Fancy guppy

The fishes come in all varieties, and most are pleasing to the sights. Of course, not all can be kept at home because of acclimatization and the true lovers have to short-list their choices by quite a bit. Fancy Guppy is one of the fine fishes to keep.
Fancy Guppy, a very cut name, belongs to a very cute specie of fishes. They are very gregarious (they love to live in groups) and can accommodate in all environment, freshwater even brackish.
They have the appearance of being quite busy and very rarely are they found resting in peace for a long period. Quite notorious by nature, Fancy Guppies love to trim the fins of fellow fishes and play with the additions the owner adds to the aquarium like shells, algae and barbs.
The aquarium is a house to the fishes and necessary care has to be taken before replenishing it with Fancy Guppy. It is advisable to keep the quota per fish of the breed at 3 gallons. Lack of water may be detrimental to the aquarium’s population as Fancy Guppy has the tendency to turn territorial.
Some salt addition to the water keeps them conditioned and comfortable with the water content. Fancy Guppies may be fed flake food randomly with partially freeze-dried stuff. It should however be kept in mind that the fish finds freeze-dried food indigestible. Tubiflex and bloodworms are other nice tries for the parents and fries.
The parents also have the ready and bizarre option of eating their own fries if the situation demands so. Thus it is always beneficial to keep an eye on the safety of the fries, at least till they grow big enough to fight for their own existence.
Suitable hiding grounds, barbs and small dens are very handy in gaining the fries some security. An additional joined aquarium may also be handed over to them to feel at home. The fries should only be fed brine shrimps till they are no more fries.
Disease, a proximal certainty in the lives of every creature, is a big worry. And care should be taken in this regard. Since Fancy Guppy is an aquatic animal, and water diseases are quite often very infectious, the affected fishes should at once be separated and put in a fresh medicated tank.
The number of different species should be carefully sieved after checking out that none are natural disease transmitter to the other. Books and a little expert advice should be checked for to analyze whether there is outbreak of any disease.
One should always be conscious of keeping quality stock. The week ones should be eliminated without hesitation as the result would be production of stronger breeds. The quality breed needs an eye to ascertain and here also, experts should be consulted.
The males should ideally be kept with females in ratio of 2:1 to keep the atmosphere alive. The females die due to repeated mating attempts id they are one to one in the glasshouse.
This too needs care!

Look at this video. I found this video on youtube. I liked way this aquarium set up for Fancy Guppies. Since conditions in aquarium are excellent guppies are enjoying it very much. See most of guppies are bright in color and playing all around the tank. Having live plants and places to hide is very important. It provides confidence in guppy and you guppy fries can hide from predators.

In keeping with the tradition of keeping the guests happy, good people continue the trend with other specie too. And if the guest is a Fancy Guppy lively staring at the owner through the aquarium sheets, treating them well becomes a treat of a passion for the owner as well.
The fish is a pot.  It devours heavily and anything worth its digestive capacity. Yes,  each specie has an inward and intuitive knowledge of what food suits its tastes and fancy Guppy is no exception.  Left to us, the feeding should be at a very interesting rate.
The guppy fries or the baby guppies should be first provided enough fat and proteins to build in some weight. Freeze-dried worms, brine shrimps and finely cut edible stuff rich in vitamins are a wonderful thing to have for the babies. The beef is also a rich taste, although one fails to realize how they instinctively like it, since they would hardly get across beef while they are free.
The adults, or the 4-5 month old Fancy Guppies, are best kept on a diet, because most have had their fill since birth and grown a belly, most clearly seen near the dorsal fin. Such Fancy Guppies may live even after 2 weeks of no food and there is no harm in keeping them hungry for a few days.
Food is essential, and ultimately even they need it. The perfect food is low-calorie stuff, punctuated with freeze-dried food once a week. The balance is maintained. Cultured food or live small creatures answer the call best as they are naturally live and thus fresh. The Fancy Guppy feels pretty homely feeding on it.
The mosquitoes are a great attraction to these fishes and they may have a wholesome feast on them if provided. As the mosquitoes are commonly found sitting on the surface of the water, they are easy prey for the Guppies in the wild. In home atmosphere, the mosquitoes may be drawn to the aquarium with due strategies.
The natural food, like plankton and algae are very friendly to the fancy Guppy bellies, as they neutralize the false effects of their digestive system. Even lions have been seen consuming leaves sometimes to keep their digestive tract glowing!
The flakes are an owner’s scientific way of keeping the calorie balance. Checking with experts or online about what quantity of what the Fancy Guppy needs, the owner might find the actual food a bit expensive to spend on the fish. So flakes are a great alternative and provide a variety in taste. The Fancy Guppies are found to have a fancy for the flakes and run in to have their share even before the flakes bloat.
If the fishes are found uneasy because of certain feeding complications, and if the owner is qualifies enough to judge that, he or she should best keep the fish under quarantine and hungry for a few days till it regains its color. The males guppies are more colorful than the female guppies just for the record.

