Preparing conditions for a pregnant female
Guppies are completely unpretentious and can give birth in a community aquarium. They differ in that they are viviparous. This means that the fish gives birth to fully formed and viable fry.
To provide ideal conditions for the expectant mother, it is necessary first of all to feed the fish more intensively. This is necessary so that the female does not eat the fry immediately after their birth.
Learn how to care for your guppies.
For the correct and most successful breeding process, it is advisable to take younger males and older females. This is explained by the fact that an adult fish can bear more fry. And in order to successfully fertilize her, you need a nimble and active male.
This process occurs with the help of a special organ in the male called the gonopodium. It is formed from the anal fin when the male reaches sexual maturity.
Guppy pregnancy lasts from 35 to 45 days. The duration of the process depends on the water temperature: the higher it is, the faster the fry develop.
Ideally, it is advisable to place the expectant mother in a separate aquarium. This procedure should be carried out in the last stages of pregnancy. The container must be equipped with plants with small leaves so that the fish can eat them. Otherwise, the female will most likely feast on the newborn offspring.
Did you know? A female guppy can give birth to offspring from a male even after his death. Her body retains fertilized fluid, which allows her to bear offspring many more times.
How to determine whether a female is pregnant or not?
First you need to know that these fish give birth to live fry. Many hobbyists are interested in how long pregnancy lasts for guppies. The duration of this period is usually 28–40 days. This variation depends on the number of fry that the female carries. The fertility of fish also depends on their size, the number of previous births, and other parameters that cannot all be taken into account.
How can you tell if a guppy is pregnant? You need to take a close look at the fish. At first the female is no different from other fish, but then her belly begins to round. In one of the sections of this organ, she bears eggs. This is the moment when you need to remove the pregnant guppy from the general aquarium into a separate vessel. If she has already been previously transplanted into another container along with the male, then the male should be removed from this container.
How can you tell if a guppy is pregnant if you don't have any experience breeding them? Many novice hobbyists do not know how to determine if a guppy is pregnant.
To do this, we need to continue monitoring the female. Look: if its belly first became rounded and then acquired a rectangular shape, and a dark area appeared below, it means that the fish will soon begin to give birth.
At this time, you should not disturb the female or try to change her living conditions (for example, change the temperature or add fresh water to the aquarium), since the fish is sensitive to any changes, and such interference can disrupt the birth.
Birth of guppy fry
Before the fry are born, the fish's belly becomes square. In order for the fry to survive and not require additional care, it is necessary to balance the environment in the aquarium. It is also important to feed the fish with small food. This will ensure that adults will be brightly colored in the future.
Did you know? The first fish to fly into space was a guppy.
Birth of guppy fry: video
How many are born
The number of fry depends on the size, age and diet of the female. The older and larger the fish, the more babies it will have. For the first time, it can bring up to a dozen new residents into the world. Further, their number will increase each time.
Important! In order to avoid early birth, which entails high mortality of fry, you should not change the water in the aquarium. It is also necessary to minimize changes in the fish's diet.
What they look like and how to find out the gender
The fry are born very tiny. They can reach up to 5 mm in length. Babies can only be kept in a community aquarium if there is plenty of hiding space. They can be tall grass, algae, caves, sticks, leaves, etc. Kids need them to make it easier to hide from adult fish that can eat them.
In female guppies, after two weeks of age, dark spots appear near the anal fin. In order for the fish to develop correctly, it is necessary to identify their sex in time and separate the females from the males.
Learn how to care for an Endler's guppy.
The latter are distinguished by the fact that they have a curled lower fin. It is longer than in females, as it then turns into gonopodium.
When the first sexual signs appear, the fry should be removed, but this process does not happen overnight, it lasts for weeks
How does this ornamental fish produce offspring?
In order to find out how guppies give birth, you need to carefully observe the females. You can see the following actions of the fish:
- If there is a heater in the vessel, then the female is constantly near this device. Sometimes this is a sign of premature labor.
- The fish becomes inactive and prefers to “hang” in one place.
- The female loses her appetite. Some individuals even spit out the captured food at this time.
