to let them float to warm their bag water.. And since these are some of my first few fish for this aquarium, I was pretty picky.. I picked 3 with bigger tails and brighter colours, but when the girl was trying to catch my 3rd, she caught a little yellow-brown plain looking one, but I said I would take it anyways. Now that they're in the tank, the only female is the little yellow one.. But there were way more like that one, than ones with the brighter colours like the males.
And since you said that they need the same care/treatment, and the tank they were in didn't have heat, which it seems like it should have, do you think there will be any problems with these fish, from being kept in cold water?

 

I wouldn't think so, guppies are pretty adaptable. Their temperature range is from 66-80, so I doubt it bothered them. https://www.fishlore.com/Profiles-Guppy.htm

You really should do some water transferring before putting new fish in the tank, there is more to get used to than just temperature. I use drip acclimation, but you could use the 'swap' method by adding 1/2 to 1 cup of water to the fishes' bag every 15 minutes or so, while also removing the same amount of water. Guppies are pretty hardy, so I doubt floating them and dumping them in would affect them much, but if you get into more delicate species it's best if you know how to properly acclimate them to the tank environment

Edit to add that female guppies are usually bigger than males, so either you have a very young female or she is something else (like an endler).

 

I didn't get too in depth with that, but yes I was told to do this a couple days before getting the guppies, so I let them sit in the bag for about a half hour, then added some water to the bag a few times before letting them out.. It took a bit over an hour. But thanks. I didn't know that they could live in that cold of water, I thought it was around 72-82 degrees.. Good to know. My tank is at 78.5 degrees currently. I hope they do well, because I only have one female out of the 5, and it would be really cool to have babies.

 

It seems that they need higher temps if you want them to breed like rabbits, but I could be wrong on that

 

Most feeder guppies are pond raised and there is not effort made to breed for any specific look. Fancy guppies are line breed.

 

shelleyd2008 Do you mean higher than what I have? Or just high as opposed to the colder temperatures they can live in?
and marine590622 That's kind of what I thought, but are the feeder guppies pretty much just the fancy guppies with less colour, or a smaller tail? Like they're the same type of guppy pretty much, right? Just the appearance is different?

 

The high end of their temperature, but as I said I'm not sure about that.

A guppy is a guppy is a guppy...the 'fancy' guppies have just been bred to express a certain trait, where the pond (feeder) guppies have been allowed to breed at will.

 

A while back during hurricane sandy my heater went out in my guppy fry tank...Since it took me a few says to get back out to the LPS, they went with out a heater. Well during this time they must have adapted will to the cooler waters because when I tried to add a new heater, even with raising the temp very veryy slowly on the 2nd try, they still did not like it.

Anyway, my getting to my main point lol. I have one guppy tank with plenty of babies and adults that has no heater. And this is one of my few tanks lately that has given me zero problems.

The one problem that I do forsee for you is your male to female ratio. You are going to need to add some more females or your one female is going to be harrassed and tormented into an early death by the boys constantly trying to mate with her.

 

It sounds like you intended to get all males? Maybe the store would let you bring the lone female back and trade her for a boy?

I think you would have to get a pregnant female to see any amount of growth on a guppy. I bought 5 (received 7) from an eBay seller. They were juveniles, and to me they were pretty small. We've had them about a month I guess and I don't notice any size difference in them. The only thing that really looks different is the girls are getting fatter and the boys are getting more color

 

Basically Guppies are guppies are guppies they are the same species just like a great dane is the the species as s spriner spaniel. If you great danes and great pyrenes and huskies and chows etc etc etc and throgh the in a place where they can just breed at will you will end up with mutts. You will have a wide range of looks to the mutts but you will have mutts. After enough generations you will have a a mess. Well with breeder fish you have a much shorter generational period. so in a much shorter period of time you have fish that look nothing like the fish you started with. They are still the same species. Just not recognizable as any specific type of guppy.

I hope that helps explain the difference.

 

Thanks for your time, and yes it does help. about the male to female ratio, I never really thought about it that way, when I got home and realized the one was a female, I was excited that maybe with 4 males and 1 female, she would get pregnant faster, and I would get to have little baby guppies. But that does make sense.. Do you know what size the guppies will be, when they start to mate? Because the female is tiny.. Less than an inch and I can see inside her because she's so clear. One male is around the same size, one a little bigger, and one between an inch and a half, and the fancy guppy I have is almost 2 inches. (all measurements including tails) Do you think the female will be fine for a while, since they seem pretty young?

 

I read on another thread that by 3 weeks the females are pregnant

 

Wow that's crazy! I'll definitely keep a close eye on my little guppies and will probably just return the female for a male, because I don't really wanna go getting too many females, and have an overstocked tank before I know it. Would you know the approximate age of guppies that are around an inch in length?