How to Breed Guppies STEP by STEP

hey everyone Sheila here from life for pets so today we're going to take a look at breeding Guppies and I'm gonna go through it sort of step by step and all the things that you need to think about whether you wanting to breed for fun in a community tank or whether you wanting to breed maybe a little more seriously so let's start with tank size and a good tank size for breeding Guppies is 10 to 20 gallons and the reason for sort of I want to say a larger tank for a small fish is they do produce very very quickly so that is a good starting point if you wanting to breed just solely Guppies or if you wanting a community tank with some Guppies in if you'd wanting to deliberately breed Guppies then you do need to make sure that you have a setup that suits what they require for them to breed and also for the fry to survive so you do need a filter that is suitable for them and the best one is a sponge filter and that's simply so that the fry because they are so so tiny when they're born cannot get caught up in a current and end up being pulled up into the likes of a hang on back filter also sometimes the hang on back filters can have a strong flow that is just too much for the fry and so with a sponge filter you can also adjust the flow now substrate that is a personal choice a lot of serious breeders do not use substrate on five of our tanks we do have substrate and we're using sand and in our other five guppy tangs we do not have any substrate the reason we've done that is the tanks that you're looking at now have the Sun substrate and we solely have Guppies in these tanks that are no snails other than Nair right snails but other than that we don't have any snails actually breeding in here whereas in the other five tanks we have the tanks or to set up for dual breeding meaning we also use them to breed snails and Guppies as well and so we just found that it was a lot easier to keep them clean by having no substrate you will also need plants we like guppy grass is a great plant or water sprite something that sort of gets quite thick in the tank because you do need a lot of plant cover if you want the fry to survive unfortunately the males and females will eat their fry if you're not really careful so you do need plants in the tank and I will address that a little later on and because I do have a really good tip for that that we have found works very very well tank temperature usually between 75 and 82 is ideal some breeders have reported that at certain temperatures they get either more males or more females we keep our tanks at 78 I have found in all of our fry so far we do tend to get a few more females over males but in my opinion that's a good thing because we only sell in trios so I need two females to every male so I think that that actually works out really well for us one question you do need to ask yourself when it does come to breeding Guppies and that is why are you wanting to do it are you wanting to try and create a new strain are you wanting to just have them in a community tank for fun are you wanting to continue to breed strains that are already available and what is it you wanting to do with those fish whether you have Guppies just in a community tank that are breeding or whether you are deliberately breeding Guppies the one thing that is consistent across those two things is that you will likely need to find homes for them either at your local store or selling them online and so you do need to give that some thought Guppies do breed very very quickly and so you can get overpopulated with them and so you do need an outlet of what your going to do with all those babies so that is something that you really need to think about if you want to get into breeding Guppies okay so you know why you want to breed Guppies you've got your tank all set up and ready to go you've cycled it and now you're ready for your Guppies so this is where the question comes in why are you wanting to breed if you just wanting to have fun with it then usually your local store will have some beautiful Guppies that you can go and get and add to your tank now if you're wanting to breed a little more seriously like we have chosen to do then you do need to make sure that you find some good quality Guppies that you can then keep that pure strain going and as they breed and produce then use as a takeout the ones that maybe don't have the desired traits and you keep the ones with the traits that you're actually looking for this is where it comes into play that you will need several tanks if you're wanting to work with several different strains of Guppies then you obviously need to keep each one in a separate tank so that the strain stays pure and also you also need maybe a spare tank for ones you decide you know these don't make the cut these don't have the pattern the colouring or whatever and again you do need an outlet for whether a local store will take them for you so that you don't end up with tanks and tanks full of Guppies that you don't know what to do with so when it comes to a ratio of Guppies when you're choosing to buy some most will say a ratio of one male to two females and when we bought all our strains that is actually what we did I would buy two trios in most cases so that we started off with a decent number of fish in a few cases I also worked with the breeder and I asked for more females over males I personally prefer a 3 to 1 ratio when it comes to sort of getting established and getting going I find that the females are not as harassed and they're not as stressed this then promotes a really good environment in the tank so the likes of this platinum red Dumbo Guppies drain here that you can see here we have two males in there and there's about 910 female so once it gets really established then we then go for very few males 1 2 2 2 a lot more females and I just found that that works really well I've also done it where with this tank here with all these babies the two original females have been in here and they are still giving me babies even though they haven't been with a male in 3 months and so there is no male currently in this tank now and like I say they're still giving me a lot of babies so when you get your new fish you need to make sure that you do quarantine them and we also choose to run a treatment through the tanks when we get them we do general cure and a rhythm Ison and then we just then watch them very very closely after that I do think that that