# Guppy Fry Maturity?



## Fawnleaf (Aug 17, 2010)

Hi!!

I have 4 guppy fry and I know at least 1 is male. He's chasing all the others around and I think he's trying to mate with them (It's hard to see through the netting, but I've seen it done many times). They are 9 1/2 weeks old. Is this normal? Should I separate them? Will the females actually become pregnant at this age??

~Alissa


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## Fawnleaf (Aug 17, 2010)

...bump... :/


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Yes, that's perfectly normal, and yes, they sure can.


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## Fawnleaf (Aug 17, 2010)

urgh!! omg! I don't think I have anyone to adopt them yet! Perfect! The girls will all had defective kids before they're 4 months old. Great life, yeah. :/


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## LilSums (Aug 2, 2010)

Not that different from humans sadly...they can get knocked up within the first couple months. Hopefully they're not pregnant yet! Try to get them adopted when you can, it'll save you some headaches.


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

either get rid of them or start another tank.LOL


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## Pandapop (Dec 29, 2009)

Guppy fry reach maturity at a pretty early age... 

Males tend to mature much faster than females, at around 1 month, and females around 3. From 1-2 months you should be able to identify the gender of the fry, but with a magnifying glass, it would be much easier. (if you can get them to stay still long enough, lol)

By now, your females could very well get pregnant, but since they tend to mature at 3 months as mentioned above, they may not be. I would remove the male asap, just in case. He will continue to try and breed with your females, and once the females are of age, they WILL become pregnant.

Female gups that are pre-mature sometimes have 'fake gravid spots', where it appears as though the black eyes of the fry are showing through the body of the female, where the gravid spot should be. This doesn't mean she's pregnant. Sometimes young males can get these, too. It could be a slight coloration that will later disappear once the guppy matures into an adult. (there's more info about this on the net)

EDIT

I also forgot to mention a little something to back up my info above.

Months ago, back in February, I had 3 surviving female guppy fry in with dozens of platy fry. Once they started to get older (2 1/2 months), two of them hard dark gravid spots. They couldn't possibly have been pregnant, since they were never introduced to any males; and even if the platy males could mate with female guppies (which they obviously can't), the platies were less than a month old. I later found out that they had fake gravid spots, and sure enough, they did -- they poofed!

Also, just a month ago when I purchased a pretty male gup at the LFS, he too had a dark spot on his lower abdomen. He doesn't anymore -- he's now chasing around my females with the other boys in my tank.


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## catchandkeep (Nov 23, 2010)

i don't believe that the gravid spot is the babies eyes
Last night, unfortunately, one of my pregnant females died so I decided to carefully dissect her in hopes that the fry were developed enough to make it. What I discovered was that while the fry were very underdeveloped and apparently died overnight with their mother, they were on the other side of her stomach, towards her head, and where the gravid spot was, there was a black pouch that resembled iodine, and when I punctured it, it resembled squid ink.

Mind you, this was a large guppy and I used an exacto knife, and exercized extreme care in first filleting, then dissecting her, so I am 100% certain of the above details.

I have looked all over the internet for anyone "reputiating" (to quote sarah palin) the believed theory that the gravid spot was the babies eyes, but found nothing, which leads me to believe that most people believe that, having read it on numerous other threads.

Anyway, that lead me to joining this forum and posting, and I would appreciate any knowledge of a) what the black pouch where the gravid spot was is, and b) if anyone else has dissected a guppy and found similar results.

Thank you in advance
catchandkeep is online now Report Post Edit/Delete Message


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

See your other post for the answer


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