Guppy Selective Breeding!!

Tiny sponge filters with one air pump and diverter valves are the easiest. If your more of a traditional filter guy I had good luck with quietflow e3s modified with some sponge over the intake and various medias inside. I also networked a bunch of little tubs and that was ok but harder to service. Heater wise is tricky but in my shallow tank I'm using a nicrew nano heater with preset temperature control and a float safety switch and it has been great, just have to run the siphon across the top of it when cleaning to keep it's internal float switch clean.

 

I have an air pump with two outlets and two gang valves - a 4 way and a 2 way. I could run six small sponges off that. Right now the pump is running two large sponges and one small. But I think I have some air flow to spare.

 

What kind of heating a filtering do you use for the small tanks? I guess I could pick up a bunch of sponge filters cheap. Maybe use some tupperware tubs. Although tupperware tubs would be difficult to view. Maybe get some 5 gal tanks at the next Petco $1 a gallon sale.

Room temp is usually around 74 deg. But can dip colder in the winter. We usually do not turn the heat on when it gets cold because here in Florida, the cold does not last and I hate to run the heat for a few days when I know I will be turning the AC back on soon. Might get down to the mid to high 60's in the house for a few days when it gets cold. Is that going to do them much harm?

My 5.5 has a 50watt heater and a small sponge filter.

 

My only suggestion is to do daily Siphoning or partial water changes, of at least 10% per day, because crowded guppies release hormones that will stunt the growth of smaller fish...….

 

I have gotten all but two of my males separated into the 20 long. The last two are proving elusive. Hopefully will capture them soon. As I am learning more about breeding and genetics, I am coming to believe that some of my initial ideas were flawed. But I think trying them out with the feeder guppies will be educational.

I am finding that the selection process is difficult not only in choosing the characteristics to select for, but also just capturing the selected fish. I can see why breeder tanks are so stark.

But part of my journey is to create a comfortable low stress environment for my fish. I guess that will make the process more difficult.

My thinking as been that my females will be in a maternity tank and I will pull males as I can identify them. But I can see that this will be a more difficult and time consuming process than I thought. Now thinking that having a battery of 5 and 10 gallon tanks will be useful since it is easier to capture one pregnant female than a bunch of fry, juvies or males.

Perhaps I could get a bunch of 5 gallon tanks, let them sit empty, fill when needed, stick a sponge filter in there and do frequent water changes to keep water clean and healthy and not worry about cycling. Get a bunch of sponge filters and keep them in cycled tanks and in the future have some instant cycle capability.

Would a 5 gallon tank be suitable temporary housing for one pregnant female for a week or two until she drops fry? Then take momma out and leave the fry in there for a while. I guess if it was small drop I might be able to leave the fry in a 5 until I could sex them. But if it was a large drop, I would probably need a 10.

I can see how this could explode into many multiple tanks really fast.

GuppyDazzle - You can say; "I told you so now".....

 

Would a 5 gallon tank be suitable temporary housing for one pregnant female for a week or two until she drops fry? Then take momma out and leave the fry in there for a while. I guess if it was small drop I might be able to leave the fry in a 5 until I could sex them. But if it was a large drop, I would probably need a 10.

A 5G will work well for breeders. Personally, I set up breeders and leave the males in until the females are ready to drop. Once the females drops fry, I move her to another tank and raise the fry in the 5G for about a month until I can start separating sexes.

I know a lot people pull out the males. I have better luck identifying females by their gravid spots. Once I start moving females to another tank, I know that other tank only has females and there won't be a sneaky male in there to ruin the bunch. I will miss some once in a while, and a female will become evident after the males start to mature. Those that may have been hit are sent to the cull tanks.

 

I have better luck identifying females by their gravid spots. Once I start moving females to another tank, I know that other tank only has females and there won't be a sneaky male in there to ruin the bunch. I will miss some once in a while, and a female will become evident after the males start to mature. Those that may have been hit are sent to the cull tanks.

This seems like a good system. Right now I am just trying to identify my starter stock. I am working on an all female tank. But I have several very pregnant females in there right now. And some unsexed juvies. As the juvies develop and the females drop fry, it will be an on-going battle to keep the males out.

Will have to give this some thought.

I would like to add genetic diversity on an on-going basis. I was originally thinking that I would trade many culled for one choice at LFS. But you can get 20 for $1 so maybe I will give them the culled and buy 20 or 40 new ones. Bring them home, but them in a quarantine tank. Pick one or two and then put the rest in the cull tank.

Every so often I could repeat this process. Develop an eye for what I am looking for.

 

I am thinking that no matter how I cut it, this is going to more work than I thought. Now wondering if I look at it more like an experiment than trying to accomplish anything in particular.

