How long should my guppy fry stay in a breeder box?
by Aquaboy on Monday, June 7th, 2010 | 2 Comments
on saturday my guppy had 15 fry. I have my tank separated into two sections one for the bigger fish (tetras) and one for the fry but as of right now they are still in the breeder tank. How long should I wait to take the fry out of the breeder tank and how long till they can be with the adults
15 guppy fry should be perfectly fine for about a month or so, or until they cant fit into any other guppys mouth, wouldnt be a bad idea to set up a small 5 gallon tank with a filter&heater to have them grow out in, can be kept bare bottom, having a breeder tank is a great idea when owning guppies!!!lol, good luck
They should be placed in a 5 gallon tank with a sponge filter, either with a base, or suspended so it does not rest on the tank bottom. Fry get stuck underneath if it is on the bottom. Float some water sprite in the tank. If watersprite droops or browns, you know something needs to be done to the water to make it guppy safe.
How long? ASAP. The breeder trap is just for until the mother had finished delivering. Unless you want to back cross the new females with the original male, they should probably be kept separate permanently from the adult guppies. Feeding them newly hatched brine shrimp ensures that they will develop the colors and finnage their genetics is capable of. If they just get dried foods, they won’t grow the long fins and develop lots of color. Dividers don’t work perfectly and a determined fish on the other side may find a way to suck the fry up against a perforated divider and kill it, as an example of just one possible divider malfunction.
If you feed and care for them well, they could go back in with the adults in two or three months if you want to display them together. Although most modern fancy guppy strains are not much prone to eating fry and often you can simply let fry be born and grow up in the tank with the adults. Most strains have had “Moscow”, a gene that spreads color to parts of the guppy that stubbornly stayed colorless until now, crossed into them. A disinterest in eating fry is a trait that seems to come along with that, but it may be coincidence. I have black Moscow delta, a yellow Moscow roundtail, and a snakeskin red that shows the effects of the Moscow gene. None of my three guppy strains eat fry.