# guppy breeding



## celticsfan13

i have a 5 gallon tank and am in the process of transfering over to a 20 tall, i have a male lyretail guppy i got amonth ago that has very nice blue tail and bright colors, so i went to my local pet store, Lovely Pet, and got 2 of wat i believe are female lyretails, they ar ewhite with little black, and triangluar undertail, anyone have any advice to help aid in the breeding process? how long should it be around before they breed?


----------



## jrman83

Not much of anything to do special for most livebearer fish. Gestation is somewhere around 30days, providing the females weren't already pregnant at least once before you got them. They can hold male sperm for a while. Post pics when you get a chance.


----------



## celticsfan13

alright thx i will i am going to try and get some later 2day


----------



## susankat

There is one thing a lot of people don't realize. If the female is already holding sperm, Most of the time when with a new male the female will drop the old sperm and it will be replaced with the new males sperm.


----------



## chris oe

If they were in a tank with other males they will have been fertilized, but don't discard the babies, you might have something really interesting in there, plus this first brood of babies will teach you a lot about rearing guppy fry. Write down the day you bought the females and put them in with the male, it is possible that could be a fertilization day (although it is likely they were already fertilized) then add 28 days. Be looking at them periodically to see if there are signs they're about to drop - are they square shaped through the abdomen (yeah, I know, but if they are its pretty obvious - they almost have corners) if so, it is a good idea to isolate them if you can. A 2 gallon pickle jar makes a good emergency drop tank if you don't have a lot of extra space yet. Those plastic woven pot scrubbers (you'll want to use an unused one) unraveled make good "breeding grass" for the babies to hide in. In theory if she's ready to drop she will drop within a few days of her 28 plus or minus (if you know it) otherwise within a week of becoming squared off (unless she's just egg bound, but that's another story). When she does drop (the first one will be hard to predict) write the day down and add 28 days. Any male she is exposed to, if a mating occurs, will cause her to drop her stored sperm if it happens within a week of a drop - otherwise less likely - so that first drop is sort of the starting gun for your specific breeding enterprise. Give her a day or so to recover, then put her back in with the male. 
The first drop babies are a good opportunity to practice culturing live baby brine shrimp, or finding the kind of dry baby food you want to use (or grating frozen beef heart or hard boiled egg yolk) and seeing what you think of the various options - how much they cloud the water, how much to feed, what kind of growth you get, that kind of thing. Guppies are easier than many other fry because they're more developed than say an egglayer's fry, and easier to get food into them. The trick with guppies is there are lots of these babies, can be up to 40 at a time, and more every 28 days. Most people agree to work on a particular strain you need about 5 tanks at a minimum. I only use 5 gallons as a drop tank (a tank to put the females in when they're about to drop so they can be by themselves for the births) Usually I use 10 gallons for grow out tanks to segregate the males from the females as they grow. 
Its fun, there's lots to know and lots to learn, and for a long time the biggest challenges will be timing and getting the fry to live and grow to decent size.


----------



## majerah1

Not much of a livebearer person.But I feed all my breeders well,as it takes alot out of the females when they lay the eggs.Also java moss is always good for fry.It has nice little live snacks for the fry.


----------



## celticsfan13

yea these r some pictures of the females
the black makes me belive they r pregnant any1 have any info?
thanks to all for ur help


----------



## susankat

Having a black gravid spot doesn't denote being pregnant. Its normal for females to show that even not pregnant.

Look at the females in this pic. See how rounded the bellies are, This is about a week to 10 days before giving birth.


----------



## celticsfan13

alright thank u but by the pic do u think that they r cuz i cant tell or get better pics cuz they move to the back everytime i get close
and btw was that ur tank ? if so wat was the kind of colorful fish in the lower bottom left corner?


----------



## automatic-hydromatic

someone once told me that the hardest part about breeding Guppies is getting them to NOT breed...

I found that to be entirely accurate


----------



## celticsfan13

lol


----------



## susankat

Yes that is one of my tanks. Those are endlers which are related to the guppy.

In the second pic the female looks to be pregnant, but in the first one its hard to tell.


----------



## celticsfan13

oo nice thnx and so do u think they r pregnant ?
sorry about pic quality


----------



## celticsfan13

sorry about asking 2x i didnt see the second part of post
and about how long until birth do u think?
thank u 4 putting up with the constant q's


----------



## chris oe

The second one (the one in the picture of colored gravel) might be, the first one looks very young and may not yet be, or would be early in her cycle. If you look at susankat's picture you can see that the larger female is nearly twice her normal width at the middle, that's what they look like when they're close to dropping. That gravid spot (the black dot) will become bigger and lighter and sometimes very close to the drop date you will be able to see eye spots in it from the babies. I would say your fish are thin enough right now that you could easily wait three weeks before checking again and not be too far wrong. They both look very young, but young is good. You'll get small drops at first (also good, since you're early in your learning curve).


----------



## celticsfan13

ok so i have plenty of time thank u i was worried they would drop b4 my 20 was ready for all others


----------



## celticsfan13

i apreciate all the help but in fact both females gave birth this morning


----------



## webgeek

automatic-hydromatic said:


> someone once told me that the hardest part about breeding Guppies is getting them to NOT breed...


