Guppie BABIES!!! :D

0_o .... .... ya'll are scaring me. lol!

Their in a small tank too... so it'll get crowded pretty quick. I want to keep pretty ones... How long does it take for guppy fry to show their coloring?
Unfortunately, not before the females will be dropping more fry. I have the same hassle with Endler's. I keep moving out the colored-up adults to make room for growing fry. I tossed class N fish from 3 different sources together to mix their bloodlines, so you never know what will come up next.
 
Ahhh the joy of live-bearers.

Had the same issue with Guppies and Swordtails when I was a kid... blinking things wouldn't stop breeding- and as a kid I felt it my mission to save all the babies from the parents- so I ended up with 100s of the things and kept trying to give them away.

Once I went with all males- but one of the males got pregnant... ... babies. (perhaps it wasn't a male afterall ;) )

Several years later keeping them again, this time I got all females- but one of the females were already pregnant when I got her... babies.


Thing about guppies. Females are not normally as colourful- but if you keep males in a community tank they can harass other fish- even of different species because they have an insatiable desire to mate. They're like fraternity brothers after a keg of beer and a quick flick through an adult magazine... they'll try to breed with anything with 2 or more or fewer or no legs.
 
I went from 2 to over 200 in a month and a half with guppies. When you have a nice big ball of floating wisteria for the babies to hide in, nobody gets eaten. That was a mess.
 
Once I went with all males- but one of the males got pregnant... ... babies. (perhaps it wasn't a male afterall ;) )

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I've heard before that swordtails can switch sex if there is a single sex school, but that may have been an urban legend.
 
What would be an interesting scenario.

Buy one male and one female feeder guppy from a store. Place in a 300 Gallon aquarium. See how long it takes for Guppies to max out the bioload... (about 200 Guppies?)...

... insert a pair of large Cichlid.


See if the Cichlids can eat the guppies faster than they can reproduce.


See how long it takes for predator to wipe out the guppies- or can the guppies sustain a population whilst being eaten.



NOTE: I wouldn't actually do this... I'm a bit of a softy when it comes to fish... I'd never feed a fish to another fish... would be interesting to know how long the guppies would last though.
 
I've heard before that swordtails can switch sex if there is a single sex school, but that may have been an urban legend.

I guess it is possible. Would explain a few things.
 
It's never been reliably observed for a functional male to become a functional female, or vice versa.

... and I'm not going to claim mine did either... I was young at the time and very likely made a mistake of what was a male and female. I thought I had single gender.

I'm not going to rule out sex-change- nor would I rule out I screwed up. Both are possible.
 
My grandmothers female swordtail changed sex to a male. She never gave birth again and IT became her last surviving fish. I just got 3 large female swordtails so I might find out soon if this is in fact true.
 
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