So one of my female guppies gave birth today. When I got up this morning she looked nice and squared off on her backside. Most of my research suggested that she would give birth within the next 2-3 days. But right after eating she went and sat behind the frill plant bunch and got really nervous whenever any of the other fish ventured back there, and tried to chase them off.

I meant to check on her as soon as I got back from class, but forgot till after dinner. So when I went to feed the guppies their evening meal I saw an extra pair of tiny eyes looking at me from the middle of the frill plants . I don't know if it was a small spawn, or if some of the little ones are now resisidng in the filter, or most got eaten. There may be more little ones in the plants or the coconut hut that I can't see right now. I'm going to check the filter first thing tomorrow when I have the light to do it, and put a net over the intake. I meant to put the net on before any babies or shrimp were born, but I guess its too late for that now.

I am guessing that my blue tailed female wil give birth within the next 2 weeks, and my red tailed one will be another 3 to 3 1/2 weeks. The red tailed one was the only one that wasn't pre hit when I got them, but I didn't lnow that when I got them .

I'm so excited right now, this is my first guppy baby. I am sooo glad I added the plants on sunday so there was places for it to hide. Sorry for the rambling, I tend to talk too much when I'm excited.

Lol i dont get the first part of her giving birth todya and then research suggest giving birth in the next 2 or 3 days. Congrat on the fry, be sure there is enough tank. lol I know how exciting it is, whe ni got my first guppies fry i go crazy lol, but now..um not so much.

That is exciting! I've been wanting to get a few male guppies for my trop tank (I usually have a couple in there), now you have me thinking about doing a little breeding
Maybe I could keep the males and females together until they get pregnant, then put the males in my main tank and keep the females seperate? How many fry do females usually produce, and how many survive?

Well I have no idea how many were actually born in this group. When I first got them, and was looking at sites for information, places said an average of 15-30 babies in each birth. Females can give birth about once every 4 weeks. Oh and they can store the males contrabution for up to 6 months, so once they've given birth they don't need a male in the tank with them for several months to have more babies.

Survival rate of the fry will depend on the individual guppies. Only about 20% of all guppies do not eat their young. Plants and hiding places help the survival rate as well. From what I have read, once you have some juvanile guppies in the tank, often the adults learn that they are not supposed to eat all the little babies and may start to leave the newborn ones alone more. Also, making sure the adults are well fed at least 2-3 times a day will help as they will not be so hungry to want a little fry snack inbetween meals.



It could just be that I didn't recognise the squared off look when she first started to show signs of it. I had after all, only had these for a week...not much time to learn how they look at different points in their pregnancy.

Congrat on the fry Im exicted for u too lol

Cool thanks for the info, I hope some of your little guys grow up!
What do you plan to do with all of them?

I am lucky, one of the local stores here takes fish for store credit. I actually bought the guppies using store credit from taking in about 20 of my platty adolescents that were raised in my 25 gallon "kitchen" tank. I never seperate the females to save more babies, I run a natural culling type of tank. So whoever makes it to adolescence gets judged a keeper or a seller.

The store that takes them is not a chain store, and obviously takes better care of their fish than the other places near me. Very few of their tanks are run off a central filter. And if they have any problems with their stock they quarantine the whole tank while they treat the problem.

So I thought since the kitchen tank is now paying for all the fish food for the house, why nto get something else that might pay for itself too. Who knows, I might be able to save enough store credit some day for another tank setup