Guppy Babies
A Quick Guide to Caring for Guppy Babies
It is fun to raise guppy babies; guppies are livebearers. What this means is that when a guppy has babies she doesn’t lay eggs, instead she gives birth to live fish. These baby guppies are small versions of the adult fish. If you have guppies you might look into your tank one day and be surprised at all the babies that are swimming around.
When you have guppy babies in your tank there are some things that you should know so that you can raise these babies into full-grown adults. If you don’t already have babies and you are going to buy them from a fish store, you will want to start setting up a tank for them several days to a week before you bring the babies home. The reason that you want to setup your tank before you get your fish is that the tank will need some time to cycle and become established. For a tank to be healthy for fish you will fist need to use water conditioners, and then it should cycle for about a week to let the good bacteria grow. A healthy fish tank needs the right bacteria.
When visiting your pet shop you will want to buy a few guppy babies; at least one or two males and a few females. You can tell the differences between the sexes on these fish buy the male’s bright coloring and larger fins. Females will be smaller and plain. To ensure that you are getting healthy guppies, make sure the fish that you select seem full of life and swimming around. If a guppy is sitting at the bottom of the tank and not really moving around, you will want to avoid it. This is an indication that the fish is sick or stressed.
Once you have your fish in their tank at your home you will want to examine them closely, especially the females. If one of your females is pregnant you will be able to tell by looking for a dark spot on her belly. This spot should be darker if she is close to having guppy babies. If you do have a pregnant female you will want to watch her closely and as the time nears that she is ready to have her fry, you will need to move her to a separate tank that is smaller.
The breeding tank should be setup ahead of time and cycled in the same way that the larger tank was cycled. You may also want to equip the tank with a breeder box; this is a small plastic box with slits where the fry will swim and be away from the mother. The reason for this is that female guppies will sometimes eat their fry. Another way to setup the breeder tank is to place a lot of plants in the water; this works almost as well because the guppy babies will hide in the plants once they are born. When the female is done releasing the babies, you can then put her back in the main tank.
Guppy babies will eat several times a day; the best food to feed these fish is commercial fish flakes made especially for feeding baby fish. It is also possible to use adult fish flakes, but you will need to crumble the flakes until it is like a fine powder. Although you do have to feed your baby fish several times a day, don’t give them too much at one time as this has a tendency to make the tank water cloudy.
Keeping the water clean in the breeder tank is very important, as guppy babies are sensitive to water changes. To keep the water clean enough try to change it out several times; if you want you could use some of the main tank’s water to do these changes. This will ensure that the guppy babies become accustomed to the water they will eventually be living in. When the fry have grown large enough, you can place them in the main tank; this is usually in about six weeks.