You will not require many things to breed guppies, just breeding fancy guppy trio (1 male 2 female), small tanks, tank accessories and that’s all.
Breeding fancy guppies easiest among all other tropical fishes. But difficult part is raising guppies. We will cover it in some other posts.
Most important thing in breeding guppies is right choice of breeding programme. If you fail to choose right programme then your beautiful fancy guppies will look like wild guppies after few generations.
Concentrate only on one part, this will give optimum improvement in your guppy strain. Decide whether you want to increase fin size or brighter colors or size of tail or all to gather different strain. do only one thing at a time.
Once decided choose best suitable from following 3 methods
1. Inbreeding
2. Line breeding
3. Out crossing
we will see all these in short.

1.     Inbreeding mainly advantageous in choosing particular color for fins, fixing fin confirmation or color pattens.
this method mainly involves breeding guppies closely related. e.g. choose best male guppy and breed it with its sister or mother. this will produce fish which look alike in patterns and colors. This method is also used for mass production of particular strain. fancy guppy you buy from fish store are likely breed using this method.
2.     Line breeding is slightly modified version of inbreeding program. this method is very systematic and require lot of hard work and extensive documentation. To start with you take one male guppy and breed it with 2 sister female guppies. Keep separate resulting young guppies of each guppy female. this is first generation name it generation-1 (or whatever). next generation again breed a male guppy to 2 female guppies and keep each line separate. do this again and again till you rich 6th generation. at this stage you take a male guppy from one line and cross it with female guppy from other line. This method is proven and gives quality fish for years to years provided you chose best male for breeding guppies. Breeding male guppy from another line after few generations maintain better quality while strict inbreeding program improves particular feature of guppy.
3.    Out crossing, as name suggested is breeding guppies of 2 unrelated guppies or even different strains. Most of breeders use this method to produce their show guppy or fancy guppies. Some people have developed beautiful new varieties by simply crossing everything they have together with the hope of finding the right combination. After this is done, the problem is getting the new line to produce the same type of fish. I would recommend selecting another line of fish with an established line only to improve the finnage or color of what you have. This can provide you with that little extra your fish may need to push them over the top.

Feed quality food to your guppies. Quality food will keep them healthy. Select young guppies for breeding. If you choose older ones they may not produce quality baby guppies. Keep in mind if you want great quality guppies you need discard which are ill or poor quality.

This article is rewritten from original article from FRANK SCHWAB who runs www.guppyalternative.com

Fancy guppy is very beautiful hardy fish to keep in aquarium.  But to keep it healthy is not so easy. Here are few Tips how to Keep Fancy Guppies.

1. When you start, get one or two trios in the same line. In order to maintain and keep a single pure strain, will need about 8 to 10 tanks. It is best to use small tanks of 5 gallons for breeders and fry.  Fancy Guppies can live in a wide range of water conditions. The chemistry of water is a pH of 7.2 and moderate hardness, but will be adapted to water is between 6.4 to 8.6, while acclimated. The first thing to do is to put your newly acquired livestock in a clean environment (do not use soap), that the container is large enough to support each trio, big enough so you can add an equal quantity of water tank. DO NOT  FLOAT UNOPENED BAGS. After placing his trio in this aquarium, which are set to leave for a short period of time.

After a short period of time (approx. 15 minutes) from start to add about 3 to 4 ounces of water slowly into the Guppy aquarium. Do it slowly over a period of approximately one hour, until almost doubled the volume of water. Do not rush  in this important process of acclimatization. Make sure the fancy guppy can not jump from the aquarium. When you are done, your fancy guppies settled down, carefully transfer them to new tank. Do not feed. Observe and be patient. After about an hour feed a baby guppies brine shrimp or a pinch of dry food is a lot.  In about a month you will start getting baby guppy. Be ready to take tank space available for each drop of raising guppy babies. After 3 – 4 weeks is starting to get rid of virgin young women for future breeders.

