Posts Tagged ‘guppy aquarium’
Fancy guppy: Handle with care
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!
Setting your fish tank for fancy guppies
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
Introduction to Fancy Guppy
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.

