Question on when babies get their color

Ok so my female guppy had her babies about a month ago and besides 3 of them they have been kept in a tub outdoors and you can very clearly tell male from female and the males are chasing the females already but they just look plain there's no color yet. Then a friend of mine has some and hers had babies almost a week ago and they are also kept in a tub outdoors but you can already see black and yellow showing up on them. Is there a reason mine aren't showing color despite how fast they have matured?


This is the mom


This is one of the babies in the tank with her


Here's several of the babies out of the tub outside

 

Darker colors tend to show up faster. Do you know who the father is?

 

I have no idea who the father is. These are the babies she was pregnant with when I got her

 

Well, they will get color sooner or later. It may be taking longer because they are lighter colored. How big are they? How have you been feeding them?

 

The biggest ones are over half an inch and the smallest are just a tad under or just at. I feed them regular flake food once a day, veggies two or three times a week (spinach, green beans, or peas), and with them being in the tub outside there's any mosquito larvae and plenty of algae for them to pick at

 

The mosquito larvae should help with growth and coloration. Basically any live foods is great.

 

Feeding fry live food is dangerous. Stick with some crushed flakes. Take a pinch and rub your index finger and thumb together over their tank. The flakes will be a dust.

I use betta color enhancing flakes and see colors within the first few weeks. Starts usually with the fins, then some specks on the bodies

 

They are in a tub outside so there's going to be some mosquito larvae no matter what.
I'll see if I can maybe get that kind of flake food for them though and see what happens with it. The kind I use right now is just a generic cheap kind of flake food that I want to change anyway

 

It can be dangerous, but only if you don't know what you're doing. The best breeders use live foods for superior growth and coloration. It's really the best source of protein. Live baby brine shrimp, mosquito larvae, etc. are fine. Some people even keep guppies in ponds, and out there, there's no way to control insects that may land in the water and get eaten. The fish are fine. Just try not to feed anything that is contaminated by pesticides and such.

Omega One and New Life Spectrum are high quality foods. For fry growth/coloration, you want something with lots of protein, 40-50%.

 

Ok so I pulled these two females out of the tub this morning and they are both very clearly pregnant are they going to be able to handle having babies this soon?

 

It seems to be rare that young guppies die from giving birth. I've never had it happen, so I'm sure they'll be fine

 

How large are they? I can't tell from the photos.

I think that if they are able to become pregnant, their bodies should be able to handle it. They may just abort the fry if they can't. I had a juvenile guppy that absorbed her fry the first time she was pregnant, probably because she was too small.

 

They are about half the size of the adult male including his tail who's in there so somewhere between an inch and a half an inch probably closer to the inch mark though I think

 

They should be fine if they're nearing the inch mark.