- Right before giving birth, the fish begins to tremble, this is especially noticeable in its veil-shaped tail.
- When the fry are born, the female freezes.
- The fry come out one at a time and immediately begin to move quickly, hiding behind the plants.
Beginning fish farmers are often interested in how long labor lasts for guppies. There is no exact answer to this question. Usually the female gives birth within 3–4 hours, sometimes even longer, as it depends on the number of fry and the age of the fish itself. Even a very experienced fish farmer will not be able to indicate the exact date.
People often don't know how many fry a guppy gives birth to.
At the first spawning, young females can bring from 12 to 24 fry.
If this is the second and subsequent births, then the number of fish born can range from 48 to 96. But there are also record holders, for example, one guppy gave birth to about 180 fry at one time. It is impossible to accurately count the number of babies born, since parents begin to chase and eat them.
These fish do not have a maternal instinct; for them, any fry swimming by is food. Therefore, the fish farmer must be prepared to protect the fry from attack by the female. To do this, the female who has given birth must be moved into a common aquarium immediately after the birth of the last fry, since immediately after giving birth she will begin to eat her offspring.
When giving birth in a community aquarium, after birth, each little frog immediately hides behind the plants. After this, the fry must be carefully collected with a net and then transferred to another vessel.
If the fish farmer does not want the number of guppies to increase, then he may not place the female. You need to know that under the right conditions, the fish multiply quickly. If there are many females, then most of them can become pregnant, and this will lead to overpopulation of the aquarium. Therefore, if a large number of fry are born, the fish farmer may deliberately allow the parents to destroy some of them.
How quickly they grow, what to feed and how to care for them
Guppies grow amazingly fast. Under proper housing and feeding conditions, after one and a half to two months the first males will begin to acquire a beautiful, bright color, and the first coal spots will appear.
At 3 months they are already fully formed and reach sexual maturity. The guppy's color improves and becomes clearer and more beautiful with age. The older the male, the more uniquely colored his fins and tail are.
Learn how to grow live fish food.
First days
In the first days of life, the fish are already quite active. Immediately after birth, babies actively swim around the aquarium in search of food. In order for them to eat properly, it is necessary to give them only small food.
The ideal option would be brine shrimp and live sand. Sometimes you can dilute the diet with chopped boiled yolk from a chicken egg.
Baby guppies eat yolk
The feeding procedure should be carried out 3-4 times a day. The portions should be small, but such that the fish have enough to eat later.
Important! The daily routine of adult fish and fry is different, so it is necessary to adapt to the kids. You need to feed them more often than other fish, turn off the lights so as to provide a ten-hour daylight hours.
After 2 weeks
After two weeks of life, small fish can be switched to another food. They can be crushed bloodworms, tubifex and cyclops. You can use special packaged food for guppy fry.
The feeding procedure should be carried out 2-3 times a day. It is optimal to give small portions so that after feeding there is a minimum amount of food left. This is necessary in order to avoid rapid contamination of the aquarium.
In order for the fry to grow healthy, active and develop properly, it is necessary to ensure the temperature in the aquarium from +22 to +25 °C. Warm water will ensure the fastest growing process for babies.
What to feed guppy fry: video
So how to breed guppies?
The described ornamental fish (they belong to the genus Cyprinidae) reach sexual maturity at the age of 4 months. But if the temperature in the aquarium reaches +30 °C, then they become ready to reproduce earlier, at the age of 3 months.
They can breed in a common aquarium, but it is advisable to allocate a special vessel for this purpose. Even a 3-liter jar is suitable for this, since the fish are unpretentious. The birth vessel can have any shape.
In order for the fish to reproduce, to create conditions for reproduction, it is necessary to maintain the required temperature in the vessel chosen for spawning and plant plants, for example, Java moss. Green spaces are needed for the fry, which, when born, will immediately hide in them.
To initiate the reproduction of fish, it is necessary to raise the temperature in the aquarium 3 or 4º higher than it is maintained on normal days.
In this case, it is recommended to change 1/3 of the volume of water in the spawning aquarium to a specially settled liquid.