Take three similar looking males and six random virgins on one tank.

Three similar looking males but different from the other three with six random virgins in another tank.

And see what happens.

 

QUOTE="Sorg67, post: 4358905, member: 117297"]
Perhaps I could get a bunch of 5 gallon tanks, let them sit empty, fill when needed, stick a sponge filter in there and do frequent water changes to keep water clean and healthy and not worry about cycling. Get a bunch of sponge filters and keep them in cycled tanks and in the future have some instant cycle capability.
[/QUOTE]
This is why I got so good and experienced with the instant cycle stuff we have been talking about. In my first 4 generations, I culled 100% of the adults after suitable numbers in a drop, it wasn't until my current generation that I found what I was looking for (with 100% of the males from a drop off the current targeted line) and have decided to let the same females drop multiple times. I would often have 3-4 months with no fry before putting the males and females back together, and so in my case, using the 1 gallon tubs, back into the dishwasher and wife's kitchen cabinets they would go.

I personally found it easiest to use ceramic rings as my media because it takes up so little space in whatever filter I want to stuff it in, but it is easier to declare a sponge filter fry safe so I understand that too. All my nano box filters would be gutted of original media, have a 3/4" sponge rubber banded to the intake, and I would just drop in the appropriate number of certain rings for the tub I needed to put fish in. Usually they cycled up to the load within days and I never lost a fish to ammonia or nitrite poisoning.

They do make sponge corner filters with a compartment for ceramic rings or balls, if you decide to do it where you breed a cycle and grow them out completely, you might find it the easiest style to keep handy. Drop the rings when not being used into whatever HOB you have running when you don't need them, wash the sponges and put them away dry. I'll make a thread real quick where I did this to a HOB (just set one up for a QT tank, due to illness in my store bought tiger endlers the drag race will have to wait) the technique is similar for a nano box filter like the quiet flow e series but instead of floss inside, I just use the sponge as a washable pre filter and I haven't had any water clarity issues.

 

This seems like a good system. Right now I am just trying to identify my starter stock. I am working on an all female tank. But I have several very pregnant females in there right now. And some unsexed juvies. As the juvies develop and the females drop fry, it will be an on-going battle to keep the males out.

Will have to give this some thought.

I would like to add genetic diversity on an on-going basis. I was originally thinking that I would trade many culled for one choice at LFS. But you can get 20 for $1 so maybe I will give them the culled and buy 20 or 40 new ones. Bring them home, but them in a quarantine tank. Pick one or two and then put the rest in the cull tank.

Every so often I could repeat this process. Develop an eye for what I am looking for.

I think you're on exactly the right track and are asking the right questions, which suggests you've been putting a lot of thought into it. I like your idea of using feeders since that's going to be the most wide open gene pool, and you can observe the process from the beginning with very little consistent genetics, then how selective breeding will create genetics that result in particular visible traits. I'm not a genetics expert, but in genetic discussions you will hear a lot about genotype (DNA) and phenotype (resulting visible trait).

I do have a suggestion to consider. Why not use LFS fancy guppies? They're about five or six bucks apiece, and they've already had some selective breeding. If you use feeders, you'll probably get to a point where you are producing regular LFS type fancy guppies. If you use mainstream fancy guppies from an LFS instead, you'll save a lot of time. It will be few bucks, but they're going to start reproducing right away, and if your water is maintained well you'll soon have guppies coming out of your ears.

 

GuppyDazzle The more I learn about line breeding, the more it interests me. The science, record keeping, systems, process is all appealing to me. There is a good chance I will try that at some point. But for the moment, I am fascinated about the idea of pulling something interesting out of feeders. I have the idea that fancy guppies might devolve more quickly into less colorful fish in colonies than feeders because their fanciness was brought out in lines. If instead I start with mutts, I might be able to find colorful mutts. I like the of small quick colorful fish. My initial pool has a lot of orange, purple, green and black. Those colors look cool to me. The fins are all clear. And they are all mostly normally shaped. A few unusual shapes, but I like the efficient look of normal fins.

I picture small active, healthy, resilient, fish that were drawn out of a feeder tank. I am fascinated with the idea. Especially if I can develop traits that would be relatively stable in a colony. So we will see. Many have said it cannot be done. That just makes me want to try and see what is possible. I have got a few similar looking fish with the colors I like. I probably have a few hundred fry coming my way over the next few months. Seems like I should be able to find a handful of promising candidates out of the pool. And if I get an eye for the characteristics I am looking for I can start hunting through feeder tanks in town.

Perhaps I will isolate a few pairs to see if I can find some good females to start with too. And maybe I will develop an eye for promising females. In fact that might be what the real hunt will be for. John58ford gave me some tips for what to look for in the females. Maybe I would give 100 culled fish for one choice female.