Yes. we often dont want them to bear so often and so many of them in one go and finally crowding the tank and forcing us to buy another tank


----------



## chris oe

No kidding. They must have been in tough circumstances to be that thin and give birth. Well, write down the date and add your 28 days 'cause now you know.


----------



## celticsfan13

yea ik and no when i got them they were really healthy and everything and they still are i was just as suprised though


----------



## celticsfan13

i just had the babies born and have them in the plastic floating container in my 5 i have transfered all other fish 2 my 20 except the 2 female guppies, and am planning on releasing the babies into the tank itself with the 2females, should i leave the females with the babies or not?
btw i think 1 is still preg.


----------



## chris oe

it has only been a couple days, right? I would not let them in with the females. females, especially a female that is not the mother, will eat them. They may not have eaten them on the day, but they may have been full or unable to catch them or something. I wouldn't risk it until they're much bigger. 

The one that appears to be pregnant should probably be in the 5 by herself. At least, that's how I usually do it. If you want the female that dropped (gave birth) to breed with the male you have, introduce her to him within the next couple days and leave her with him until she shows signs of being ready to drop again (for the next 28 days is fine)


----------



## celticsfan13

if i leave the preg in the 5 wat about the babies?
should i put the female in the breeding container and let the babies free?


----------



## chris oe

Here's the thing, this is part of why you need 5 tanks minimum per strain - 'cause the babies should be apart from the adults, and each female should be by themselves when they're about to drop, and the babies need to be divided by sex when they get old enough, so you can see how the number of tanks multiplies by necessity. I have about 15 tanks in my basement currently, not counting the pickle jars and breeding traps that I keep around for emergencies.


----------



## celticsfan13

so watdo u think i should do? for now


----------



## jrman83

chris oe said:


> Here's the thing, this is part of why you need 5 tanks minimum per strain - 'cause the babies should be apart from the adults, and each female should be by themselves when they're about to drop, and the babies need to be divided by sex when they get old enough, so you can see how the number of tanks multiplies by necessity. I have about 15 tanks in my basement currently, not counting the pickle jars and breeding traps that I keep around for emergencies.


lol, I assume this is the practice for breeders. All my Guppy action goes on in one tank along with some Platy action too.


----------



## chris oe

Well, the one tank thing works too. The thing is, if you're working on a particular strain, say you have a dark almost black bluegreen moscow line, and you want to bring out more green (what I was working on before the worms wiped me out) and you have a great female that you've crossed with your best male you have 40 possible chances of getting that fish that you're shooting for, but if she eats half, you're down to 20 chances, and if she spawns in a tank with a bunch of other fish and you only get 10, you're down to 10 chances, but what's worse, you'll always wonder, was the really deep green fish of my dreams eaten at birth in that first thirty? So you do everything you can at ever drop to make sure every single baby makes it so you get to see what they turn out like. 'Cause even if they don't all turn out to be Mr. Green they might be a little greener, or maybe they have a really good tail shape, or a really nice gallant dorsal, or a stout, strong peduncle to support a good tail, or they grow to a great size, some little piece of the puzzle that you can fold into the line and improve it to get you one step closer to the fish of your dreams. 
(and don't even get me started about the girls, keeping them healthy, making sure they get the best food, live in the cleanest surroundings, keeping them calm and happy the whole 28 days. Prenatal care all the way, man.)
But one little mistake and you can be in hell. I am bad about quarantining new fish, and once you have a parasite in your tanks, it is bad news. I have one female left after my most recent worm-tastrophy. (this is why I have time to post so much) I am scrubbing and sterilizing and lining the backs of the racks with mylar (did you know guppy growth is positively effected by light? its true.) and in may I am going on aquabid and hunting for breeders. I want some new moscows, I'm thinking the hawaiian blues are particularly nice, and they throw some blue greens that can get me back on track...


----------



## jrman83

Yeah, I understand how or at least I think I do know how it can be to breed and have learned a lot about the different things that need to be done to protect certain things. That is why I would never say that I breed Guppies or any other fish. I may produce them, or least provide the path for production, but unless you are doing some of the things you mention nobody can call themselves breeders.


----------



## celticsfan13

yea i myself and working on a strain of lyretails


----------



## chris oe

Its very rewarding, and you can get some very nice fish if you put some common sense and some work into it, and a quarantine tank (lol). 

(( I thought I had been completely wiped out, and was cleaning tanks when I found this one little baby still alive in one of my tanks, and she's about half grown now, got a little light green tail. We'll see what kind of fish she drops once I get her some friends))


----------



## celticsfan13

e i had an angelfish i got the other day i put him in my tank, first day he stayed in back bottom corner of tank all day yesterday he stayed at top front of tank all day and now he is being pushed around by filter and looks like its gonna die, any idea on wats going on? how to save him?


----------



## chris oe

You just got him the other day? You might want to take him back to the pet store, sounds like he was sick when you brought him home. Most places have a guarantee of however many days after purchase at least for a replacement fish.


----------



## celticsfan13

yea he died so im gonna bring him back cuz i checked ph, ammonia, and nitrate and all were fine ph was even at 7 so im going 2 thanks though:fish-in-a-bag:


----------

