# Long time no post



## Monk11876 (Mar 20, 2009)

Hey all! it has been a few months since I last posted thanks to the job  I do however read this forum almost every day. I was just wondering if anyone could provide some advice for breeding guppies? I have a pair of male guppies that have top and bottom swords and I would like to try and breed those guppies to produce guppies with better finnage colors and still retain the swords. Right now the guppies are mostly yellow/clearish with white tail swords. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! *w3


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## TheAquaExpert (May 24, 2009)

Awsome Can't Wait To See Your New Post!!!

Anyways Breeding Guppies Is Fun And Easy To Do!!!

Get at least two female guppies per one male guppy, keeping them separate until you are ready for them to breed. 
Set up a 5 gallon tank with a heater and gentle filter. 
This tank should not have any substrate at the bottom. A bare bottom tank is good for baby fry so that you can clean it easily, as well as keep a tally on how many guppies are alive or how much they are eating. 
Java moss or spawning mops provides a nice hiding spot for guppy fry 
Guppy fry tend to sink, so use low-floating plants for their cover. 
Place the fish in the five gallon tank with similar conditions (temperature, etc.) as the tank they were in before. 
Set the temperature to around 80 degrees F while the females and male are in the tank together. You should also give them food with higher nutritional value to get them in the breeding mood. 
Place the male back into his own tank after the female or females get pregnant. You can tell whether the female is pregnant or not by looking near her anus and seeing whether there is a dark mark in that area, called a gravid spot. All females will have this, but it becomes noticeably darker when the fry have been fertilized. 
Wait about three to four weeks. At this point, the female will be ready to give birth. Her stomach should be very large and her gravid spot will be black (red in paler guppies). The red/black spots you are seeing are the eyes of the baby guppies. She will give birth to live guppy babies, not eggs. 
Some signs of labor are: being very still and secluding herself, shivering (contractions), hanging out near the heater, change in appetite. Also watch how she eats, and take note if she spits the food out again. 
Try to be present when she gives birth, but if you cannot be, place lots of plants and hiding spots for the fry, else the mother will eat them. When she has given birth, place her in her original tank, leaving the fry in their own tank. 
When the fry are born, tank temperature should be around 78 degrees F. 
Immediately remove all dead fry when you see them. Accumulated waste is bad for guppy fry. 
Feed the fry brine shrimp, microworms, or powdered flakes, several times a day. Remember that fry are tiny and if you place too much food in the tank, there will be too much waste. 
A filter is dangerous to the fry because they are likely to be sucked into it, so cover the end with tights. 
Siphon the tank carefully every time it gets too dirty and do 40% water changes every few days to keep the water clean. Remember that the tank should be only about half full, if you are using a five or ten gallon tank, to minimize work on your part. 
Move the fry when they get old enough. When the fry are a good size, or about a month and a half to two months old you may put them in a tank with non aggressive fish, sell them to your local pet store, or give them to friends as gifts. Make sure you plan out how you will get rid of all your fry, or how you will store them. 

Hope This Helps!!!


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## Monk11876 (Mar 20, 2009)

Thanks to both of you. I plan to add at least a couple more females to my group right now. We were down to 2 females and 2 males and we lost one of the females today


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## TheAquaExpert (May 24, 2009)

Awww Sorry To Hear That.....
Hopefully Everything Else Would Be Alright!!!!
Good Luck!!!


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## Monk11876 (Mar 20, 2009)

My lfs had a couple of show guppies I snatched up real fast  one is a dark blue tuxedo guppie and the other is a silver/blue tuxedo. They are both females but their fins are almost as large as a males! Cant wait to see what kind of babies they drop from mating with one of my lyretail males.


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## MediaHound (Jul 19, 2006)

ics:  
WB btw


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## Monk11876 (Mar 20, 2009)

Here you go





Sorry if they are a little bit blurry. not working with the greatest camera. only one guppy would sit still for the photo shoot. every other guppy was acting like squirrels that just ate there way out of a ton of chocolate covered coffee beans.


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## Monk11876 (Mar 20, 2009)

The other guppy female I bought is pretty much the exact same coloration except the dark blue on the one in the pic above is replaced with a powder blue that gets iridiscent towards the tail. Hope I spelled that right. lol.


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