All the fanciest guppies started as common wild guppies. Who knows, I could start a whole new line from scratch. My picture could be on the cover of the Guppy Gazette....... Okay, getting a bit ahead of myself. I still have to figure out how to catch a couple more males. Although the females seem much easier to catch so I may go that way next time.

 

I have been thinking about putting a male Betta in the 20 long with my males. But I am now thinking that the Betta might be a better fit in the female tank. They are a lot more mellow.

Then I could take one or two of my very pregnant females and put them in the 10 that my Betta is in now and isolate a fry drop or two.

 

I just read an article about the stability of a certain hue of orange in male guppies in a variety of environments:

They call it 'guppy love': Biologists solve an evolution mystery

The article states that the orange coloration is a result of a combination of diet and genetics. So it is curious that it would remain constant in environments with varied diets. The article concludes that the stability of this color is due to natural selection by females. They prefer this color and select males with this color which evolves the specific genetics to produce that color in the specific environment.

This is fascinating. In my feeder guppy population, orange is a common color. It makes me think that orange would be a good focus color for my colony breeding project. But it might be a color that might not be stable in a different environment.

I had originally wanted to develop a colony of wild like Endlers. That idea still appeals to me. But before I invest in expensive N strain Endlers and then mess them up due to ignorance, I am working on developing a colony of wild like Guppies. My "wild-like" traits would be small, normal fins, active, hardy, easy to care for. But I would like more colorful than typical wild guppies.

So colorful will be the challenge. Key to developing colorful characteristics that will survive in a colony will be choosing common, dominant characteristics. And perhaps ones that females will prefer. This will require some experimentation. So I need to form the experiments. Following are some ideas:

1. Choose a male I like, pair with a random female and see how the progeny develop.
2. Choose three similar looking males and six random females, establish a colony and see how the colony evolves over a few generations.
3. Try #2 above, but cull males who do not show desired characteristics.

#3 is sort of what I started thinking. But I have learned that culling selected fish from a colony is really difficult. It has taken me a week to remove 15 males from my colony in an effort to stop the breeding. I have one left to go.

I have to be realistic about the time I am willing to devote to the project. Random colony breeding is easiest.

So perhaps most practical would be #2 above.

Thanks to all who have contributed to my evolving education.

John58ford
emeraldking
GuppyDazzle
PascalKrypt
Momgoose56
Ethan30
Mcasella
FinalFins
blindfaith429

 

Biggest hing is going to be having females that aren't prehit by other males than the selected ones, because those genetics will show up in the drops.

 

Biggest hing is going to be having females that aren't prehit by other males than the selected ones, because those genetics will show up in the drops.

Yes, I understand this principle. I am planning to get a virgin population of females going. Right now, I have about 7 juvies - about three weeks old. Some of them are showing what I think are gravid spots. I am not going to worry about segregating them as I believe I have hundreds coming from the existing females. But it makes me believe I will be able to identify females early and get them segregated. I am finding that pulling fish from a 40 gallon colony tank is extremely difficult. So I think I am going to isolate drops in smaller tank where I think sorting will be easier.

I plan on isolating some pregnant females to get a pure fry drop. And then pull the females into a virgin only tank. I will then use these virgin females with my selected males. Maybe I will be able to select females out of drops that include males with the characteristics I am looking for. However, this would require a lot of tanks to keep all these fish separate and identifiable. I may have to accept some suboptimal procedures in the interest of keeping to a realistic time commitment.

However, it seems that dealing with strictly virgin females is an essential procedure.

 

Yes, I understand this principle. I am planning to get a virgin population of females going. Right now, I have about 7 juvies - about three weeks old. Some of them are showing what I think are gravid spots. I am not going to worry about segregating them as I believe I have hundreds coming from the existing females. But it makes me believe I will be able to identify females early and get them segregated. I am finding that pulling fish from a 40 gallon colony tank is extremely difficult. So I think I am going to isolate drops in smaller tank where I think sorting will be easier.

I plan on isolating some pregnant females to get a pure fry drop. And then pull the females into a virgin only tank. I will then use these virgin females with my selected males. Maybe I will be able to select females out of drops that include males with the characteristics I am looking for. However, this would require a lot of tanks to keep all these fish separate and identifiable. I may have to accept some suboptimal procedures in the interest of keeping to a realistic time commitment.

However, it seems that dealing with strictly virgin females is an essential procedure.

You can also separate a pregnant female until she stops dropping fry (cull the fry unless you are going for more females) then use her as a breeder (she will run out of sperm).
If you do divided tanks you want to completely secure the sides from each other (including jumping capabilities) honestly using glass panels siliconed in place with mesh over the top of them to prevent jumpers (separate filters for the sides) would be easiest to prevent mix ups/accidental breedings.

