Well, this is something that has changed pretty frequently for me. I started out using some very cheap generic flakes. Then several years ago I switched to using Omega One freshwater flakes and frozen brine shrimp. I continue to use the flakes but the brine shrimp expired well before I had used it all and I have not gotten any now frozen food since, although I plan too. Right now my guppies everyday diet consists of the flakes, Hikari Fancy Guppy Semi-floating pellets. I do occasionally feed them an algae wafer but usually only before water changes as they are stinky and really pollute the water.
You May notice the auto feeder in the photo. I removed it as it kept over feeding the fish and was to no great advantage. I will start using it once the first Fry come so that they can get food four times a day.
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This will be a super quick post. It is now after midnight but I found Fry in my tank. I assume they are from the bigger yellow female but I am not 100% sure. I have found 8 Fry so far! More info coming tommorow.
As I said, I ordered some items from Amazon several days ago and they finally came One of those items was a Marina medium breeder box. I knew it would be small but it was even smaller than I expected. My plan was to grow the fry out in the box as well but being that I have two fairly pregnant females that I expect to give birth in about two weeks, I’m starting to think that it may not quite work out. The box seems to work well although due to the size and the fact that she is pregnant, the guppy in there is pretty stressed out. I tried several different combinations of fish in it. As you see in the picture I put the two females I know were deffenitly pregnant in. That was until I noticed how the last fish in the tank was being harassed by the two more aggressive males. I put the less pregnant orange female back into the tank. I also tried leaving the two males agressive males in the box but it seemed to pretty much defeat the point of getting it. As of right now just the more heavily pregnant yellow female is in the box. She hasn’t been eating like she normally does leading to a fair amount of waste on the bottom that is harder to clean out. I got almost all the food out while I did a water change but the bottom promptly filled back up leading me to put Frank the snail in.
I ended up cancelling the order for the large breeder box and purchased instead an automatic feeder because it is supposedly best if the fry are feed four times a day and my current schedule makes that really hard. I went with a cheap knock off version to see how I like the concept. If I choose to breed guppies more in the future, I may consider getting some higher quality/larger equipment.
Somewhere during the update, my previous posts got deleted but I pulled out a receipt dated 2/04/18, meaning that we are approaching a month. The surviving females are all pregnant. Knowing that there could be Fry any day now, I purchased some items on Amazon. Medium Marina Hang-on Breeding Box The purpose of this one is obvious, I am going to use it for when the females are giving birth. It does need an air pump to power it though, which brings us to the next item. Whisper 10 Gallon Air Pump I bought this to power the breeder boxes. It will pull water up with the air and circulate it through the aquarium keeping it cleaner. I have had great success with Whisper pumps in the past and I was amazed by how cheap they are. Hikari Fancy Guppy Fry food This is the food I plan on feeding the fry as recommended by James Morelan form Challenge the Wild (wildpetsupply.com). Large Marina Breeder Box This one I’m not sure about. My original plan was to just get this one until I noticed that it did not have a v-trap. This one may be used for storing either the males or females if I do not want them breeding or possibly raising the Fry up to an even bigger size. I will only be able to run one at a time so I may end up returning it, I am not 100 % sure. Now let’s talk about the snail. I am not sure what sex it is but my choice is to call it Frank after Joey, the King of DIY’s flower horn.
Well, a female died sometime in between last night and today when I was doing a water change. Now, she had been a straggler and was always last to get food. If there was a fish that I would have named first to die it would be this one. It seems like I have always had at least one fish die within a month of getting them from a big box store so this was far from unexpected. This brings up another question, what do you do when a fish dies? I normally flush them down the toilet. Leave a comment about what you do when you find a dead fish.
As many of you know, I purchased a Black Racer Nerite snail with the guppies at Petsmart. Let me start by showing you some pictures. One is from Petsmart's website and the other is of my snail. I do know that they are living animals and they will vary in size and color, but that’s not the problem. It’s what those white spots mean; the snail has been lacking the calcium it needs to maintain and grow it’s shell. I am happy to say that the shell has been healing as I have been using tums to add calcium to the water. Take this as a lesson, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE go into any store informed as you can be about anything you are planning to buy but also look at the condition of the animals you are getting if you can. I would recommend finding one store that you trust and keep returning.
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