Okay, call me crazy, but I think folks are being ridiculous here. Forgive me if I missed somebody already giving this reply, BUT:
From what you've said about wanting desert for your fish I think I can answer your question a little bit. First off I've kept guppies in a few tanks of mine with the intention of their fry being eaten. More or less I get a really great male out of the guppy tank and I want to hold on to him but don't want him competing with whichever breeding male I'm using. In that case I normally throw them in one of my other tanks (for instance my SA community with angels) with a couple of females to breed with. They produce offspring once every month or two without really any realistic effect. Basically whoever the cichlid is in the tank will eat the little ones within a day. That being said, I really enjoyed having them with the angels since the odd offspring that managed to escape the angel's initial genocidal onslaught provided some very interesting entertainment for the angels for the next day or so. Its very fun to watch them hunt the little buggers. While they DID NOT provide a really nutritional staple (the parent guppies use the same nutrients available to the predator fish to grow their offspring) and there aren't frequent enough breedings (especially without dirtying the water for your discus), IT WAS WORTH IT since the hunting was fun to watch. Simple breakdown time:
- guppies produce lots of young frequently and are pretty
- my angels didn't eat the parents but did massacre the young within 48 hours WITHOUT FAIL (normally <24hrs)
- sometimes the guppy males caused issues with their behavior
- Still very fun to watch
On a side note, I actually did have a growing guppy population in with my male beta. He would allow 3 of every generation to survive, so it can work, it just depends on which predator we're talking about. That being said, he would also only predate for about 48 hours and then would stop altogether (hence the 3 survivors every time) and would no longer look at the survivors as a possible food source. So even in a population of livebearers that is growing at a faster rate than they're being eaten, you won't be able to achieve a sustainable food source.
To those of you spending time misunderstanding the OP:
Please don't use the forum as a way to expand your sense of self-rightiousness regarding fish-keeping. Yes very frequently people ask how to do very stupid things and ignore other's advice against doing it (such as goldies in a 10g). Hold off on judgement until you've made sure somebody isn't just having a little fun. We all break the rules in our own small ways, thats part of what makes the hobby fun, figuring out how to get your style of tank working as well as possible.
opcorn:
