Description
Lyre Tail Guppy Male
Poecilia reticulata
Appearance Male Guppies are smaller than Female Guppies but with larger flowing caudal or tail fins than the females. The males are also found with a variety of tail fin shapes and colors. The males like all live bearers have a long, thin anal fin or gonopodium which can be maneuvered in any direction.
Peaceful These are peaceful fish in general although fin nipping can appear between them. Keeping a ratio of one male to two females generally will keep fin nipping to a minimum.
Community They are excellent fish for a beginner and for most community aquarium setups. Take care when you choose tank mates for your guppies such as Tiger Barbs and Rosey Barbs. They are fin nippers and can cause great damage and stress to your guppies.
Tank Coverage Guppies can cover all areas of a fish tank with no real preference. They do however feed mainly from the surface of the water.
Feeding They do very well on flake food alone. Supplementing their diet with blood worms can be done to try and bring out their colors even more.
Guppy Breeding This is one of the easiest fish that you can breed with. It is actually not even necessary to take extra care to get them to breed. Having at least one male and two females together in a tank and taking good care of them will almost certainly produce Guppy Fry. Keeping the temperature higher at 82.5°F or 28°C will trigger breeding even more.
Guppy Breeding This is one of the easiest fish that you can breed with. It is actually not even necessary to take extra care to get them to breed. Having at least one male and two females together in a tank and taking good care of them will almost certainly produce Guppy Fry. Keeping the temperature higher at 82.5°F or 28°C will trigger breeding even more.
The Gravid Spot which is the area around the anus of the Female will become darker in color once the fish is pregnant. Once the gravid spot darkens the fish will give birth after 20-30 days. The number of Guppy Fry can range between 1 and more than 100 with typical numbers being between 20 and 50.
You will be able to tell when a Female is close to giving birth by looking for a few of the following signs. One is that she will become less active and lie still on the tank floor for long periods of time. Another is that she will eat much less than usual. At feeding times she might take food into her mouth but not eat all of it and spit most of it out. When viewing her from the side her belly is almost box shaped especially the rear side. She will also stand on her head with her tail pointing upwards and then swim backwards.
Both Males and Females as well as other species of fish if you have them in the same fish tank will want to eat the newborn Fry. So to increase their chance of survival, the Fry will need some assistance from you. With my Guppy Breeding there are two methods that I use with great success.
The one is to put a Pregnant Guppy in one compartment of a breeder net with two compartments in the same tank in which she lived when she fell pregnant. Only put her in the breeding net once she is very close to giving birth. Once she has given birth you can put her in the other compartment of the breeding net so she can rest out for a day or two before releasing her back into the tank.
Another method of increasing the chance of survival of the Fry is to have lots of hiding places in your fish tank in the form of floating and other plants. Ornaments with a lot of nooks and crannies will also help a great deal. Not only will the Fry have place to hide from the large fish but the Pregnant mother will also have place to hide from the Males that will keep on approaching her even when she is pregnant and after she has given birth.
Not separating the Female into a breeder net but only supplying hiding places in the form of plants and ornaments will ultimately result in some Fry being eaten. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it will be mostly the weaker Fry that will be eaten resulting in only the stronger Guppy Fish growing up to be adults. I guess that how you approach this depends on how much time and effort you want to spend on Breeding Guppies.