2. Keeping young guppy fry in small tanks, allows them  much easier to find food without burning too much energy. If your baby guppies are more than 60 , it is better to raise them in 10 gallon tanks.

3. The daily diet of newly hatched brine shrimp to guppy babies for least 4 months is required for proper growth.

4. Inside the box are all filters that are required and are the choice of most of the best breeders. A layer of polyester with cotton balls or gravel is all you need for the filter material. I use dolomite gravel because it helps neutralize the effects of water. Dolomite can be found in most pet stores that sell saltwater fish. alternative to dolomite is shells of oysters. Sponge filters are another type of filter that works equally well when used properly. Filters sponge should be rinsed sometimes without destroying the living bacteria.

5. Changes in water: 30-50% weekly or biweekly water changes are necessary for the development and size. Always siphon tank to the bottom. Avoid adding water to tanks lost by evaporation. It is important to purchase a reliable water test kit to see what your tank or tap water conditions. pH Test Kits, hardness test kits and ammonia test kits are easy to use. First time fish maintenance managers must understand the chemistry of water and its effect on keeping Fancy Guppies.

6. Small periodic feeding is best for your young baby fancy guppies. Overfeeding your fancy guppies is probably the main cause of death. Small pinches of shredded good quality flakes is better if fed every hour. Fancy guppy can not digest freeze dried food so better not feed them this type of food. If  fancy guppies are not aggressively searching for food, simply do not feed them.

7. 4 to 5 weeks, juveniles must be separated by sex. Eliminate or just enough to isolate the female guppy that you need to configure your next set of breeders. Guppy female are easily distinguishable from guppy male because they have a dark area just above the anal fin, where fertilization takes place. This region is also known as the “Gravid spot”.  Discard all disabled or inferior guppies. If you were able to acquire a strain of high quality, it should be compulsory to discard. If you need to discard more than 20% of litters then you are not having pure strain.

8. Keep bare their tanks, it is easier to monitor and maintain and avoids the problems caused by gravel and plants. Most guppy books explain fancy guppy life cycle. If you have never raised live bearers I suggest you buy a good book on the tropical fish. Female guppies will look bigger and rounded, once impregnated. Just prior to the female having birth they take on a squared-off appearance. The area just above the anal fin, called “gravid spot” will be darker.

9. Keep your guppy breeders and guppy fry at temperatures between 76 and 82 degrees. Fancy Guppies can be kept at temperatures higher among 72 to 76 degrees.

10. Do not overwhelm you in the beginning starting with too many fish. Remember that if fancy guppies are  in good health, every 28 to 35 days they breed and give birth to guppy fry. A good idea is not to mix different fry (or even the same strain), and until they are at least 3 months. You may pay more for your breeding stock than you expect, but starting with young, top quality breeding stock can save you a great deal of money if purchased from a reputable guppy breeder.

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Credits to original article published at http://guppyz.tripod.com/guppy_tips.html

Fancy guppy is very hardy, very easy to maintain, so choice of beginners. Here are some information about fancy guppies and how to set guppy aquarium.

It’s very exiting to set up your first aquarium or fish tank. One has to learn how to setup fish tank before to bring your guppies to tank.

Lets get hand on some information. To begin with here is list of items you should have to setup new aquarium.

Recommended aquarium supplies

• Appropriate size aquarium
• Aquarium cover
• Decor
• Aquarium light
• Water conditioner
• Water test kit
• Thermometer
• Heater
• Filter
• Net
• Airstone
• Air Pump
• Substrate
• Aquarium salt
• Flake Food
• Blood worm
• Brine shrimp
• Book about freshwater Aquariums like Tropical Fish Secrete, katys Tropical Fish – A Complete Guide
• Optional : breeding tank
  

Once you are done with this list, you are ready to go set up your guppy tank. Fancy guppies requires less space than other fish i.e. almost 1 inch of fish per gallon of water. (there are various methods to calculate no of fish per tank) Means you can have more guppies in less space. But my suggestion is to give more space to your fancy guppy keeps it happy and hence colorful. Guppies like a little barkish water so add some salt to your tank. You do not need salinity as much as scat or mono fish, but a little salt will keep your fancy guppies happy.

