PLEASE HELP: Questions about guppies

I have had MANY betta fish in the past, but this is my first time having an aquarium. I have a 10 gallon tank, which i've had for 2 weeks now. A week ago I got 2 female guppies. In one more week I am getting a male guppy, then a month after that i'm getting 2 balloon mollies, then one male molly. I have to do this so the males don't get teratorial and harrass the females as much, and get the mollies last so they won't be teritorial and won't pick on/kill the guppies.

But since i'm new at this, I have ALOT of questions, and I haven't been able to find any good answers.

1. Can you leave the aquarium light on all day and night? I am getting an LED light in a few days that turns light during the day, then a dI'm blue light at night, but it's EXPENSIVE. So for right now can I leave the aqurium light on? Or will it stress them out?

2. I'm going away in June for a week, what is the best way to feed them while your gone, an automatic feeder, or one of those fish food blocks?

3. Anytime I put a small flake of food in the water, INSTANTLY one of my guppies starts going CRAZY, swimming around everywhere really fast, bumping into the glass, it's really weird. Is she stressing out or is she excited about food? lol

4. My female guppies are sometimes harrassing and fighting each other, What can I do to calm them down?

5. Breeding and selling fry/adult guppies and mollies: Where could I sell them and how much? I really don't care about the money, I just don't want to overcrowd my tank, since both mollies and guppies are livebearers, and I don't think they will ALL be eaten, since there will be 4 females. Please let me know if you have had any experience with this?

6. (this kinda follows with my first question) Can guppies and mollies see in the dark? That's kinda why I leave the light on 24/7 because i'm afraid they will keep bumping into things and stress out.

7. My water tempature won't go over 75 degrees, which is chilly for them. I have the heater set correctly, but it still won't warm up!

8. I'm using 2 regular floresent lightulbs as an aqaurium light, does that make the tempature warmer? if so, I don't think I should turn it off, since the water is already cold enough.

Sorry I have a lot of questions, but I am new at this.

 

HI Katprincess,
I don't know it all, but I can tell you what has worked for me!
1. I light my tanks between 4:00 & 6:00am. Depends on when I get going in the morning. Turn them off when I go to bed.
Think about this: In the "real" world; It gets dark at night & in the wild fish have much more cover then you could provide in a tank.
Bottom line. It gets dark! And yes, fish need down time. It won't hurt them. If you have or plan on getting any sort of catfish/alge eater they are noctornal by nature
and only feel comfy in the dark. Often running for cover when the lights come back on.

2. I have never used a auto feeder, however vacation blocks have worked well for me & cannot fail due to power outage or mechanical breakdown.

3. All my guppys (along with everyone else) get excited when they are fed. My guys (and gals) get fed when I light the tanks. Yes once a day. And they understand
that when the "sun" comes on. Food falls from the sky. OH HAPPY DAY!!!

4. Girls will be girls. Not everyone plays well with others. It may take a while to get a good school of happy fish.(yea, you may loose one here & there)

5. I have no experience in that area, I would suggest a local FAMILY OWNED pet/fish store for advice. The chains (Petco Petsmart ect) won't buy you'r offspring.
too much risk. But Many do have in store "wanted or for sale" boards.

6. Yes, fish can see or at least sense things in the dark. Some of the biggest I've ever caught I got at night.....

7. Is the heater sized right for the tank? Is it near a return vent? a window? Is the heater working properly?
Is the thermometer broken? and where is it in relation to the heater? My guppy/platy tank is set for 76-78 & they are colorfull, happy & almost always pregnent!

8. Floresent bulbs by design are a cool light sorce. Turning them off won't affect the temp in a noticeable way.

Hope this helps!

One more Thought.
Light + Water = ALGE, LOTS of it!
another reason to start a "Light cycle"

 

HI welcome to Fishlore!

I see you don't know about the nitrogen cycle. Please read up on this as it is the most important part of fish keeping, and since you already have fish, it is important to keep them healthy.

Also before I get to your questions, I highly recommend that you reconcider your stock. Mollies produce a lot of waste and are too active for a 10gal tank. Plus two types of livebearers will quickly over run a 10gal tank. Even if you sell the fry, you would have to riase them big enough to do so, which can take more than a month. And since liivebearers can drop fry every 4 weeks and have 30+ fry at a time, you can see how the babies would be comeing faster than you could offload them in a 10gal. And while it isn't as likly since you plan to have both sexes of both fish, mollies and guppies can crossbreed.

