fancy guppies...hard to keep?

When I was younger I had a 10g and new nothing about it. I kept guppies and had over a 100 fry at any time. I was horrendous when it came to knowing what I was doing. Not knowing anything about water quality or cycling. Finally my tank went to pieces and I got behind on cleaning. It got really nasty and that one guppy was still alive. I know better now but have always considered guppies to be really hardy. I had gotten them from a local (small) pet store. I would question the stocker. Also, everytime I go to Petco their guppies do not look well (drab colors, not that active). I will probably buy other fish from them but their guppy selection is never good. My local Petsmart has a much better guppy stock than Petco though I don't know if thats just around here.
 
the ph is 7.5
i dont add salt because of the oto's and plants and i have a cory cat.
i bought 4 at a time all males, one died in the bag on the way home, it only took me 20 minutes to get home so they werent in the bag that long.
then about a week later another died, then a few weeks more the other 2 were dead. they had funny faces, not sure if they were normal, but their eyes were buggy and their gills were large. being such a small fish and me with my bad eyes i couldnt make them out too good.
my lemon tetras are so old they pretty much stick to each other. the lemons also spawn in my tank quite often so if my water was really bad i dont think they would be spawning.
if i bought the guppies sick luckily my fish never cought anything from them.
ive had feeder guppies in the past that were very strong so i know what you mean about that one :)
i will try another store and see what happends
oh i feed a variety of foods, tetra flakes, brine shrimp flakes, algae granules, frozen bloodworms and freeze dried tubifex, and sometimes ill feed them micro cichlid pellets (kent)
i feed very little only once a day and none remains in the tank.
i guess ill blame petco for this lol
 
I think your problem might be solved! Buying 4 males at one time is not a good idea. IME guppies are just like other livebearers and need a ratio of 1 male to every 2-3 females. The males probably harrassed each other to death. Just my thoughts on the topic.
 
Bitsy said:
I think your problem might be solved! Buying 4 males at one time is not a good idea. IME guppies are just like other livebearers and need a ratio of 1 male to every 2-3 females. The males probably harrassed each other to death. Just my thoughts on the topic.
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I don't think it was your whole problem, but definiately not good! You always want to go with the above ratio.

Abraham
 
oh i didnt know lol
well then wouldnt i be left with just one guppy? i did see them scuffle but they had no fin damage and they didnt chase each other.
the females are so ugly thats why i never got any, actually the tank at petco was male only, im assuming the females look drab like feeder guppies?
so if i buy more at a different store and they have males only how do i get a female? just ask for a feeder female?
 
No Petco usually does not stock females and if they do they are in a seperate tank so they don't have a zillion fry at the store. Petsmart has some nice females, oddly enough so does Walmart. Some places keep them together, others don't but they will be in a tank next to the males at least but you definitely want fancy guppy females. They have a bit of color on their fin, some varieties more than others (I'm noticing females are a lot more colorful than they were 10 years ago), sometimes their bodies have a pale color as well. They are fun to have because they have babies all the time.
 
oh cool
as long as they have some color that would be fine. now that i think of it petco has never had the females, the tank always said "male guppy"
ill give it another try this time with females and males from a different store, hopefully this will work :o
 
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