# guppy love



## heidisue (May 3, 2006)

How many guppies are appropriate for a 10g? Also, it seems that they do not school, per se. They meander. And finally, what ratio of males to females will make the fish most comfortable?

Hope Jan S. is on tonight!


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## raven_wilde (Nov 16, 2005)

Ah guppies in a ten gallon  ... be prepared to have somewhere to farm the millions of offspring you will inevitably be ending up with... such as an understanding LFS, or a pair of hungry turtles (my preferred method).

Anyway... as for number appropriate for a ten gallon I would recommend maybe 6-8 adults, as you are going to be dealing with the addition of offspring that will likely spend some amount of time in there while they mature... the sooner you get them out, by the way, the better for your bio-filter and the carrying capacity of the tank.

As for males to females, I would say at least a 1 to 3 male to female ratio... so that works out to about 6 females, 2 males... in the end this will produce more babies faster but I believe the lives of the parent fish will be much less stressful. Male guppies generally spend all of their lives trying to have sex with female guppies... they never stop, in fact, I grew somewhat tired of my guppies for this very reason, it was like a continual frat party in my tank. In light of this then I've found that the females are less often harassed when there are significantly more of them than males... plus this helps curb a lot of the competion between the males when there are enough females to keep them all occupied.

And yeah, the little buggers do not school, they flutter about kind of randomly, the males looking for love, the females looking to avoid love... visually I don't find them very compelling... if anything, from an aesthetic point I find they detract from an aquascape.

As you can probably tell guppies are not my favorite of fishes, and if you haven't purchased any yet I would suggest you reconsider them... if anything, netting the babies out is going to get really old really fast... and eventually giving up and just letting them take over in a ten gallon is a big mistake... trust me, I've been down this road, it's not healthy for the fish.

But, I understand that you are making your fish choices to suit the needs of a five year old and in light of this guppies might be interesting for your child... kids like baby animals, guppies are pretty good at meeting this need... and they can offer an interesting lesson in genetics for your kid... if anything that is the one remaining cool thing I find about guppies... that you can see over a fairly short period of time the shifting genetic inheritances over generations... that may be a bit over the head of a five year old but its still pretty neat.

Any way that's probably much more than my 2 cents, but, there you have it... best of luck.


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## jude_uc (Feb 7, 2006)

Guppies don't have the elegance of many other fish, but they are fun to have. I think raven_wilde's comments are right, but at the same time, guppies require just about nothing. I almost never touch my guppy tank except for feeding, and they do great. There are legions of guppies in there and they don't seem to mind at all. I'm fairly sure that guppies put a very small bio-load on the tank. At the moment, I have more males than females (the last few generations have been very male heavy), and it makes the tank very busy. Each female has about 2 males chasing her and all the rest of the ma and require very little in terms of care. However, if you don't mind having only a few fish in your tank, I can't overstate the elegance of dwarf gourami's in a (heavily) planted tank....


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## guppy (Mar 7, 2004)

I feel loved.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

I also am a guppy fan. About a year and a half ago I got 5 half blacks from a chain lfs for free (they didn't know what they were  ). They have bred true, all half blacks, and have thoroughly populated a 50 gal tank and then some. One thing about guppies, or most other livebearers for that matter, is that if conditions are to their liking (with guppies this means as long as they have water  ), you will never have to buy some to replenish them, and you will never have to worry about a quarantine tank.


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## jeff63851 (Feb 23, 2005)

> I feel loved.


LOL!!! I think guppies look pretty nice, but if you get two or three you will end up with hundreds. Since all the male guppy think about sex, I would suggest about 1 male to 2 females. However, if you don't want a huge population, I would suggest you to keep only male guppies since they are more colorful (you can tell the difference between male and female by their color...males are more colorful). Their pretty easy to take care, so it's a great fish for the beginner.

Good Luck!


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## heidisue (May 3, 2006)

Dude! They had babies the FIRST NIGHT. At least six of them. I felt woefully unprepared and had nothing to protect them with - was afraid they would get sucked into the filter - but they just stayed up in the floating plants and have been there ever since. They double their size every night, practically. Crazy! 

Thanks to all of you for your advice, especially to Raven for breaking it right on down. I think I'll steel through this breedfest, let the kid watch the evolution, and then keep just males. The LFS has been cool about the babies (they'll take 'em) and my daughter prefers the males anyway since they are basically drag queens and she is all about feather boas. It's all good, I think. But I agree that their movements have a very different (and in my opinion less pleasing) effect on the look of the tank. They aren't smooth and they create too many places for the eye to get caught. On the plus side: it's never boring in there, they are big fans of the plants, and they clean scum off the surface like nobody's business.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Gee, sorry I missed this until now...#-o 

I guess all of your questions have been answered very well.

With my Endlers, I keep separating the males out as soon as they start showing color and put them in a different tank. I still get plenty of fry, but it sort of keeps them in check, and a nice group of males is pretty eye pleasing among the plants.  

Congrats on your early success!


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## Jane in Upton (Aug 10, 2005)

So you guys have successfully kept male-only groups of guppies or Endler's? I've been thinking about doing that with my Endlers. (Great excuse to set up another 10 gal, he, he he). But in a good LFS store that keeps their male and female guppies separated, I've watched the group dynamic, and it was a bit disturbing. The hoard of males seem to single out one or two males to be the "prison _itch", and really REALLY harass the poor guy! 

Hmmmm, I guess its worth considering, though, because I'm getting a bit overrun......

Interesting thread, and I love your comment about your daughter being "all about the feather boa", LOL! 

-Jane


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## heidisue (May 3, 2006)

Jane in Upton said:


> The hoard of males seem to single out one or two males to be the "prison _itch", and really REALLY harass the poor guy!
> -Jane


poor fish, funny Jane!


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## raven_wilde (Nov 16, 2005)

I have kept all male groups of fancy guppies before, but there was also a betta in the tank with them, and I think his presence somehow gave the guppies enough to be concerned with that they didn't single out one of their own to be continually harrassed. This behaviour wouldn't surprise me though, as I have seen it in other species (tiger barbs, cherry barbs) when there was a significant lack of the female sex.


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## JArtiles305 (Apr 13, 2006)

raven_wilde said:


> This behaviour wouldn't surprise me though, as I have seen it in other species (tiger barbs, cherry barbs) when there was a significant lack of the female sex.


Human Prisoners...


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Interesting observation Jane (and I'm trying my best not to chuckle a little at the analogies here....). 
I have never observed that behavior in my tank with males only, but maybe it's because it's so heavily planted? I even put fairly small males in with the adult males when I have the opportunity to catch them, and they all just start shoaling together.
On a side note, I wonder why the males are so much harder to catch than the females?

Jane, you really should set up a 10 gallon to see what sort of behavior patterns you see. No enabling here though... LOL!


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## raven_wilde (Nov 16, 2005)

JanS said:


> On a side note, I wonder why the males are so much harder to catch than the females?


Yeah, I've noticed this also and wondered about it from time to time. The males are such difficult little buggers to catch, but the females offer almost no resistance... its almost as if an overly-docile nature has been bred into their half of the species.


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## yildirim (Nov 25, 2004)

Guppies are my miracle workers just like gardeners who never get tired. When I put my hand in tank they all come and sit, even I can get many of them not using a fish net.


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