Now for your questions:

1. I believe the fish like some dark time to rest. The biggest problem I see with leaving the lights on all the time is you are sure to have a massive algae problem that way. Typicaly the blue LEDs aren't left on all night either, they are turned on for a hour or so before and after you turn on the main lights to simulate dawn/dusk.

2. Both automatic feeders and food blocks are messy and foul up the tank water quickly. If you will only be gone a week, the fish will be fine not eating. Your water will stay cleaner this way ( more to do with the nitrogen cycle) . Otherwise the best option is to have someone else feed them a coule times in your absence.


3. Guppies are active fish, they bump into stuff. However since your tank is most likly uncycled, there is a chance the fish are stressed.

4. More than likely your fish are already pregnant. Sometimes they can get cranky from this. Also fish in a uncycled tank can be aggresive to each other. If you can get a liquid test kit and ind out your levels of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, members here would be more than happy to help you get your tank cycled.

5. You can see if your LFS will take them. Since they are so easy to breed it is unlikly that you will get much fore them unless you have a special bred strain. You could try places like aquabid to sell them. I feed my excess to my other fish.

6. Having the light on all the time is more likly to stress them out. The fish will be less active in the dark, so I would not worry about them running into things.

7. The calibration on your heater may be off. Try turning it up some. If this does not work, it could be broken or not strong enough to heat the tank.

8.standard lighting really won't heat the water up too much.

I hope this helps. Ask as many questions as you need to, everyone here is happy to try to help, we want you to be able to enjoy your fish!!

 

Welcome to FishLore!

You got some great advice above. I just wanted to ask what type of thermometer you are using. If it is one of those stick on types that stick on the outside face of the glass, they are know to be very inaccurate.

And please read up on the nitrogen cycle. It is the most important thing to understand when keeping fish.

 

I agree, there is a lot of great info up there. Take some time and grab a cup of coffee or beverage of choice and read those two posts a few times and PLEASE come back with all the questions you have we would love to answer them.

 

Hi! Welcome to fishlore

I don't think I have anything to add-great advice above!

 

Thanks so much everyone for the great advice! x

I read up on the nitrogen cycle this morning and realized that I learned this some odd years back in grade school. So then later this afternoon I went to Petsmart and got a 5 in 1 test strip (tests PH, hardness, alkalinity, nitrate, and nitrite levels) and an extra Ammonia test kit. Everything was good except the PH is REALLY high (I used distilled water to fill up the tank) but it kinda bothers me that it's so high. When I ask about trying to lower it, most places i've been to say trying to lower it would probably do more bad then just leaving it alone, so i'm not risking that. Does anyone else have this problem?

And the first Ammnoia test said it was 1.0, and the second said 2.0 (but I had given them a little flake of food in between both tests because they didn't have any food today, and when I would try filling the test tubes with water both fish tried to see if it was food, instead of swimming away like they usually do).

Also last night I turned the light off and 6 hours later the tempature was below 75, so I turned the light back on.
I found out the problem with the heater is that it shuts of every 5 min!! It's set to 79 degrees (it needs to be 77-78), but it stays at 75. It's in a calm area, no vents or windows near it, so that's not the problem. I think it's just the heater, which I don't believe was a good brand (I don't remember the brand).

The fish shouldn't be pregnant, since male and female guppies were kept separate when I got them, and I don't know how old she is, or if she has been pregnant before and stored sperm, but as far as I know she isn't pregnant.

I'm starting to think maybe I should change my mind about guppies AND moliies, even though I really want them, I don't want to overcrowd the tank. :/ Could I separate the males and females? Or would that cause them to fight, expecialy the male guppy and molly being together?

Thanks SO much again! I've learned a lot from you guys!

 

I am glad you are learning! While the test strips are a start, they aren't very accurate, a liquid kit, while more costly up front, will last avery long time, making it cheaper in the long run( you get hundreds of tests out of them) and they are accurate.

Mollies really do need at least a 20gal tank. While they may be spartate in the store tanks, that doesn't mean they where before they arrived at the store. Every female livebearer I have ever purchased was already pregnant. And since they can reimpregnate themselfs for 6 months after the last time they mated, it is very likely to get one that already is, most of the time they are already pregnant by the time the breeder can sex and separate them.

I have kept male only guppies with no problem, but a few people have had aggrestion issues when trying this. I did it in a 30gal tank though.

May I ask why you are using disstilled water? Most people would recommend against it , disstilled water has had all the good minerals and such removed from it as well as the bad.

