Baby guppy care
Baby guppies are easy to take care of, and a great way to expand your fish stock in your aquarium, as the guppies are easy breeders that are easy to take care of. Under the right conditions guppies will breed regularly and as live bearers you’ll see the young in the tank. Under the right conditions, you can get a lot of guppies.
Before you get guppies with the intent of breeding baby guppies, you’re going to want to make sure your aquarium tank and the area around it are ready. Since baby guppies do require more attention and care at first than fully grown fish, you need to prep the space now, as you will get very busy once your baby guppies are born.
The first thing as always is to make sure your aquariums is in the spot you want it in and that it looks right with the rest of your decor. Most likely your small tank is sitting on a table, credenza, entertainment center or other piece of furniture. If you have your aquarium in a room with matching cabinets or other shelves, you should make sure it is all exactly as you want them. If it has been able since you have refreshed your decor, it may be time to bring in interior cabinet painters or furniture painters like interiorpainter.ca. Again, now is the time to do space upgrades before your baby guppies are born.
Guppies, and other fish, will eat the young as they swim around but there are options for keeping them alive (and that’s not a floating breeding trap which are quite frankly rubbish).
Option 1 – Second tank for growing on.
This is how I have it setup at home, a 34l nano tank (Fluval flex – see the review here) where I catch and transfer the baby fish. In the smaller tank I have some small plants and shrimp to keep it clean meaning the baby fish are perfectly safe.
As they grow bigger they get transferred back to the main tank and new baby fish added.
This also means I rarely buy new fish as my tank is always full. My main tank also has breeding shrimp so I do the same with the baby shrimp when I can actually catch them – baby shrimp are fast!
The second tank option can also be used for any baby fish – I sometimes get mollies breeding but not as often as the guppies.
This is a Fluval edge 22l tank and I just have a couple of plants floating around in it that the fish hide in most of the time.
As the tank itself isn’t well planted this just helps give them more hiding places to keep the stress levels down and keep more of them alive.
Option 2 – floating breeding trap
Do not do this. The fish will fall through the bottom and get eaten, these are just a waste of £10.
Option 3 – Increase planting in your tank
The more places the fish can hide the more chance they have of surviving.
Even though I catch most of them from my main tank I still get some that survive as it’s well planted.
Low level plants mixed with features work well (see my tank below for how mine looks). This gives lots of levels and suitable hiding places for the baby fish.
Tank – Jewel Trigon 190, corner tank with a white cliff back ground installed.
For a really quick fix I put in plants with a loose weigh so they won’t sink and let them float around in the water (as you can see in the tank under option 1).
This gives the fish something to hide in higher up in the water and get the food.
Plants like java moss that will grow up in a messy way is also a great thing to add to keep more of the fry alive.
They’ll quickly find these pockets and use them for safety while they grow.
The Java moss in my main tank above is well establish and needs trimming regularly but is a great pace for the young guppies to hide.
What to feed them?
A small fish needs small food! That’s pretty obvious. As a shrimp keeper I only keep small fish and feed them this which works fine for the baby fish too – You can buy it from Amazon – Click here to buy
If you’ve got them in a separate tank you can grind it down further just between your fingers when they’re very newly born.
Regular feeding of small amounts up to 4/5 times a day will help get them growing on quickly – just as much as they’ll eat before losing interest.
What if you get too many?
If you’re guppies breed at a fast rate and you keep more of them alive you may find that you have too many for the tank.
The best thing is to contact your local aquatic store who will usually take them off you as a donation .
They’re not allowed to pay you as your not a licensed fish supplier. Alternatively encourage your friends to get a tank!