# First time.. Baby Guppy Help



## oO.Fish.Oo (Aug 28, 2007)

:fish: Hey there! :fish: 
You see, this is the first time I've actually cared for fish and they've lived long enough to have babies. I noticed them yesterday, I was so excited but then I feared about their safety. I had no kind of fry net that I keep hearing about, my tank is a 5 gallon and I have 2 males (Munchie and Speck) and 2 females (BK and Pebbles). Turned out after reading on the internet, BK was the one who was the mother and I didn't know that guppis didn't lay eggs.

By that time there were about five babies in the big tank and we had moved all the adults in a fish bowl with no filter (all I had). Then when I found out that there were more babies in the bowl I moved BK back into the tank until I thought she was done having babies. So I had little fry in the tank and in the bowl. I took the time to move all the babies into the bowl and the adults back in their tank.

Now what? I'm scared that BK is under a lot of stress because Speck won't stop biting at her. He seems to always bite at her belly. Should I move her to my sisters tank (she had a smaller one with 2 males) or should I move Speck?

What about the babies? I don't have a filter so I just try to water change and clean out any left over food. I read about grinding up the flakes and I hope it's working. I'm just worried that something is going to bad is going to happen if I don't do something right?

I hope I get lots of advice, thanks for all your help in advance.
I'm also new here so.... hi! :razz:


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## shade2dope (Jan 21, 2007)

Ya you should move the male from the tank that the feamle is in cause he will try to eat the fry as with the female. move the female after she has had all her fry crushed food works great make sure that is really fine so they can eat it. you should try to get a small sponge filter(other filters may suck the babies in it ) a sponge filter can run off a air line and in my exp it works fine in my area they are cheap like 5$...you should allso know female can store sperm so even if the male and feamle arnt in same tank she can still have fry good luck hope this helped


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Wow. Just wow. Our tax dollars at work, eh? 

Baby guppies are easy to keep as baby fish go, and that you don't have to worry. They don't eat much, but they do need to eat several times per day. Grind some fishfood flakes into a coarse flour between your fingers and give them a little every few hours. Change some water every day or two, and the more often you change the water, the more you can change at a time. Keeping the water clean will make them grow faster.
A sponge filter would be very handy, yes.
After a couple of weks you can start to gradually increase the size of the food. If you can get some brineshimp, these make great baby guppy food.
After a month or so you can put the babies back into the regular tank with no worries.


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## shade2dope (Jan 21, 2007)

To clean the fry tank just use a airline hose and be careful not to stuck them up...and yes there very easy to care to ...my brother took care of my fry when i was gone hes 8 so you should be fine


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## phat fish (Aug 25, 2007)

if you get plenty of plants you can keept the fry in your 5 gl but make sure that you have enough dense plant sso they can hide or go tothe store and get a net , personally i have 6 nets lol. my gupies just had babies too...ihad a 5 gallin just guppie tank 
but heavly planted works.
also yes they do eat grind uo fish flakes but if theydont eat that.mine dont i have this stuff called irst bites it lokslike sand..its ina a little green package


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## Fish Muffin (Aug 25, 2007)

What phat said =]


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## phat fish (Aug 25, 2007)

thank you Mr. Muffin[=


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## oO.Fish.Oo (Aug 28, 2007)

hey there... thanks for all your help... also (just so I don't have to make another new thread) I have another question
lately there are black-green spots all over the rocks, plants and wall of my tank. is it due to the nitrogen cycle? and how can i stop it so it doesn't make my tank look dirty... i've been changing the water every couple days... about six cups full... is that ok? thanks again


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## mesapod (Aug 18, 2007)

that black green stuff is called algae and you can get an aglae scrapper or a algae eater sometimes snails csn eat the algae too.
good luck!


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## Guest (Sep 3, 2007)

What mesapod said is true to a point...

It is probably algae, and yes, some "algae eaters" might eat it. However, your tank is far too small for an algae eating fish, and the fact that it sounds like green spot algae. Most fish don't eat this particular algae.

Green spot is considered "normal" in small amounts, but can be unsightly and a sign that there's an excess of natural materials, waste, food, etc, in your tank. You can scrub the algae off. Regular water changes and keeping your tank out of direct sunlight will help too.


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## oO.Fish.Oo (Aug 28, 2007)

Ok so I'm going to change the water very regularly... will once a day be ok for the fish? I don't want to shock them. (I luv my fishies ) Also, if I were to get say two or three snails they won't 'harm' my fish in any way and my fish won't bother them? Sorry I keep asking so many questions and I thank you all so much for helping me. I just want to have a successful tank.


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## Guest (Sep 7, 2007)

You said you don't have a filter. Is that on the 5 gallon tank? I'd recommend getting a filter, if you don't have one, and changing the water regularly (30+%) a week. 

You could keep two or three snails. I wouldn't recommend getting apple snails, they can get pretty big or pond snails which are usually a pest and breed quickly. Ramshorns breed quick too, but I'd suggest them over the others. 

Upgrading to a 10 gallon is always another idea .


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Since you don't have a filter in the bowl, siphon out the uneaten food and poop at least every other day and replace the water. Water changes don't hurt fish if you use a good dechlor and keep the temp. close to the what the fish are in.


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## oO.Fish.Oo (Aug 28, 2007)

Ok so I'm back again with yet another problem (thank you all for helping me)
Ok I'll break it down; I have a 5 gallon tank with a filter. When BK (my one adult female) had babies I had the fry in a fish bowl without a filter and I had the adult fish in the 5 gallon tank. I had BK (female), Munchie (male), Pebbles (female) and a 'sucker' fish (Shark). Everything was going great until all over a sudden over one weekend I love BK, Munchie and Shark. Shark turned out to have fin rot but I don't know what happened to the others. So I only had Pebbles and the babies left.

So I decided to move all the babies into the tank with Pebbles. They are about a month and a half old now and I figured they were old and big enough to swim and hide from her. Everything was going good, my dad put nylon over the pump so the babies wouldn't get sucked up but the only problem was that it wasn't sucking up the food and stuff so the tank was getting really dirty so I just did a major clean the other day.

Then today when I went into my room just for a second to grab something I saw something weird in my tank. My babies are a month and a half old now and I know them pretty well now but I saw a new baby, one that was smaller swimming around in my tank. Then I saw another baby but it wasn't developed properly and it has another baby attached to it. It really scared me and I saw Pebbles swimming around it. So I went to get my net but I wasn't fast enough and she ate it. I didn't know what to do!

So I thought maybe Pebbles was having babies. I shut the pump off and took Pebbles out of the tank and into a little container filled with water. But I'm not sure if she's the one having the babies or not. Her gavid spot (spelling?) isn't black and doesn't look 'full' but it's red-black.... also some of my babies look kinda fat and i fed them and they werent eating. But I don't have a trained eye and at a month and a half old I can't tell what gender they are.

Please help


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Pebbles is the one having babies, since she's the only available option. It's time to repeat everything you did the last time, and get used to it, because guppies have babies all the time.


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## oO.Fish.Oo (Aug 28, 2007)

Oh ok.. but there were only two new babies... i was just worried that something went wrong


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## amypicot (Mar 13, 2008)

maybe your guppies that were a month and a half ate the new babies, i am not sure if they would at that age or not but it could be a possiblity, i have 2 lots of fry at the moment and i know the mother eats her babies very very quickly so she could have eaten them also, or maybe some are hiding, 
some guppy fry do get born deformed, no need to worry about that


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