 

Those ammonia levels can be leathal. I don't know if you are aware of this, but when cycling with fish, you need to keep them safe from the ammonia spike and nitrite spike that will occur during cycling.

The way of keeping them safe would be by doing daily water changes with a water conditioner called SeaChem Prime. In addition to dechlorinaing the water, Prime has the ability to detox lowish levels of ammonia and nitrite for 24 hoiurs. The daily 35%-50% water changes will keep the levels low enough that the Prime will be able to fully detox them.

You will need to continue with these water changes until the tank fully cycles (i.e. 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite and some nitrate. As mentioned above using tap water would be preferable and don't worry about the ph. Most fish will adapt to any ph between 6.0 and 8.5. A stable ph is what is important, and trying to modify your ph will only result in ph swings which can be leathal to the fish.

 

Lexi03:
I bought 2 different test kits, one is a strip, and the other is a liquid ammonia test.

I used distilled water to fill up the tank, then added API quick start (has good bacteria in it). I told the person at Petco (where I bought the guppies), and he said that was fine, and told me to get API stress-zyme. My brother has some Ammo-lock he would let me borrow, but yesterday he called and told me his small fish started dying from the chemicals, so right now that's on hold, but I am closely monitering the ammonia level. Also, after using something like Ammo-lock, the ammonia will still test positive, it will just be in a non-toxic form, so it will be kinda hard to moniter it for awhile afterwards.

Thanks for the info on mollies! Sadly, I think I may have to part with the idea of having balloon mollies. :'( But for now, I'll keep researching guppies and mollies being together. Do you know what other species I could get in place of the mollies? I need a friendly fish that gets along with guppies, can tolerate high PH (though fish in our area are used to it, since the water here has high PH), and preferbly eats algae (pretty much a friendly version of balloon mollies). I like the livebearers, but I probably shouldn't get to many of them anyway (I don't want to overcrowd the tank).

I kinda wondered about them being pregnant already, since like what I said before, they could have stored the sperm, but I forgot they aren't seperated until they are adults, so it IS possible. I will keep that in mind....

jdhef:
Yes, I have been watching the levels very carefully, and so far nitrite and nitrate have been a 0.

I was thinking about getting some "ready water", which has eveything already in it, making it easier to change the water daily, but I will look for the SeaChem Prime.

Thanks, now I know I shouldn't be worried about the PH anymore.

 

The problem with products such as API Quick Start and Stress Zyme is that they do not contain the proper bacteria. If those bacteria's even are the one's that convert ammonia into nitrite and nitrite into ammonia, the are not self-sustaining and only live for about a week at which point you would need to add more evry week for the life of the tank. And I say even if they are the bacteria that converts ammonia/nitrites I have my doubt since you still have ammonia present even though you added those products.

Ammolock will detox ammonia, which is a good thing, but as far as I know it will not detox nitrites when you get to that phase of the cycle. So that is why you would be better off using Prime. Also, Prime, AmmoLock etc only have a certain amount of ammonia that they can detox. I'm not sure off the top of my head what the amount is, but for they sake of illustration let's just say they can detox 1ppm of ammonia. If you have 2ppm ammonia in your tank, you will still have 1ppm that is not detoxed. That is why daily water chnages are needed to keep the ammonia/nitrie levels low enough to be detoxed.

Detoxed ammonia will test positive, but that is exactly how you monitor it. Once enough bacteria developes to consume all of your ammonia you'll start showing 0ppm ammonia. Then you will probably start testing positive for (detoxed) nitrites for a few weeks. Once nitrites drop to 0ppm (so long as ammonia is still at 0ppm) you are cycled.

Why are you so resistant to using tap water? It is always better to use tap water whenever possible.

 

Does anyone but me cycle a tank the old fashion way? When I went to buy my first tank, ( I was ten years old & it was 1977) The owner of the pet shop refused to sell it to me. He sold me a book called:The art of keeping tropical fish. (or some thing like that) A week later I returned & explained to him How I was gonna set up a tank & why It would "work". Starting with a undergravel, two airstones & small pump I was off. A week later, half a dozen minnows to live, die & rot into the filter, two weeks after that, my first Neon tetras, ( Ahh the memories of that first 20gal. ) That's how I learned. Starting a system from scratch & allowing the tanks to mature requires time & paitciants (ok I can keep fish not spell). I cannot recall ever useing ph balancers, ammo lock, aqua safe or any othe "jump start short cuts" I use tap water only and NOW for the cardnal sin... The ONLY maintance I perform: I add water when the tank levels drop due to evaporation. And once or twice a year I vacuum the gravel with a length of tubeing and a bucket. I do not do water changes. Now I am up to 4 tanks. 40-46-and two 55's. My tanks are GIN clear and do not give off any oder. (well unless you put you nose right to the water) The new 55 was set up Thursday last week. Currently has 16 minnows in it. (down from the 20 I put in on Sunday) Based on experiance, I'm guessing two weeks before I can start adding my,..my..well I'm not sure what's going in it yet. Comments?.....

