FRYYYY!!!

Success is mine!!!!! I have two gorgeous, tiny, adorable, healthy, little Guppy fry!!!! At least, I think they're from one of my Guppies, and the other one is reaallly fat. Of course they probably won't be great quality, since they were by who-knows-who at the pet store, but I don't care. I don't know how I'll be able to bring myself to sell them :'( Hopefully I can get a male Guppy and Platy soon so I can breed lots of beautiful fry. Anyway, I have a few questions. First, how much money (US) do you think I can convince the lfs to pay for nice big, colorful Platies and Guppies? (By the way, I've noticed that the store I have in mind rarely has any good Guppies or Platies.) Also, if I manage to convince the owner to buy them, how the heck do I get them from my house to the store? (Fortunately it's pretty close.) And, you experienced breeders, do you have any tactics for convincing fish store owners that these are the best fish they'll ever buy? Any tips on growing the fry big and healthy? (They stay in the regular tank, and I let them forage for their own food.) Right now my fry are about 1/2 inch long and starting to show a bit of color in the tail, and very hyper! I'll keep you posted on how they're doing.

 

Congrats on your fry! You won't get much for them, so you'd have to sell a lot of them to support your hobby. Guppys, mollies, and platys are what they call "bread and butter" fish, because they don't cost much at the lfs, and people usually buy them as their first fish in the hobby, which means they usually replace them a lot until they learn how to keep their fish alive. Those are the fish the lfs sells the most of. This is not meant to put these fish down, they are all beautiful, but that's the way they are looked at from a lfs point of view. I think you'd enjoy them much more if you kept them for yourself instead of worrying about producing lots of fry to sell.

 

Sometimes the lfs will take fry in trade for food, plants or other fish. Very rarely will they give you money and never what you think they are worth. Enjoy your fry and keep us posted.
Carol

 

Yeah its pretty doubtful a shop will buy them off you but they might offer a trade, I asked some here and they were only willing to do a livestock trade

 

I got fryyy tooooo!!! Well just one little platy but he's SOOOO cute! He just popped out on thursday all on his own. He's in a breeding net for the moment just till he gets bigger although I'm surprised at how big he already is. He's eating well and swimming around very happily. Haven't got a name yet... ;D

 

Reeealy delayed update, but I've decided not to breed because I can't find any male Platies that aren't sick! > I'm keeping my two little babies, who are an inch long and really colorful now. I think I'll find another type of fish to breed, maybe Killies. Not really for profit, but just for fun.

 

Most killis have to be kept in a species tank and their eggs have to be taken out and stored away in special substrate for months before the eggs are ready. Very interesting though