As soon as the male begins to chase the female, he will press against her from below or from the side, the fish farmer must be careful, since mating has begun. If the fish are kept in a common aquarium, then the number of males should not exceed the number of females. It is better if there are fewer males, since if this condition is not met, the males can drive the female so hard that she dies. For a beginning hobbyist, it is best to select a separate vessel and a pair of fish for breeding: a male and a female. It is necessary to carefully monitor the developments in this spawning aquarium in order to determine the onset of labor in time and eliminate any threat to the life of the young.
Why guppy fry do not grow: possible difficulties
Sometimes aquarists are faced with the problem that their guppy fry do not grow well or do not grow at all.
The reason for this problem may be several factors:
- The diet of children is poorly balanced, low protein content in food;
- feeding does not occur often enough;
- the water temperature in the aquarium is very low;
- the aquarium is too small and not suitable for a large number of fry;
- the offspring was born by a too young female and it cannot develop;
- the fry were born premature and not fully formed;
- lack of adding new water to the aquarium (this is important for the proper development of young animals).
Find out what diseases guppies get.
Guppies are an excellent choice for the beginning aquarist. This species of fish is distinguished by its unpretentiousness and amazing beauty. With minimal effort and low cost, you can create a beautiful underwater world. But in order for fish to feel good and have the opportunity to reproduce, they need to be provided with a balanced diet and proper living conditions.
How to determine the sex of a fish
Already at the age of 2 weeks, you can determine the gender of the guppy. For an adult fish, this is even easier; you need to visually examine the body of each fish, its shape and color.
So, let's first examine the body of the fish. You can tell a boy from a girl by their body shape. Males have a more elongated and longer body. In females it is rounded and they are larger in size than males. In some cases, a magnifying glass is used to examine the fish’s body in more detail. But this is if the fish is in a calm state and swims up to look at you, and does not hide in the plants or against the opposite wall.
The next point you need to pay attention to is the size of the fish. Adult males reach only 3 centimeters in length, while females can be almost 2 times larger and reach 6 centimeters.
Another important point that we definitely pay attention to in order to distinguish a boy from a girl is the color of the body and the brightness of the pattern. Males always have brighter colors . The tail can be of any color depending on the type of fish and have any pattern. But they all differ in beauty and brightness. Nature has endowed them with such an attractive appearance to attract females. The tail of a fish can be of a wide variety of colors and shades, it is green and blue, purple and orange, black and with white spots, there are even striped tails in males, the male guppy can have such a variety of colors.
However, you need to know this nuance: some varieties of female guppy fish also have bright colors. Then you need to compare the sizes of the fish. Photos of guppy fish on the Internet will be a good help; they will allow you to distinguish a female guppy from a male one, compare and draw certain conclusions on whether they belong to one sex or another. You can also study what colors are inherent in these fish, perhaps with future offspring your female guppy will give such a beautiful and interesting color.
Another important distinguishing feature will be the so-called pregnancy spot, it is located next to the anal fin and next to the tail. It is this spot that will indicate that you see a female guppy in front of you. Males simply cannot have such spots. And if the female is also pregnant, then this spot becomes larger, larger and darker.
Creation of necessary conditions of detention
Guppies are considered unpretentious fish, but juveniles require special care. In order for the fry to develop quickly, grow healthy and active, all conditions must be created for them:
- The size of the aquarium for guppy fry should correspond to the number of individuals. The more newborns, the more capacious the vessel. It is preferable for the fish to be kept in a fish tank attached to a common tank.
- Lighting in the first 3-5 days should be around the clock. Then you can gradually reduce the duration of daylight to 16 hours a day.
- The optimal water temperature for fry is +28ºC. During the cold season, a water heater may be required.
- Clean, oxygenated water is an indispensable condition for the health and growth of fish. To maintain the aquatic environment in the aquarium, install the necessary equipment: a filter, an aerator, and also regularly clean the bottom. The filter should be covered with fabric to prevent the fry from being drawn inside.
Proper organization of care for guppy fry involves a diet. If you feed babies whatever you have to and do not observe the frequency of food distribution, they may die.