 

You can also separate a pregnant female until she stops dropping fry (cull the fry unless you are going for more females) then use her as a breeder (she will run out of sperm).

How long do you have to wait? I have heard six months.

My previous thought was to get the males out of my female tank, let them drop fry there and pull the males as I could identify them. But removing the males is proving difficult. It has taken me a week to get 14 or 15 out. I have one left. It seems the on-going process of pulling males before they hit any females would be nearly impossible. That is why I am thinking that isolating drops and pulling females out of each drop to form a virgin tank will be most reliable.

I have one very pregnant female that I am surprised has not dropped already. Thinking reducing male pressure might induce a drop. I have maybe three more decent sized females who look a week or two away from a drop. And some small females who look like they may also be pregnant.

My decent sized females are about an inch, maybe a bit more. My smaller sized females are around 1/2 to 3/4 inch.

(cull the fry unless you are going for more females)

I was thinking of culling all my adults and forming my colony out of second generation. But you raise a good point. There could be some benefit from using a more mature proven breeder. Reliably fertile and expected to yield more fry.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

Six months seems pretty accurate, could be less, maybe more?

But yes, female livebearers can hold the male contribution for a long time.

 

How long do you have to wait? I have heard six months.

My previous thought was to get the males out of my female tank, let them drop fry there and pull the males as I could identify them. But removing the males is proving difficult. It has taken me a week to get 14 or 15 out. I have one left. It seems the on-going process of pulling males before they hit any females would be nearly impossible. That is why I am thinking that isolating drops and pulling females out of each drop to form a virgin tank will be most reliable.

I have one very pregnant female that I am surprised has not dropped already. Thinking reducing male pressure might induce a drop. I have maybe three more decent sized females who look a week or two away from a drop. And some small females who look like they may also be pregnant.

My decent sized females are about an inch, maybe a bit more. My smaller sized females are around 1/2 to 3/4 inch.

Thanks for the feedback.

A previous female I separated out had only three drops of fry before she stopped dropping fry, it depends on the fish and how much sperm is stored.

Once you start noticing you'll start spotting males as early as 3 weeks old, if you stare at them long enough you'll probably be able to do it now. The gravid spot isn't always accurate on feeders, sometimes you won't catch the female before she is pregnant.

Add some extra surface cover for her to hide in, comfort will make them drop sooner, if there are fewer hiding places she will try to hold the fry in.

 

Right after I got the fish from the feeder tank, I had one drop the next day and another a few days later. Nothing since then. Wondering if the first two had been holding due to harsh feeder tank conditions. My tank, while not optimal, was better. Others maybe holding out for better. One seems over-due to me, but that is to a novice eye.

Do you think I could form a suitable maternity tank out of a 10?

If I did, should it be one female at a time?

 

Number 3 is how I kept it under control before setting up my network tanks, now I'm keeping more males and culling less but they are all going in a male only display tank. In the female/breeder area I still only plan to introduce the males of my choosing, I don't think I'll ever introduce the females to a colony since I'm not trying to churn out snake food anymore. My most recent breeding session I kept 3 females through term, in the last month and a half I've already got 30+ in juvie and newborn. Once I get the virgin females seperated I'm switching strain (want some chilI babies).

The colony will probably work out for you, the females will limit their drops as the population booms, but keep an eye out for discomfort. I don't know for sure but it may be similar to eggbound in other species, before removing juvies the other day one of my females looked unhealthy level huge, I pulled the juvies reducing pressure and within an hour she shot out 10 more. Another female I have noticed any signs of being ready to drop let out 3 more at the same time.

You have built a great list of currently active people that I view as a resource as well. Nice threads.

 

I found another fry. Does not look brand new, maybe a few days, but this is the first I have seen. So maybe only a few hours old. I do not have a good eye for age yet. Wonder if my big one is releasing slowly. Or maybe a young female dropped a small batch. Or maybe looks more developed because my big one held on for a while.

My male tanks is becoming a display tank. I think I am going to follow that plan. Breeding blended with display. Get to know my males a bit. Pick out my breeders.

 

Following is a guppy coloration study:

Pigment Pattern Formation in the Guppy, Poecilia reticulata, Involves the Kita and Csf1ra Receptor Tyrosine Kinases

I have a number of males that look like the "wild type" pictured in this study. That makes sense since feeders are essentially wild type.

