# A few questions about guppy fry



## Scy64 (Apr 23, 2006)

Just a few things =)


1) At what age will older fry start to eat newborn fry if they were all placed in the same tank? (Right now I've only got fry that are within 24 hours of each other, but I have a feeling my females are pregnent again...)

2) At what age is it best to seperate the males and females?

3) When do they start developing their colors?

4) I've heard fry should have live food at least once a week. What do you reccomend, and is it something that I'd have to go to a LFS for?

Thanks guys!


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## leafgirl115 (Mar 26, 2006)

1, Guppies will eat fry that can fit into there mouths. Since guppies grow at diferent rates age means nothing.

2, Its best to seperate the males when you can sex them. This prevents acsidents happening..

3, It depends on how big they are. Im no to shur though.

4, This is not required but you could do it. Baby Brime Shrimp are good foods for fry. I just use crished up flake food.


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## doggydad38 (Jan 18, 2005)

Color development depends on individual bloodlines and varieties. Usually you will start to see color on the male at around a month old. I feed nothing but newly hatch baby brine shimp to my newborn guppy fry for the first week of their lives. That means three meals per day. After a week, crushed foods followed by brine shrimp. The premise is to keep their bellies full at all times so that they will grow a quickly as possible. If youaren't trying to breed show quality fish, you can skip the live foods and concentrate on powdered flakes.


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## Ringo (Apr 10, 2006)

1. what leafy said

2. depends on whether or not you want more fry, or whether its a tank full of males

3. my fry start to get their color at around 5-6 weeks

4. I feed my fry brine and minsculed flake, but you can feed you fry just the flake (the brine makes em' grow quicker) not neccasary, but it should be fed to em
there is also a food out there called 'first bits'. i havent used it yet, so i cant tell you much about it.

also the frozen brine really can crush up easy, that will replace the live brine, but live is prefered


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## Scy64 (Apr 23, 2006)

I use the first bites. My guppies love it, but I was considering go with some live food too. But if it's not nessicary, (they're not show fish), I'll keep going with this and perhaps some other crushed flakes


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

I should have got some Hikari First Bites. Hikari make quality foods. My fry did love this Sera Micron which was intended for newborn egglayers, but they're not quite as fond of the Sera Mirkopan. Although the particles are bigger and their tummies get full faster, so that could be it. They can't just sit at the surface and "graze" on it like the Micron.

They haven't had live foods for 5 days now and are doing okay on just the prepared stuff. Microworms coming next week, not sure if 2 week old livebearer fry will be much interested in them but doesn't hurt to try.

My new batch of fry is due in a week or so, still not sure what I'm going to do with them. I'll either throw them all in together, or I'll have to just scoop them out and pop them in the freezer - sounds harsh, and I don't even know if I'll be able to do it, but I already have 19 very healthy fry meaning platies than I can ever keep, and raising a second lot on the off chance I can sell them for a dollar or so each just isn't worth it. If I throw them in, they may get picked on and outcompeted for food, not to mention the water quality would degrade faster. I had considered buying a big plastic tub for outgrowing of the existing fry, but heating it when it's 5 degrees inside at night is going to be a pain. It'll take a 100 watt heater that's on practically all the time - and then there's added water changes! Sigh... will just have to end their poor little lives early, I guess.


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## doggydad38 (Jan 18, 2005)

Microworms are taken quite readily by livebearer fry. I fed them in the past. The only real problem I had with them was the smell. I went back to baby brine shrimp when I could afford the eggs again.
Tony


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## Scy64 (Apr 23, 2006)

So far the fry are doing quite well, and eagery wait for their First Bites. They're growing like weeds (they're 2 weeks old today!). Both of my guppies look pregnent again, and are getting fatter by the day. I do have another tub to put these bigger fry in, and the smaller one will work for any newborns I get. I'm lucky as far as temp goes- the area in southern cali where I live is very mild, and temps don't go into the highs or lows really- things stay at around 60-ish inside on a cold day to probably high 80's on a hot day. That, along with AC/normal heating, I don't need to worry about temp much.

I can't wait to see what colors I get off this first batch of fry! Half of them are light in color, the others are quite dark. No coloration yet, though the light ones seem almost irridecent in the right light (and you can see flashes of lit blue and purple). Dunno if that's the start of a color, or just the light playing off their fry, but we'll see!


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## donnag (Apr 21, 2006)

hi i also have guppys my females just started having their second batch of fry i have already turned my 1st set of guppy fry loose with my parent guppys i also was worried about how to tell when would be an appropreite age to do this, when i first put the babies in the same side of the tank with the adults i put plenty of plants in the tank just incase they weren't big enough i noticed the first 2 days after transferring them the other fish chased them but after 2 days they seem to be fine with them so i now have around 50 bigger babies in with 7 adults and i have a tank devider to section off 1\3 of the tank of my newest baby fry you really have to decide you think there big enough i turned mine aloose with adults 2 days before my females started dropping again


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