# supplementing community tank diet with guppy fry



## jpalimpsest (Dec 4, 2012)

I'm playing around with the idea of carefully managed guppy breeding to supplement the diet of a community tank with guppy fry. I'd like some input on whether this could work.

The tank is a 38 gallon planted tank that I intend to stock with sparkling gouramis (aka pygmy gouramis), spotted blue-eye rainbowfish, scarlet badis, celestial pearl danios (aka galaxy rasboras), and cherry red shrimp. If I follow through with the plan above, I would also keep 3 female guppies in this tank. 

The plan would involve setting up a 6.6 gallon lightly planted tank to house 3 male guppies. Every so often I would temporarily introduce one of the males to the 38 gallon with the females and remove him after the females are impregnated. Thus creating a controlled supply of guppy fry.

Would the planned 38 gallon occupants devour the guppy fry, or am I risking a guppy "epidemic?"


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## rtmaston (Jul 14, 2012)

I tried to leave the female in my tank with the other fish but it did not work for me and all got ate.i do have several plants in the tank and are perty big and thick.i put my female in a breeder cage a couple days before.i have the v shaped cage so most of them will stay down in that but sometimes one or two will comes back up.when I think she is through I put her back in the tank and take the v thing out and leave them in the breeder cage for a few days up to a week.then I take the frys out and put them in a small tank I have set up for frys.i feed them food for frys for a couple months 5 or 6 times a day.then take some flake food and crumble it up as small as I can get and start them on flake food a couple times a day with the frys food a couple times a day to so im feeding them 4 times a day.after about 4 months I feed the frys food once a day and flake food twice a day.thats the way I do it.im sure other people here has their way.i hope this help.


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## jpalimpsest (Dec 4, 2012)

I'm sorry, but I think you misunderstood my question. I'm not trying to save the guppy fry, I want to use fry as food for the other fish.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

I don't think any of the fish you listed would eat fry.They are fairly small(galaxies not much bigger than young guppies).Maybe the badis,but not much else.If the spotted blue eyes are Pseudogil gertrudae,they too are pretty small fish.Most live bearer fry are quite sizeable compared to egg laying fry.Frozen food (mysis,brine and even baby brine shrimp) would be a good choice.


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## Miss Vicky (Jul 6, 2012)

If I'm not mistaken, it looks like you'll already be supplementing their diet with shrimp. Gouramis of any kind + shrimp = dead shrimp. RCS are very small, even the adults. They'd make a tempting snack for those fish. Even the guppies may go for them.


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## rtmaston (Jul 14, 2012)

yes you are right I did misunderstand your question.my frys get ate a lot.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Guppy fry are very small and in danger for a relatively short time. I have heard of people using fry for supplementing food for other fish, but not for any of the fish you mention. I am sure the shrimp will have their undivided attention. I would put the RCS in the smaller tank and feed them to the tank. They will produce at a much faster rate than Guppies, IMO. I started with 24 yellow shrimp and had 300 by 3 months.


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## chipmunk1210 (Jul 3, 2012)

I agree with the other posters--I don't really see any fish that would benefit from guppy fry for food except possibly the gourmanis but that would be all. Guppy fry also grow very quickly and would only be food for a very small window in time. Scarlet badis get to a max size of around an inch so they definately are too small to eat guppy fry. Mine even have issues with baby RCS. You would do better to just grow a colony of RCS and use them as feeders instead of the guppies.


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## ArtyG (Jun 29, 2011)

I have been raising guppies and platty fry for angelfish and various dwarf cichlids for many years . I start with the biggest fancy guppies I can find, save a bunch of the females in a twenty long for grow out along with a spawn or two of red velvet wag patties . Then I pull out the females as needed into one or two gallon "birthing suites". Two weeks later they are ready to feed . A heavy course of fry will have a pair of angels hanging eggs in a few days. Then I become a brine shrimp farmer. A word of caution, these fish are deviously attractive and if you let yourself save too many you may have a tough time holding focus.


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