The wild type looks cool to me. I am wondering if I can bring out this coloration. Not try to change it, just bring it out. It seems that it is not just a genetic thing. Some of the colors develop differently after birth. I wonder if I can create colony conditions that allow bright colors to develop. Seems like it has to do with predation. So if I create a very healthy, low stress, well fed, good water environment would I bring out the wild type colors?

 

I went nerd for a good half hour on that. My EGM choice females look very similar to the first photo set golden mutant females. My makes look nothing like anything there though (likely due to the endler cross breeding before I bought the first generation).

As far as bringing it the colors, I commented in someone else's thread about how the environment and socialization between males alone significantly changes the way they appear. My males are usually full color for only certain parts of the day, they have very expressive pupils, and the colors will follow. As they go about the day of dance battles they pretty much take turns being the brightest male in the tank. The ones I have that are closest to the peacock endler in appearance will bleach out their black tail spots and the electric green around them, the orange bar rarely fades. My alpha of those three actually has electric green false swords in his tail, when he's really mad the green turns black. With the chilI hybrid he has no electric green at all and his orange star in his tail turns white when he loses. The sunset is a less common endler hybrid though boring in full color, when he is defeated his lower half which is usually bright orange turns pink and his silver upper turns purple. The sunset and the chilI are much slower to change colors but they can do it in less than a half hour each way. When I had the huge super Delta betta in there I didn't really notice any difference but the poor super Delta was far from his choice flow in the lazy river configuration and never even chased them but they never bothered him either. They may not have recognized him as a predator. I'm currently trying to acclimate a young copper Plakat male to moderate current and will try him in there if he ever catches on. I tried to convince my wife to let me pick up a plakat coi betta female for this but she doesn't find them all that attractive, I personally like the camo look and think they would be perfect for moderate current and may put on a sporting guppy chase, she however is the betta boss in the house.

Strangely enough all my males were bred in a predator tank and I have no idea how they would have turned out with different stress levels. I do think with a faux predator like a betta or gourami they may squabble less. I saw far less dance battling in the breeding pond when I had the males in there. They saved the dancing for the females, and I once saw the alpha dance for the snake... Confused little guy, after that stunt I had to rescue him from the snake half of the tank, couldn't tell if he jumped out or if the snake flung him. The snake wasn't hunting, just soaking so I've always assumed the EGM jumped after his dance, about 8 inches into the bark, the snake didn't follow, or even leave the water while I dug the guppy out.

I do know though that my water has been nothing short of as perfect as possible since I figured out how much bio load shock capability I needed and have kept enough plants in there the nitrates never break 5 ppm, even after the snake leaves a present or after dividing crypts. My little "pest snails" play a bigger part in that than I expected as I have observed the plants foul and melt allot quicker/messier in the tanks I have not introduced them to. The breeding pond has an abundance of tadpole and ramshorn snails and I have only introduced a handful of ramshorns and a mystery snail to the show tank network as I worry the tadpoles may cause undue maintenance issues with the complex plumbing and pump works. My melting crypts in the network look nowhere near as nice as the ones in the breeder despite being divided off the same mother plant. The little snails are like an army of gardeners. My hardness has been a bit lower than the usual recommended for endlers or even common guppy but I haven't noticed any deformities in the fry. I will be playing with buffering in the future but I expect 3-6 months until I cross that bridge as the community stock in the network system hasn't been stable enough yet. I won't buffer my nano tanks individually due to likely swings and number chasing. Once the 60 gallons of network is stable it is where I will play with natural buffering, using certain natural rocks, coral and shells. I've been using locally sourced rocks to maintain the buffer in my nano tanks as they match the make up of my well water. I'm just not a big fan of chemicals.

As far as feed, I have never been a champion, I rotate through tetra tropical flake, tetra color pro, freeze dried blood worms and occasionally crush up some excess new life spectrum small betta pellets as I don't use near enough of them for the actual bettas they were bought for, I don't let my food go more than 3 months open, and even at that allot of people give dried food a 1 month open shelf life.

If you are going to run 60 combined gallons plus of wild guppy breeding experiments maybe you would be a good candidate for hatching brine shrimp and exploring the world of live nano foods. I haven't had the time or enough stock to eat the minimum quantities quick enough. I have read in breeding research that it is beneficial for quicker development of fry, possibly one of the environmental variables you would be looking at to produce a more wild guppy.

I totally agree with your theory that environment will n time influence coloration, it's possible that my guys can go from full electric rainbows to white in under 5 minutes, then back again due to being bred up in a predator tank. Though none of my local aqaurium buddies have endler hybrids, many have fancy guppy fraternities and they don't see much if any color changing other than based on their light cycles. I'm also only on generation 5 going through grow out though so I don't know if any of what I have done could have changed nature yet. I am certain however that my selectiveness has directed the dominant color pattern of the fry I'm dropping.

