One baby guppy?

I have 4 male guppies and one female in a 15 gallon community tank. I have been watching the tank very closely all day as I just had a Harlequin Rasbora that died and I don't know how long the dead fish was in the tank, but I think that was reason for an ammonia spike that I had recently suffered. In any case, I have monitoring this tank very closely and have been doing daily water changes since I discovered the ammonia level had shot up, and I haven't noticed any baby fish swimming around.

My wife was looking at the tank earlier tonight and noticed one baby guppy swimming near the surface. I scooped him up and put in a one gallon tank I have for fry, but I had no idea the female guppy was pregnant. Now I'm wondering if she had more babies that already got eaten or if this was just the first, or if she just had one baby. As far as I can tell, she looks no different than she always looks. I guess all I can do is just keep checking for more.

 

Does she have a gravid spot? It's a spot behind her belly. It's usually black but in lighter females it may look reddish. If so you should put her in a breeder tank. She's probably trying her best not to drop them since there are 4 males in there with her. She's probably very stressed. If you put her in a breeder tank I bet you'll see a lot more fry. Good luck. I hope that helped.

 

The fry can hide really well, we had to take out everything and everyone to search our tank when our platy was dropping fry to find them all and I bet guppy fry can hide even better. It's possible the rest of the fry were snacks or that she's still dropping them. I'm not sure if guppies drop fry over a few days like platys, but I think they do.

If you have a tank divider, you could divide the tank so that she has an area away from the filter intake & avoid any breeder box stress she might have since stress might make her abort any fry she has or hold them in. You could put in some fry grass if you want or some plants close together for hiding in and see if she drops anymore.

 

I can't see anything on her that looks like a gravid spot. I'm kinda hesitant to put her in my fry tank for fear that she will just eat the one baby that I found. I don't think there any more babies hiding in the main tank. I searched the tank numerous times. I guess I'll just do my best to keep the lone baby healthy and if I see any others I will move them to the fry tank.

 

your other fries probably got eaten because guppies give birth to 4-60 or more fries within a few hours.