Swordtail
xiphophorus helleri

Cost: $5-19, the higher end Swordtails are ones with rarer colors and unique tail shapes.

Short Profile:
Swordtails are very hardy fish when cultivated, and are most often found in a community tank. Be warned that large individuals can become bullies over time, mainly males chasing other male swortails. There are many various combinations of colors and fin shapes available. With line-breeding being a specialist activity.

Origin:
Central America, Atlantic drainage from Veracruz, Mexico, south into Belize. Feral populations are spread throughout the world.

Size:
Excluding the sword, a male can get up to 3.1 inches (8 cm) and the females being larger at 4.7 inches (12 cm).

Sexual distinctions:
Males take quit some time to sex, but at a point the anal fin changes shape and forms a gonopodium. The easiest way to tell a male from a female is the male will have a swordlike extension on the lower part of the caudal fin. Sometimes this sword can be as long as the body.

Tank conditions:

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First the tank size should be at least 36 x 12 x 12 inches (90 x 30 x 30 cm).
Temperature 68-79 degrees Fahrenheit (20-26 Celsius). The water should have a reading of medium to medium-hard, and neutral to slightly alkaline. A Ph reading of 7-7.4. The water should be well aerated with some form of bubbler. The tank should have some plants with plenty of open swimming space. Don’t add decorations that will acidify the water such as bogwood. The swordtail prefers to swim in the middle of the tank.

Tank Mates:
Tank mates for the swordtail should be of “robust species.” Or if the species that it’s going to sharing a tank with should be able to at least stand up for itself. It’s just that the swordtail with use it’s size to push around smaller, weaker species. No real damage done.

Food:
Will eat just about anything, flake, frozen, and live foods are all good.

Behavior:
The swordtail is a very active and boisterous species, and behaves well when not the dominate species in the tank.

Breeding:
Will readily bread in a community tank, gives birth to live young that look like miniature versions of the parents. It’s been reported that larger females can give birth to 200 fry at a time.

There was a story that I heard a few years ago where there was a wild Swordtail that someone put into their fish tank and it was around 7 inches in length and could give birth to a few thousand fry at a time.

Guppy a.k.a Millions Fish
poecilia retculata

Cost: $2-8

Shot Bio:
A very peaceful, colorful, and lively community fish that is easy to keep and breed. When breeding you can try selective breeding to breed true to type. When breeding this way you can eventually breed a veiltail (just a tail style) strain.

Origin:
Venezuela, Caribbean Islands, including Barbados, Trinidad, and Antigua, is widely spread now for the control of mosquito populations.

Size:
The males are 1.2 inches (3 cm) and females being larger at 2 inches (5 cm).

Sexual distinctions:
The males will mature that anal fins will form a rod like structure called a gonopodium, and the females anal fines will fan like when spread.

Tank conditions:
Temperature 68-79 degrees Fahrenheit (20-26 Celsius). The water should be medium to medium-hard, with the Ph being neutral to slightly alkaline ( 7-7.4). The tank should be well planted, that includes floating plants and planted plants. With plenty of free swimming space.

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Other those essentials you can decorate the tank however you wish. The guppy a.k.a tends to stay mid-tank or at the surface of the water.

Food:
The guppy a.k.a millions fish, will eat frozen foods such as baby brine shrimp, or if you want to grow the shrimp that would be fine too. It will eat mosquito larva, so during the summer instead of dumping out that bucket with standing water, you can scoop out some free fish food.

Behavior:
The guppy a.k.a millions fish is very peaceful and be kept with any kind of tank mate. Just make sure that it’s tank mates are not big enough to eat the guppy. Also make sure that you do not keep any aggressive, or fin nipping fish with the guppy a.k.a millions fish. Their brilliant, but delicate tails will be shredded.

Breeding:
There is a reason why this fish is nicknamed the millions fish. The guppy is a very healthy breeder, I breed mine for food for my Jack Dempsey. In optimum conditions the guppy can give birth every 18 days. All that is need is more females to males, high quality food, and hiding places for the females.

Common Platy
xiphophorus maculatus

Cost: $3-8, Only the large adult line-bred fish at the upper end of the price range
Short Bio:
The common platy is a deep bodied species that has many color variations and is the perfect community fish that is peaceful and very adaptable.

Origin:
Mexico and Belize, and Guatemala.

Size:
The males get around 1.8 inches and the females will be larger at 2.2 inches (5.5 cm).

Sexual distinctions:
The males will have a rod-like structure by the anal fins, while the females anal fin is fan-like.

Tank conditions:

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Temperature 72-79 degrees Fahrenheit ( 22-26 Celsius). The water should be medium to medium hard and be neutral to slight acid and have a Ph of 7-7.4. The tank should be well-planted, but you can add any kind of decorations just don’t add anything that could make the water more acidic such as bogwood.