Well, it appears I wrote a book, my apologies for the of topic nuance lol. This is the quality writing you get from me after midnight when I'm up with a chest cold. Nice research, thanks for sharing.

 

Nice write up. Very informative. I wonder about the permanence vs transitory coloration impact of environment. Transitory makes more sense as you have observed. But I read the study to suggest that there is some permanent color development after birth.

It makes sense to me that line bred guppies would have less transitory color changes since their color is brought out in a different process.

I like the idea of developing some brine shrimp.

Studying the pictures of the wild guppies leads me to believe that my group has little if any Endler DNA. But there are some distinct mutations that look like some of these may be descended from cast off of line breeding activities.

So I am thinking I will look for the most wild type characteristics I can find. I wonder if wild type characteristics would naturally evolve without influence. Thinking maybe to a degree. Many perhaps most of these are descended from guppies that have been captive for a long time and have evolved from wild type characteristics. OTOH, I think I read that guppies have been around for about 500,000 years so a few decades of captive evolution would probably still retain significant wild type characteristics.

Will be interesting to see. I guess I am more motivated to observe and see what happens more than to try to create anything in particular. Perhaps the observations of what happens will be useful in a future project with more purpose.

[EDIT]
Found more new ones. Think I have six or so. Cannot tell who is dropping. My really pregnant one looks just a pregnant. If she is dropping slowly then there are a lot more to come. Or maybe multiple small drops from some smaller females.

I was thinking of pulling the really pregnant one today and putting her in a maternity tank. But if she has already started dropping, maybe not a good idea to stress her by moving.

Anyway to tell if she is in the process of dropping?

 

Up to 12 fry last night. Might have lost a few overnight. Difficult to count.

I want to move a very pregnant female to a maternity tank so I can isolate a fry drop. But I do not want to stress her by chasing her around the tank.

There is still one male in the female tank. He is beginning to behave differently. Hangs out near the bottom. Seems to be breathing rapidly. I have chased him a little, but not that much. I would not think I have stressed him much. But he does seem very wary when I try to catch him so he may feel a bit of pressure.

It seems that smaller, barren tanks are much easier to deal with. But not really the experience I am seeking.

The education continues.

[EDIT]
I was able to capture a pregnant female and put her in the maternity tank. It was not the one I wanted, but at least I have one so I will be able to isolate a fry drop at some point. Still want to get the big one, but I will have to be patient.

In the process, I captured a few and left them in a specimen box for an hour or so. When I put them back in the tank, they were ghost while. Freaky looking. They are behaving normally. I wonder what the color change was. Stress? Lake of O2? Adjusting to a different environment? Interesting......

 

Up to 12 fry last night. Might have lost a few overnight. Difficult to count.

I want to move a very pregnant female to a maternity tank so I can isolate a fry drop. But I do not want to stress her by chasing her around the tank.

There is still one male in the female tank. He is beginning to behave differently. Hangs out near the bottom. Seems to be breathing rapidly. I have chased him a little, but not that much. I would not think I have stressed him much. But he does seem very wary when I try to catch him so he may feel a bit of pressure.

It seems that smaller, barren tanks are much easier to deal with. But not really the experience I am seeking.

The education continues.

[EDIT]
I was able to capture a pregnant female and put her in the maternity tank. It was not the one I wanted, but at least I have one so I will be able to isolate a fry drop at some point. Still want to get the big one, but I will have to be patient.

In the process, I captured a few and left them in a specimen box for an hour or so. When I put them back in the tank, they were ghost while. Freaky looking. They are behaving normally. I wonder what the color change was. Stress? Lake of O2? Adjusting to a different environment? Interesting......

I don't have any good indicators of a female mid drop other than the tail hanging out or other obvious indicators. Using a larger rock substrate in that tank they usually sit down in the rocks and do their thing so I haven't been able to get a really good view.

The pale fry in the specimen tank may have just looked that way due to being mostly translucent, and empty. Mine tend to eat nearly non stop from the little bits of food in the mulm and I attribute the color they show in the first few days to being full of food. I usually grind a couple flakes down to powder and the adults ignore it and let it sink whenever there are fry in the tank.

Pretty cool observations you have made indeed.

 

Got the big really pregnant female into the maternity tank. Two females in there. The other modestly pregnant. Hopefully I will now be able to isolate a fry drop so I can more accurately monitor their development. Maybe also give them some fry suitable food. May need to do that here since this tank is not as mature and does not have micro organisms for them to feed on.

 

It seems that smaller, barren tanks are much easier to deal with. But not really the experience I am seeking.