 

Does anyone but me cycle a tank the old fashion way? When I went to buy my first tank, ( I was ten years old & it was 1977) The owner of the pet shop refused to sell it to me. He sold me a book called:The art of keeping tropical fish. (or some thing like that) A week later I returned & explained to him How I was gonna set up a tank & why It would "work". Starting with a undergravel, two airstones & small pump I was off. A week later, half a dozen minnows to live, die & rot into the filter, two weeks after that, my first Neon tetras, ( Ahh the memories of that first 20gal. ) That's how I learned. Starting a system from scratch & allowing the tanks to mature requires time & paitciants (ok I can keep fish not spell). I cannot recall ever useing ph balancers, ammo lock, aqua safe or any othe "jump start short cuts" I use tap water only and NOW for the cardnal sin... The ONLY maintance I perform: I add water when the tank levels drop due to evaporation. And once or twice a year I vacuum the gravel with a length of tubeing and a bucket. I do not do water changes. Now I am up to 4 tanks. 40-46-and two 55's. My tanks are GIN clear and do not give off any oder. (well unless you put you nose right to the water) The new 55 was set up Thursday last week. Currently has 16 minnows in it. (down from the 20 I put in on Sunday) Based on experiance, I'm guessing two weeks before I can start adding my,..my..well I'm not sure what's going in it yet. Comments?.....

Hi,
People do things this way now because as more inlightned fishkeeping has become, we know that you do not need to kill fish to cycle a tank.

As to why your tank is not a total train wreck with the lack of maintnance, do a search for Old Tank Syndrome, that should explain it for you. Just because fish are alive does not mean they are thriving, and clear water doesn't nessisaraly mean healthy water.

 

I'm pretty much doing what Uncle Squid said. I am adding water when it goes down, and only change the water if one of the levels are high (like my ammonia is a little bit, so I will be doing 10% water changes).

I have learned everyone kinda has their own way that they care for their fish despite what the books or experts may say. As long as your fish are healthy and happy (and the tank is kept in good shape), their really is no right or wrong way.

jdhef:
I'm going to be changing water daily anyway, so that's not a problem. I REALLY can't use our tap water, it's very chlorinated and hard. My brother used it in his tank, even with the essential chlorine remover and all, the water was still bad. Using distilled and adding the right chemicals to it has worked great. I was worried about the PH at first, but the fish don't seem to be having problems with it, so that's not an issue. I'm going to use some pre treated water instead of distilled, whether that makes a difference or not.

But everything is going really well. They seem happy, and relaxed. Also i'm getting into a routine of feedings and lights on and off, and this saturday I get my male guppy.

 

If you never do water changes, the nitrates skyrocket.

Also while the fish may live this way, doesn't make them happy. And if anything goes wrong that requires you to do a waterchange after a long strech without one, the shock of the clean water can kill all the fish.

 

Good Morning all,
I did as Lexi03 suggested & researched "old tank syndrome". What I read makes sense. This week end I will test all my tanks & see what's cookin in my little worlds.
Have a feeling that it may be time for a old squid to learn new trix! Will keep ya posted.....
Thanks for the insight.

 

Reguarding "friendly" algae eaters. Cory cats are shy little guys that will graze.But are best kept in pairs or more. The old stand by, Chineese Algae eater is a wonderfull lawn mower. And will do well as a solo act. However: when the algae eater gets big(4-6") the ones I've had over the years tend to get aggresive. I have one in my Guppy/Platy tank ( about 5") spends most of the "daylight" hours in a resin bamboo stump. He dosen't bother the guppys or the platys but will chase around a blue gourmI on occasion. And he does such a good job on the glass that I have to feed him algae discs a couple times a week.

 

Uncle Squid: Thank You for your positive additude, there are a lot of people not so recptive to advice like that.

I have nerite snails and red cherry shrimp in my guppy tank for algae control.

 

Always open to suggestions, Someone ALWAYS knows more than I.
(no that's NOT sarcastic!) Thanks again