Beginner’s setup

Rinse substate well then add it tank. (if you have puchaseed ready to add then no problem) Befoe you pour water in tank keep all decor you have. Then add water by tube or watering pipe. Add water conditioners. This will soften water and remove clorine from water. Let water set there for a day or two. Insert airiating tube and heater to tank. Install filter and heater. Now you are ready to put your beloved Fancy Guppy in to your aquarium.

Compatibility

Fancy Guppies are suitable in many community aquariums. Keep them away from fin nippers barbs and gourami. They are friendy with most of tetras, (some tetra will trouble them), other live bearers,  catfish, rainbow fish. Even you can add Barbs to this tank provided you add more than 6 barbs.  them barbs are busy in chassing each other and don’t nip fins. Mostly all guppies are peaceful but they might turn territorial. to keep good peace in tank you should keep 2 females guppies per 1 male guppy.

Environment

Fancy guppies are peace loving schooling fish. Suggested number is 5 or more. Guppy like little barkish water, hence maintain proper salinity level in your tank. They like hard water and salinity upto 150% of normal sea water. They can not sustain sudden change in temperatures. But can live in wide range of temrature 23 °C to 30 °C or 73 °F to 86 °F and prefer 27 °C or 82 °F. They can inhabitant in all levels of aquarium. Plants and caves for hideout is great advantage. Newly born guppy fry get advantage of plantations and caves in aquarium.

Feeding

Guppies can eat variety of food. They like both live and frozen food. They can eat tubifix bloodworm, baby brine shrimps (live or frozen), tropical flakes, floating food or sinking food.As far as feeding is concern do not worry as they can eat lot of variety food. Feed your fancy guppies 2 / 3 times a day varying each time. e.g. give live food in morning and flake in noon and bits in night.

Maintenance

Check temperature, filter, other equipments daily. Change about 15% water every week or 2 weeks. Check water condition at least once in a week. Add or remove new fishes to guppy tank gradually.

Diseases

Guppies mainly suffer from following diseases. but there are many other diseases and will be discussed later in detail.

Fin Rot :- Fins appear opaque

Ich :- Fish rubs against hard surface

Fungus :- bacterial growth on fish body

White spot :- white colored spots on body

When you observe your Fancy guppy is ill, immediately take it out from main tank and put it in separate tank. Raise water temprature to 30 °C to 32 °C or 86 °F to 90 °F, add some addtinal salt, add appropriate medicine brought from fish store, add 1 capsule teramicine (or equivalent) 200mg per 50 liters.

This is very primary level information about starting your Fancy Guppy aquarium. Keep exprimenting as you gain more and more exprence. Do take care of all your guppies

Funny guppy video of my aquarium. see how half black red guppy chase female.

Guppy got its name from Robert John Lechmere Guppy when he discovered and documented this beatiful tiny fish in Trinidad in 1866. Firstly it was named as Girardinus guppii in hounr of Robert John Lechmere Guppy. Then its given its common name “Guppy“.

This tiny beutiful fish is native of Barbados, Brazil, Guyana, Netherlands Antilles, Trinidad and Tobago, the US Virgin Islands, Venezuela. Since very much useful in mosquito control, these guppies are now found on all coninets except Antartica. Baby guppies fry like to eat mosquito larva.

Scientific classification

Kingdom:      Animalia
Phylum:        Chordata
Class:           Actinopterygii
Order:           Cyprinodontiformes
Family:         Poeciliidae
Genus:          Poecilia
Species:        P. reticulata

Guppy male and female are easily distinguishable.  Female are grey in body color while males are colorful. Female are usually grow upto 4.5 – 6 cm while male are short and grow upto 2-3.5 cm in size.

I am very exited to launch this new blog about fancy guppy. Since childhood i was great fan of guppies. i arranged my first guppies tank when i was 8 years old. i got them from local river. Since then  i never looked back and had lot of guppies in my aquarium.

I will be posting some tips, information about fancy guppies in this blog. You will find many useful articles on guppy breeding, fry hatching, feeding baby guppy, taking care of guppies etc.