I struggle with this also, my two main breeding tanks started out as display tanks and are planted and have a ton of rocks/drift wood. Makes it really difficult to sex the fish and to net them. By contrast, a bare bottom tank with some java moss would be really nice, though the tanks would be really boring. Also I think my tanks and the fish really benefit from the deep substrate, extra surface area and plants. If I went bare tanks I'd probably need to double my water changes.

Are you sexing by gravid spots or waiting for gonopodium development? I find with some fish sexing them can be really difficult right up until they are of breeding age, if no gravid spot is present.

 

Are you sexing by gravid spots or waiting for gonopodium development? I find with some fish sexing them can be really difficult right up until they are of breeding age, if no gravid spot is present.

Good question. Not separating young yet. I have a male tank and female tank. Fry are dropping in the female tank. I still have one adult male in the female tank and a bunch of juvies. I do nor think I will be able to get the males reliably out if the female tank. I have established a maternity tank and hope to be able to pull females out by gravid spot and move them to a virgin tank.

 

I have two females in my maternity tank. I spotted one fry this morning. I am not sure which one is dropping. One looks more pregnant that the other so I assume that is the one dropping fry. The more pregnant one is chasing the less pregnant one. Are pregnant female guppies aggressive towards other females?

I also do not know if this is a continuation of a drop that started in the other tank or the beginning of a new drop.

I plan to get some guppy fry food today. The maternity tank is less mature so I suspect there is less for the fry to eat. I pulverize the flake food, but I do not know if they can eat that immediately. I think I read someplace that they can eat pulverized flake food pretty early but not immediately.

[EDIT]
"Holy Fry Explosion Batman"..... Up to five fry in the maternity tank. Considering over-feeding a bit to reduce risk females will eat fry and try to provide ample opportunity for fry food. Thinking a little over-feeding okay since it is a new, very clean tank with minimal bio-load. Therefore I do not think I will produce an ammonia spike.

Momgoose56 - I am thinking about your experience with an out of control guppy colony. Unleash the hounds, here it comes.... Soon you will have your opportunity to say "I told you so"

[EDIT2]
More fry in maternity tank. Have not counted, but at least seven, maybe 10 or more.

I have 70 lightly stocked gallons dedicated to guppies. I have a feeling they will not be "lightly" stocked for long.

[EDIT3]
Up to about 15 in the maternity tank. Wondering if I should get some fry food. Wondering if that is urgent or could wait until tomorrow.

[EDIT4]
Planning to put the females who have given birth back in the big tank. Wondering if I should pull the next most pregnant looking female into maternity tank.

Wondering if a different female might be aggressive towards the existing fry. Perhaps best to let these 15 have the 10 and let the rest accumulate in the 40. Then work on expanding capacity. Next Petco $1 per gallon sale predicted for January. Thinking of picking up a few more 10s, maybe some 5s to facilitate some sorting.

 

I seem to have lost a few fry overnight. Eaten by mommas? Died of natural causes? Hiding?

Not sure. Anyway, I moved the mommas back to big tank. So I have at least 12 fry alone in a 10 gallon tank. Maybe more if some are hiding this morning. So far, have just fed crushed flake food. Planning to get some brine shrimp, but probably not in time for this batch of fry. Maybe the next batch.

[EDIT]
Thinking I will leave this batch of fry in the 10 gallon tank for two or three weeks for observation and practice of fry care. Then return them to the 40 gallon tank and move another pregnant female to the 10 gallon maternity tank and be better prepared for fry care the next time.

 

I totally agree with your theory that environment will n time influence coloration, it's possible that my guys can go from full electric rainbows to white in under 5 minutes, then back again due to being bred up in a predator tank. Though none of my local aqaurium buddies have endler hybrids, many have fancy guppy fraternities and they don't see much if any color changing other than based on their light cycles.

I have been discussing this with my sister. She states that the ability to flip colors on and off is a common wild characteristic. It makes sense to me that your buddies with line bred fancy guppies would not have that characteristic.

 

Thinking a little over-feeding okay since it is a new, very clean tank with minimal bio-load.

I usually over feed a little when the fry are brand new, but I have little tadpole snails in there that help keep the water from clouding. If you don't have fry food yet, just grind up about a whole flake per 5 babies. Rub it in your fingers until it's like dust. It'll slowly sink to the bottom and the babies will eat it as it gets soft for a few hours. I use tropical tetramin and freeze dried blood worms for this. Seems to work ok, but I've read infusoria and daphnia cultures as well as live baby brine are the way to go if you're going boss mode.

 

At the moment, I have 15 males in a 20 long, about 12 females, 1 male, 10 juvies and 25 fry in a 40 and 15 fry in a 10. My females are all pregnant and dropping fry. I am close to culling all the adult females and some of the less desirable males.