Food:
Mainly eats flake and small live foods.

Behavior:
There really isn’t anything bad to say about the common platy, it’s very peaceful and is a great community tank fish, and it can tolerate a wide range of tank conditions and will eat just about anything.

Breeding:
Breeds easily in a tank that has plenty of hiding places for the fry because other tank mates and even the parents will see the young, small, fry as food.

Guppy Fry Care
For the time period of birth to 1 month of age

Once you’ve successfully birthed the fry there is the next step of special care that they require. These special needs are, food, water, temperature.

Food:
They fry need a high protein diet mixed with a high quality flake food that is a supply of greens.
The best protein filled food that also increases growth rate is the baby brine shrimp. Brine shrimp can be bought as frozen cubes, the adult brine shrimp is also sold but make sure the package says baby brine shrimp. Or what I’ve come to do, is I’ll by a glass vile of brine shrimp eggs and hatch them myself. This way has proven to be a little more work but the money I began to save help steer me to the hatching of brine shrimp path. If you plan on buying the cubes make sure that when you feed the fry to not just drop a whole cube into the tank.

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This could lead to pollution of the water since as the cube melts, brine shrimp will begin to spread throughout the tank. The fry can’t eat fast enough to clean up the floating mess of shrimp. So what I do is I’ll cut the cube in half then hold the frozen cube in my hand just under the surface of the water. This is a cleaner way to feed the fry, and the majority of the food is eaten which saves money as well . Now brine shrimp is extremely good for the fry, but they also need a vegetable supplement to help build and keep their immune system up, it’s also essential to help their body function properly. The best thing that I’ve found for such an important role is a high quality spirulina flake food.

Water:
I’ve read many books and articles, but from personal experience I’ve found that the batch of fry that you have born in your water are already adjusted to the water conditions and don’t need to be specially treated as say if you were just introducing a fish to your tank. Just do your regular water changes and you should be fine. Just be careful not to suck up your new finny friends

Temperature:
Now this isn’t as important as say food or water, but it’s still something to keep in mind when trying to raise healthy fry. During the summer months I actually turn off my heaters (I live in MN) and let the ambient temperature keep my tank warm. Now I just started doing this not that long ago and I observed some surprising results. It seems that with the fluctuation of the temperature in the day to the temperature of the night, that the fry seem to be healthier and more active. I’ve heard from some that this is because this natural temperature change can help build the immune system of the fry.
But I’ve also done some observing of some fry when I’ve kept a constant temperature of 81 degrees Fahrenheit, the fry had a better appetite and grew faster. I figure that because the temperature is higher that the fry can digest and absorb the food faster and with me keeping up with their appetite they have the ability to grow faster.

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Well, guppies can take anywhere from 2-4 months to sexually mature. There are different factors involved that will impact the rate which they mature. Temperature, food, tank mates, etc. The temperature combined with food will have the greatest impact of all. The higher the temperature is at the faster the guppies metabolism is running. So if you give adequate food for the rate that the guppy can eat it, the faster the guppy will grow.

The tank mates also play a huge roll, if the young guppy is scared to get the food it will eat less, no matter what amount of food it’s offered. The temperature will have no impact on the young guppy other then it will feel very hungry. Now you may be saying well I bought a guppy that was younger then 2 months of age and without a male it gave birth. The guppy has a really neat way of making sure that no matter what its kind will continue to swim for eons to come. What the female does is she will store sperm for up to seven months inside of her. What she does it that when she feels it’s a good time to give birth she will use the stored sperm to fertilize her eggs. This way she will have readily available amounts of sperm for almost half her life span. To me that’s pretty incredible.

So here is the run down on when they mature.

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From birth to 1 month they are fry.
From 1 to 2 months they are juveniles, so teenagers,
And if all the conditions are right, the food is sufficient, and adequately nutrient, the guppy will be fully mature by the middle of the 3rd month.

Now there is a difference in the actual time from when a male is mature, and when he is able to reproduce.
So what I mean is a male can start to reproduce at the young age of 1 month. Now what that means is that if you have mature females in the tank with a 1 month old male that he is going to impregnate the female and you can quickly become overwhelmed with guppy fry. But if you are housing young males and young females together then you will be fine, a female can hold sperm from a male for up to 7 months, and she can hold it before she is mature enough to fertilize her eggs. And since females aren’t sexually mature as soon as the males are, they sexually mature around the 3 month period, you will not be over run by guppy fry.
Now fully matured guppies are just full grown and have all their color. That’s what takes place around 3 months.
Sexual maturity is different:
Males 1 month, and females 3 months.

Now I can get to the fun part, the adults. The next few videos are of adult male guppies. These are just a few of the different types of guppies you can get. Enjoy