is very important when it comes to fish that you are intending to sell and any new fish that you bring in maybe if you're wanting to diversify the genes within a strain because you may be bred them for many generations although you're bringing in a duplicate strain you do need to make sure that you quarantine them before adding them to your existing fish so you've got your fish and you've quarantine them and then it's down to giving them a good quality diets so that they are strong and healthy and in no time at all you will end up with babies and lots and lots of babies so for feeding there are many many foods on the market when it comes to good quality foods and so really it is a personal preference for us we do use a quality pallet that I will then grind up so it is small enough for the fry and obviously I drop bigger bits in for the adults we also feed baby shrimp to the fry for the bout the first just the first few days and then I go to Daphnia so Daphnia gets added to the tank every single day I also love to feed and I think this probably is the favorite one for me and that is the repast she gel food I feed a mixture of the spawn and grow community plus and the Soylent Green and that one I just find it's such a versatile food in that I can either put it in in big chunks for the adults or I can literally like smush it all up and put it into the tank and the pieces are then small enough for the tiniest of fry so that one is probably one of my favorite foods we do also feed mini bloodworms as well the reason I choose to do a very varied diet is of pellets and gel food and frozen foods is I want them ready when they go to their new homes that they will accept any food that they are given so once your male and female have being together for a while eventually you will start to see her get bigger and bigger and you will notice the gravid spots this is an indication that she's pregnant and as time goes on you will see a sort of take on a more I want to say a square like appearance and as she's getting nearer to giving birth you will find that the male will just harass continuously unfortunately and that is basically because he keeps sort of bashing into her and as she drops the fry he will actually try and eat them so if you see this behavior one thing I have found works very very well especially if you've got a trio in there and this is like their first batch I've found by sort of taking the males away either putting them in a breeder box or something like that so just give her the peace and quiet that she needs and then once the babies are born I then try and catch as many as I can and I put them in a breeder box and I leave them in there for just about that's all and obviously feed them up so you can set a target feed them specifically and after a week I then release them and I have found this works incredibly well because once they're released obviously they're that much bigger and so the parents don't tend to bother with them and also then once they have more fry because they're so used to fry just swimming around I found that they just don't bother with the others at all now that is not to say that they they never eat any fry I'm not claiming that at all but I have found that it works very well indeed to take out that first batch when you first get going so the female will drop fry approximately every four to five weeks we have found that it is about every four weeks for us and the first batch when they have their very very first one I found tends to be anything from maybe 5 to 15 babies when the fry are first born they are very very tiny and so you do need to make sure that the foods that you're offering them are small enough for them to eat I have found that baby brine shrimp and also grinding got food is usually the best option along with the repast she actually as well because like I say you can smush that up into almost non-existence there are also some fry foods on the market as well that you can buy but you do need to make sure that you have food available that is small enough for them to eat once you've got the fish breeding and breeding in a tank the one thing that you will need to watch is your tank maintenance and I guess that this really comes into I mean you can have a tank full of Guppies but you do need to make sure that you do the maintenance that goes with that when you've just got a few Guppies in there you once a week water change will be fine but once you start getting babies and more babies and more babies and as they're all growing up in a tank then you may need then you may find that you need to do extra tank especially if you want the fry to grow at a decent rate then you do need to up that tank maintenance for that to happen we actually do two water changes a week on all of these tanks and I find that that works really well it keeps the parameters where we need them and the guppy fry do seem to grow at a really nice not too fast but they do grow at a good rate with us doing that so once you fry a grown-up and are big enough you don't need to decide or what you want to do with them do you want to sell them do you want to trade with your local fish store do you have a fish club you do need to make sure that you have an outlet for all the babies that you are planning on producing now I do know that we're going to get a lot of questions on do we sell our Guppies we do sell them through our website so if you want to go on over and take a look at them you can do not all of them are actually listed right now I will be listing some more ready for January and you can actually do the notify when back in stock if you are interested and that will then just let you know once we add them back to the website so what if you want to have Guppies but you don't want babies you can do all male guppy tanks and as long as we've found as long as you do five or more then they tend to get along really really well you can also do a just a female tank but there are never any full guarantees that they won't already be pregnant but those are two options if you don't want the babies but you do want to own these beautiful fish alright guys thanks for watching and we'll see you next time

Channel: Lifewithpets

Views: 227,096

Rating: 4.821744 out of 5

Keywords: how to breed guppies, breeding guppies, guppy tank, what to feed guppy fry, guppy breeding, tank for guppies, what to feed guppies

Id: aV64OoDo90Q

Length: 14min 59sec (899 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 10 2019