From the article: Guppy
Have you keep a Guppy? If so, please help other fish owners by sharing what you know about Guppies. Share Your Experiences
GUPPYS
- I have GREAT success breeding Fancy Guppys. Looking to get some FRY from the beautiful Blue Moscow fancys now. All this talk about regular water changes makes me giggle. Heavy planted tanks with trumpet snails and water changes are minimal. Big water changes ruin the good bacteria and cause overstress to the fish. Check your levels before that routine water change and you will find your fish giving birth a lot more. Honestly, fish want food, not to have their water level drop 40% or more.
- —Guest Boston Paulie
More on Keeping Guppies
- If you're interested in keeping guppies, here are a few more tips: Keep your fish in a larger tank if possible. A long 55 gallon will do very well. Guppies are great breeders and a tank this size can support many fish if you're faithful to your tank cleaning schedule. Watersprite or Indian Fern is your plant for a guppy tank. This plant works very well attached near the top of the tank, floating close to the hood light. This works better than planting it in the gravel, because if it's floating it doesn't get in the way when you're vacuuming during a water change. Your guppies will eat bits of it to supplement their diet and rest in it at night. The small fry will also use it as a hiding place from aggressive adults that might mistake them for a meal during feeding time. Though well fed adults will seldom eat their young.
- —BBradbury
Keeping Guppies
- Have been keeping guppies for some time and have never had a guppy that lived three years let alone five. This lifespan may apply to the very experienced breeder's fish who keeps them for a living. For the average guppy keeper, 1 to 1 and half years is the maximum lifespan of a guppy. This depends on keeping the water clean, a 20 percent water change including vacuuming the gravel every 2 weeks miniumum and the fish fed a varied diet on a regular basis of 1 to 2 times per day. I have experimented with different sized tanks and found the longer, shorter tanks the best for the fish and the plants and a tank no smaller than 20 gallons. Always keep live plants; a combination of watersprite and any one of the bushier ground cover types will work. Always use good power filters, air pumps and lighting and your guppies will stay healthy, but sadly not 3 to 5 years.
- —BBradbury