The selection process is going to be more difficult than I thought on many levels. Just catching them is hard. Developing my selection criteria is hard. And it will be a little emotionally difficult to put them back in the LFS feeder tank.

My younger son wants me to get a turtle to feed the culled guppies to.

I usually over feed a little when the fry are brand new, but I have little tadpole snails in there that help keep the water from clouding. If you don't have fry food yet, just grind up about a whole flake per 5 babies. Rub it in your fingers until it's like dust. It'll slowly sink to the bottom and the babies will eat it as it gets soft for a few hours. I use tropical tetramin and freeze dried blood worms for this. Seems to work ok, but I've read infusoria and daphnia cultures as well as live baby brine are the way to go if you're going boss mode.

I have been using the rub in fingers to a powder technique. Good to know that is okay. Wondered if that imparted some skin oils that would render the food less appealing.

I like the flake per five fry. That is a helpful guideline. Is there a similar guideline for adult guppies. They seem like they will eat whatever I put in. I have a hard time determining whether I am over or under-feeding them.

In the tank with both adults and fry, the fry will not come to the surface to feed. I find that the powdered food sinks faster than the flake food so powderizing is effective to get some food to sink to the fry before the adults get it.

 

I have been using the rub in fingers to a powder technique. Good to know that is okay. Wondered if that imparted some skin oils that would render the food less appealing.

I like the flake per five fry. That is a helpful guideline. Is there a similar guideline for adult guppies. They seem like they will eat whatever I put in. I have a hard time determining whether I am over or under-feeding them.

I always crush my spirella/brine flakes between my fingers and fry always seem to go wild on it. Though considering how small the food is the ideal thing would probably be to use a coffee/spice grinder instead of your hands, though I'm not sure I have that level of commitment. In terms of how much to feed I've always heard that you should feed enough so that the fish are eating for 3-5 minutes and then it's all gone. I would just err on the side of too much and water change out the extra. If I ever see food on the substrate hours after feeding I know I've gone way overkill.

I'm new to this also, but really like using auto feeders on both of my tanks with fry that feed 4 times a day. Though I've been feeding brine shrimp every other evening and skipping two of the flake feedings. Really fun to watch how pumped the guppies are about brine shrimp. My tanks also have a hair algae problem but it allows the the fry to munch all day between feedings. Fry have higher metabolisms and digest way faster so its good to keep em snacking.

 

using auto feeders on both of my tanks with fry that feed 4 times a day.

Mind sharing the type or model of auto feeder you use as a recommendation? I hate asking the neighbor to come tend my fry if we're out for a weekend. I saw one at my LFS but it didn't look like it would do great with powdered food. All my normal fish in the dirty planted tanks can do 2-3 days no problems, but the 2 week through juvenile fry live in clean tanks/tubs to make netting and selecting easier, I'd hate for them to be missing meals.

I have thought about using a little herb grinder for my fry food but I'm a smaller operation than most, I won't bring up more than 30 at a time, so it seems like I'd lose more to the grinder than feed them. That's also why I don't raise or culture live food, I'd waste so much more than I would use.

Anyone ever try an old school pepper grinder with the screw adjustment on top? I've thought about that but don't have a new one handy, could use the granules in there and it might get down to fry level a little quicker.

I have tried just putting a marble in a mostly empty flake or blood worms can and shaken the life out of it. It worked but I already shake the test tubes enough that I'm over it; 6 nano tanks, a medicated qt, and my network running right now so I'm (nitrates of course, the longest one...)testing at least 2 daily, only the big network and the trusty snake cage/breeder pond are turning out better water than I put in reliably. Marbles in a food can are pretty noisy too.

 

Mind sharing the type or model of auto feeder you use as a recommendation?

I went with the Eheim automatic feeders based on the review here :


So far they have been very reliable, my only complaint is the little slider which sets the amount of food doesn't allow enough adjustment and is kind of flimsy. The common fix, which I have done, is a small piece of tape. The main selling point though was that you can set up to 4 feedings per day and that it works well with flakes (and crushed flakes).

 

Finally got the last male out of the female tank. Woo hoo. Also snagged two juvies I think are males. So that will be 16 males and two probable male juvies in the male tank. I think the juvies are five weeks old. No color yet.

 

Finally got the last male out of the female tank. Woo hoo. Also snagged two juvies I think are males. So that will be 16 males and two probable male juvies in the male tank. I think the juvies are five weeks old. No color yet.

I have identified 2 likely females in the round tank I set up this time. I've never used it for juvie grow out before but with the optical distortion I think I may need to pour some Elijah instead of the traditional beer to follow this fancy net work.

I bet the feeling of success after getting that last one out of there made the struggle seem worth it.