How many guppies in a ten gallon?
by Aquaboy on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 | 5 Comments
I am gonna get a ten gallon instead of 20 i decided. I want to put guppies in this tank. My plan is to put about ten mixed gender guppies and let them reproduce. then as time goes on i plan to take a bunch out every once in a while and trade them in to the fish store for credit. how many can fit in there so i know about when to take some out? And how often will they reproduce? I am aware that some fry will get eaten sometimes. I am also an owner of another aquarium but have never owned guppies
A good rule of thumb is 1 gallon for every inch of fish length. So, however long 10 inches is in guppies will get you your answer. If a guppy is 1.5 inches long, then you can have 6.
You want to have 3-4 female guppies for each male. If you have less, the female guppies will be harassed constantly, and the male guppies will fight each other over the females. I am not sure how many of the fry will survive, but by adding many decorations with small hiding places the adults cannot get into you increase the chances of having fry survive. In general you can have 10 inches of guppies total, so monitor when the fry and adults combined exceed this number, and that is when you need to remove some.
Guppies breed like CRAZY! So I would say about 4 females and 2 males.
Keep in mind though, unless the fish store already said yes, most fish shops don’t accept fish from regular fish breeders. You have to have a special license or something, it is complicated. Most fish shops get there fish from specialty fish farms. So you might not be able to trade these guppies in unless the fish shop owner already said you could.
Guppies are wonderful and beautiful fish. Good luck!
FishieFin ♥
You could have 10 guppies in your aquarium but it would be better to start out with a smaller number of adults since the females will have a lot of babies. I’d say you should start out with 3 females and 2 males. If you have an equal number of male and female guppies in the tank, the boys will fight a lot and pester the females 24-7.
You should stock your tank with a variety of plants (either plastic of real). Make sure you include plants that float on top and bushy plants with many leaves. The more plants you have, the less babies will be eaten.
Make sure to cover your filter with pantyhose and secure the pantyhose with an elastic, this will ensure that the babies won’t get sucked up by the filter. Once the babies grow to adult size, you should take out most of them so that their will be no more then 10 adult fish in the tank. Good luck!
The rule of thumb is one inch or one small fish per gallon of water. You could safely keep 10 guppies in a 10 gallon tank, more if you have extra filteration (for example, a back filter and an undergravel filter). Keep in mind that you must have more females than males (about 3 females for each male), otherwise males will fight and ruin their tails. Damaged tails can lead to ick, which can kill all your fish. If you want to raise babies, you better have a LOT of plants and hiding places. Most babies are going to get eaten, but some will survive if you cover the suction on the filter with a tiny grain and if you provide plenty of hiding places for them.