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.

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.

AquariumGuys.com is the source for guppy care. Check out our guppy fish food section. Decorate your aquarium with artificial plants. We have everything you need to keep your guppy happy.

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