Breeding Guppies

[Signus]

I volunteer with the biology college at my school in the aquatics labs now. It just so happens that nearly every tank besides three are saltwater and I haven't a clue/interest in those.

The main point of this is to talk about the one tank that I am actually interested in: a guppy-breeding tank.

It has several guppies that were donated by some young man and "java moss" for them to breed in. They are unusually plain, so I'm not really sure if they are guppies to begin with, but do have the characteristics of livebearers. This java moss doesn't even look familiar. It's taken over the 30 odd gallon tank as a giant mass of light, lime green matter. It looks like some sort of algae or plant from a US creek which grows naturally as a very dense matt.

My main problem is getting the little buggers to breed. One by one, the poor fish have dropped dead as the months have gone by, but no fry have appeared nor females getting plump. The tank is kept at room temperature (73 degrees F?) at all times. The tank has two Aquaclear 150 filters. Every parameter appears normal.

Is there any way I can induce them to breed? Or should we look at doing a tank overhaul? Would adding salt be beneficial to their reproduction?

I can get pictures of the actual tank Monday to show you all what I mean. In the mean time, I plan on removing the huge number of snails and the 2 cubic feet of whatever "plant" they added to the tank and adding a large clump of my excess java moss (two problems solved for the both of us since I need to prune the plants in my personal tanks anyways).

Like I said, the Biology College really isn't interested in freshwater tanks at this time so I'm trying to help them out by asking you all. Actually, we have a really nice sized grouper that I'm waiting to get to legal limits.... Of course, that's if they ever get tired of the little devil: He tries to take off your fingers as you clean the tank.

 

[Milky]

try to get them in the mood

try to get the fish in the mood
if you do a water change on the
tank and feed them some different
type of food besides the same old flakes day in day out,
for me a steak extra well done and red wine usually does
the trick for the fishies ill say frozen blood
worms mmm yummie or brine shrimp and maybee
raise the temp 2 or 3 degrees temporarly.
This works well on my discus try to spice things
up for em ;]] hope this helps

dont let the moss get to out of controll .

 

[PumaWard]

First, did you cycle the tank before adding the fish? What maintainence do you perform on the tank?

Next, what are your water perameters (ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate readings are the most important). Ammonia should read 0ppm in a cycled tank, nitrite should also be 0ppm, and nitrate

You shouldn't have to induce guppies to breed as they are usually an "add water and fish" type of specie. They are very prolific, usually, in the worst of conditions.

If your females are gravid (they look very fat) but haven't dropped fry in a while, I would almost assume that your ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate readings are off causing them stress.

HTH

 

[daveedka]

some of This information is largely hearsay, so I don't know the accuracy, but it may be something you want to check into further.

When guppies and endlers cross, my understanding is that the offspring are often hybred, and will not reproduce. in many cases (especially feeders) the "guppies" we get are largely endlers livebearers. The female endlers almost never show color, and are very hard (for me) to distinguish from guppies.

Quite honestly I have never seen or heard of guppies that wouldn't reproduce at an alarming rate, so I imagine you do have a hybred of some kind and propbably won't see any changes in the activity. I have never ever had to induce guppies to reproduce, and have never head of anyone being successful in even limiting reproduction when males and females are together.
Dave

 

[Seaman]

Besides the obvious hecking of all the reading in the tank, are you sure that any of the guppies you have are male?? Because my female guppies will get fat and get theat black gravid (sp) spot even when kept in a tank alone.....

Are any of your guppies very colorful, because the males are the very colorful ones.

This is a male (doesnt necissarily have a long tail, just very colorful)

This is a female (no color at all)

also I would leave the plant "matt" in there....it will give the babies a place to hide, and as long as its growing well, it helps with amonia/nitrite and nitrate. You can still add the java fern, just keep in mind that it does better attached to things rather than planted in the gravel.

Also one more question....whats the schedule of waterchanges on the tank??

 

[Signus]

Water gets a change weekly, I believe, taking about 20% out at a time. I think that they might all be females if the above photo indicates anything. There are no bright colors at all on any of the 2-3 cm fish.

I'll get the specific parameters on Monday since the offices are closed and I don't have the keys to get in and do the tests myself. There are several plastic plants at the bottom, so I can attach the java fern to them till it can grow steady. Leaving in the plant sounds like a good idea, though I'm a bit concerned about all of the trapped debri underneath it. It looks like the people there don't know that they also need to clean up the gravel.

Thank you so far for all of the info!

 

[Signus]

Btw, none of the fish have even gotten close to looking gravid, so my superiors say. I'm going to monitor them closer this week and get pictures for you all starting monday.

 

[BayBayBay]

Here is my setup I don't know if it would help. a 50 gallons tank. emperor 280 filter. Undergravel filter, 2 inches of gravel and some plastic plants. I change about 20% of water once every 2 month. for the filter media, i change it every 3 months. temperature is around 80-82 C. i feed them goldfish flakes once a day. I placed 2 pairs guppies in the tank 2 years ago. now i have 100's of guppies in the tank. i have a 7" pleco in the tank to eat all the left over food.

 

[Signus]

Sorry for being so long in getting to this post. I talked with my superiors about what type of fish they are, heat, filtration, etc. and they said they were plain feeder guppies that they buy by the box (500). We only have 1 female and 7 or 9 males, so we're going to buy a box if the class that uses them ever starts back up again.

NH3 0
NO2 0
NO3 10 from what I could tell

Carbonate hardness was 5 degrees
General Hardness was inconclusive using the testing kit given.

I did a 30% water change and was told to continue doing so for the tank every week.

I'll keep you all posted.

 

[Analog Saint]

perhaps some soft lighting and Barry White would help, maybe a nice candlelit dinner.

You can try playing with the temperature (raising) and water level (lowering)- I hear that may help with some species, but then again, usually the only trouble people have with guppies is getting them to stop breeding. As previously suggested, maybe some changeups in food could help too.