Female Guppies In A Small Tank

[Kirahn]

I'm looking for opinions on keeping 2 female guppies in a 2.5 gallon tank. I have two female guppies I don't want to give up, but I want to get them out of my 20 gallon community tank so they no longer get pregnant. My daughter is attached to her 'Mommy' guppies but we have 4 male guppies in the big tank and these girls get no rest. I have an old 2.5 gallon bowfront with filters and a heater I can setup with some live plants for them and I want to know if that will be enough for them to be happy. Any Fry they have in the small tank will be re-homed.

 

[Lacey D]

I'm looking for opinions on keeping 2 female guppies in a 2.5 gallon tank. I have two female guppies I don't want to give up, but I want to get them out of my 20 gallon community tank so they no longer get pregnant. My daughter is attached to her 'Mommy' guppies but we have 4 male guppies in the big tank and these girls get no rest. I have an old 2.5 gallon bowfront with filters and a heater I can setup with some live plants for them and I want to know if that will be enough for them to be happy. Any Fry they have in the small tank will be re-homed.

I believe that could work if you did frequent water changes. But a 10 gallon would be a much better size, if you could manage it. And unfortunately guppy females don't stop getting pregnant just because they are removed from males--they can re-impregnate themselves with stored sperm for pretty much their entire lives. So you WILL continue to have batches of fry...but probably overall happier females since they will not be harassed as often.

 

[Kirahn]

I believe that could work if you did frequent water changes. But a 10 gallon would be a much better size, if you could manage it. And unfortunately guppy females don't stop getting pregnant just because they are removed from males--they can re-impregnate themselves with stored sperm for pretty much their entire lives. So you WILL continue to have batches of fry...but probably overall happier females since they will not be harassed as often.

Yeah I'm expecting they will continue to have fry but I also want to make it easier to re-home those fry without stressing all the other fish in the 20 gallon when we attempt to catch them all. I want to get one or two easily removed plants for the 2.5 gallon to make it quick and easy to remove all the fry.

 

[Guanchy]

I would not be worried about they having fry again (and they will) because in that small tank size I'm sure those babies will have no chance they would get eaten by the females. If not you can always take the fry out into your big tank and your other fish would appreciate it! lol

 

[Kirahn]

I would not be worried about they having fry again (and they will) because in that small tank size I'm sure those babies will have no chance they would get eaten by the females. If not you can always take the fry out into your big tank and your other fish would appreciate it! lol

That's part of the problem, lol. We got female guppies so my daughter could see the circle of life, so to speak. We expected most of the fry would not survive. But we were wrong, none seem to get eaten at all and the tank gets overcrowded constantly. We got these fish in April and we've already taken 4-5 batches of 30+ fry back to our local Fish store to "re-home". We started out with 4 females and 2 males but 2 of the females died right after first giving birth and we haven't replaced them. We now have 4 males 2 of which were born in the big tank.

Maybe in the smaller tank the females will eat them, and that would be fine. But, if not I'm hoping the smaller tank makes it easier to catch them.

 

[Guanchy]

hahah oh Guppies! they are like rabbits!!

but I love them. Hopefully keeping them in the small tank would help and it'll definitely be easier to catch.

Another idea would be to get a breeding box. and place the females there when they are ready to drop some fry, that way you keep all the babies in one container and don't have to worry about catching them.

I have this one and it works great for me.

I have one of these external hang on back breeder box



its great

 

[Kirahn]

Yeah I thought about a breeding box but I have yet to catch one of the females actually having the fry so I don't know if I could decide the best time to put them in the box. That's why I thought about using the small tank. Plus there are just too many males in the big tank and I want them to be happy.

 

[Guanchy]

Its not that difficult. Guppies if I'm not mistaken have fry every 28 days of so. So if you count 28 days from the last day she had fry, put them in the breeding box, That's what I used to do with guppies and they would have the fry next day or maybe two days after. What I like about this breeding boxes is that they are spacious so female guppies are not stress out in a tiny little box