How to sex guppies?

captmicha

captmicha

Le tired.
Dec 6, 2006
2,052
0
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Maryland, USA
I can sex mature guppies but I'm having trouble with the fry. They're about 1cm and are starting to color up. I need to get them sexed and separated asap. I can't make out the gonopodium fins on the males... Sure I could get a magnifying glass but they're zooming around the grow out tank and they're outgrowing it and they need to be taken out and males put into a male only tank and same with the females.

The amount of coloration doesn't seem to be very indicative of sex since my adult females are pretty colorful too.

I'm aware of those photography boxes for fish where you can slide an insert so that the fish is almost immobilized against the front of the box but I'm not sure that's going to be practical for so many fish and such tiny fish??

Any tips?

And yes, I know that they can hold sperm early on in life and for a long time. I'm hoping to prevent that.

No, I can't bring myself to just feed the fry to my other fish :/
 
The only way I know is to look for the gonopodium. On small fish it can ge ticky and usually is takes up a lot of time, but if you have a few hours to kill! Haha, wish there was a better way.
 
Just net the baby, or catch it with ur hands(this is less stressful on all fish including angels and discus), and then examine more closely.
 
lol, take a few hours and look at each little one. they're your babies, so it's your choice to either do the work or abort them as feeders
 
lol, take a few hours and look at each little one. they're your babies, so it's your choice to either do the work or abort them as feeders
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Yes, I know I'm crazy. I'm hoping I can find homes for some... If not, I'll just have a tank full of boys and a tank full of girls. At least they're pretty and easy to keep.
 
captmicha said:
Yes, I know I'm crazy. I'm hoping I can find homes for some... If not, I'll just have a tank full of boys and a tank full of girls. At least they're pretty and easy to keep.
Click to expand...

I found it was not easy to keep the tanks divided by gender, because the females kept having more babies, and it was very hard to identify the males before they started in on making more fry. I ended up giving a bunch (maybe 50?) away, knowing they would be used as feeders. I now have about 10 males in one tank and a few females in another. The females are having more fry, but so far I think I'm on top of this.
 
When they are just starting to sex out, the gonopodium will start to take shape. The fins at this point look probably all like female fins. For males, the fin will start to point at the end. That's the easiest way to tell and get those horndogs out early!
 
Pretty sure the gravid spot is present before the gonopodium forms. Backlighting the fry should make it easier to spot.
 
I vote to put on some Oprah or Dr. Phil and see which ones start watching the TV. Instant sexing :D
 
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