Advice Needed....Guppies, Tetras, Cories...

[Opicana]

For those of you who read my previous post, some of the following information will be a little redundant, but I have lots of new questions now. :)

This is going to be a bit long-winded....so thanks in advance to anyone who reads this and offers advice.

General Situation: I am fairly new to the hobby. I currently have 1 tank, a 20g that was given to me already stocked, but I am going to buy a 55g very soon. (And I have a 10g, but that's not related to the story). It's recently come to my attention via this forum, and other forums, the community in my 20g needs some adjustments in order for them to be happy (explained in a minute). But my ideas for the 55g can be altered...and I am now wondering if I should do that.

The Hypothetical 55g: My plan for the 55g was to make it a planted Fancy Guppy tank. I love genetics and livebearers have always fascinated me.

The 20g situation: The 20g came with the following fish (with the except of 1 cory who passed on several months ago). 3 Danios, 2 Longfin Black Skirt Tetras, and 2 (what I believe to be) Pristella Tetras. I know all three of those groups need to be larger to make the fish more comfortable. However, given the limited amount of room, I would have to pick and choose. I'd also like to add some cories again...which also should be in a school. Oh, and I plan to make this tank planted as well.

So, my questions:
Should I leave the 55g as the guppy tank and just add fewer fish to the schools (and possibly put the danios in with the 55g...and increase their numbers) in the 20g....

OR

Should I switch the two? Since my guppy tank will be mostly guppies...should I make the guppy tank the 20g, and make the 55g a community tank where I can add on to ALL of the schools and add cories...and make everyone happy?

I would love any and all advice on what to do. I am fairly flexible with what I am willing to do with the 55g. The only thing I'd rather not do is sell back or have to find homes for any of my current fish.

Other questions I had:
Is a 20g suitable for a guppy tank?
How many guppies could live comfortably in a 20g?
Should I put anything else in the tank with the guppies? Are there any bottom dwellers that don't need schools/take up a lot of room?
I am considering breeding the guppies. So I can see genetics at work.

Thanks so much!

[Reefscape]

Ahhhhh Guppys... http://bestsmileys.com/love1/24.gif

**Niko quietly walks away using the nearest exit**

[MrGoodbytes]

You could still have a fair number of guppies in a planted 20 gallon, maybe a dozen or so? I would go with that option so you could expand your presently existing groups/schools and still breed guppies. You may want to get another aquarium to grow any fry out in, since you will very quickly run out of space in a 20 (how quickly depends on how many parent fish you have).

[Winterose]

i would put the guppies in the 20

[MrGoodbytes]

Forgot to suggest that if you do plan to breed guppies, get your stock from a private breeder and not the LFS. With a good strain, your fish will generally breed true and you will get to see genetics in action :).

[justahannah]

I think your 10-gallon would make a great grow-out tank for the fry, the 20 for the adults, and go with the community in the 55. Sounds like a lot of fun!

[Snakes]

Use the 20G as a guppy with about 10 or more adults
The 10G can be use as a fry tank since guppies do eat there fry
And Convert the 55G as a community tank :)

[AshK]

Yeah, I would suggest the 55 for fleshing out your current stock and using the 20 for your guppies. What exactly do you want to achieve by breeding the guppies? If you just want to observe their offspring's traits and stuff like that than you won't need any controlled breeding. But if you want to breed the guppies and work towards some goal with their traits, you will need to isolate guppies and frys and such, meaning multiple tanks.

[rocker92]

you could use the 55 for the guppies and a community tank... but the idea of using the 20 for the guppy tank sounds good and i think it would look very nice! also..... add on to your tank i have 2 catfish, 6 zebra danios, and 2 red platies all in a 10gal tank. dont worry u can still expand in the 20 if u want to!!!!!

[jaylin]

I hate to be the technical one, but ...

If you really want to see guppy genetics in action, you don't want to get a bunch of guppies and toss them all into one large tank. You want a bunch of smaller tanks where you can put small groups (two males, four females or close to it) and then a grow out tank or two for each groups fry. Preferably a grow out for males and felmales so you can monitor the next hook ups. Otherwise, you don't really know who is breeding with who and after a few generations, you'll start to see the strain degrade.

I really don't want to be the one to burst your bubble, but I'd hate to see you go out and spend a lot of money on a good guppy strain just to find out that breeding to improve the line is impossible in a one tank set-up and that leaving inferior fry in the tanks will quickly degrade your population. Even to just maintain a good guppy strain, you have to select your breeders carefully.

Now if all you're wanting to do is have guppies and see them have babies, either of your tanks will work for that.

What I would suggest, since you said you liked the cories, would be a dwarf species in the 10g - just as a species tank. Keep the 20 as a grow out/hosp tank. And then maybe do a mix of live bearers in your 55g. You may not get the increadible genetic action you're seeking right away, but that way you can get a feel for what it takes to breed live bearers and raise fry. And you can keep it interesting by having a few different species. And who knows, if you do things right your dwarf cories might surprise you and spawn themselves.

And for the danios and tetras - they could hitch along with the live bearers. They won't add significantly to the bioload in a 55g. I would say just keep them in the 20g, but if you get live bearers you're going to want another tank for the babies you have. Mostly so they don't get eaten.

[Opicana]

Thanks to everyone for their advice!

I should have been more specific one 2 points:
1) The 10g already as a function....I am getting some wild endlers from a friend and they need to be kept away from the guppies as they have never been interbred with them; my 10g is reserved as my Endler only tank
2) I am interested in genetics in livebearers but as of right now, I am purely doing as AshK suggested...I just want to see what happens....just watch traits get passed along. I couldn't care less if I ended up with mongrels that have no color...I will love them just the same. I'm not a perfectionist (in this case) and have no (current, once again, you never know what will happen in the future) plans to become a serious breeder anytime soon. I like the idea of having a few in the 20g and then if I decide I want to separate things out, etc...I will invest in more tanks when the time comes. As of now, I just want to test the whole process out. I'm not going to "dump in a bunch of guppies"....probably just a few to start. I want to practice raising them before I decide to do anything more with them. But thanks to those of you who were concerned about that, valuable advice for the future.

Most of you will be happy to know, I am definitely going to turn the 55g into a community tank and now I am SO pumped about it. I plan on adding to my current schools slowly, but I am thinking about ultimately having things be:
6 Pristella
6 Longfin Blackskirt
8? Danios
5? Cories
...And if there is still room, perhaps some platies?