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Front Page · Everything · News · Ask Guppylog · Diaries
My Fry Lived! It's a miracle!

Guppies
By Alisha13
from the Alisha department, Section Diaries
Posted on Wed Aug 29, 2007 at 01:42:32 PM PST
Tags: (all tags)
I'm so happy my fry are still alive after about 3 weeks. It really is a miracle because first of all they are still in the tank with the mom. Second of all I am on vacation and my mom is taking care of them so she won't clean the tank and the tank is FILTHY, and I have a filter that could have easily sucked them up, plus who knows what the temperature is because my mom can't read the thermometer.



So I now have 6 guppies in a 10 gallon tank. 5 fry and 1 momma. I was just wondering if any of you knew why my fry lived and so many others don't. I know you probably don't have the answer, but I just think it's GREAT but weird because their are so many ways they could have died and yet they didn't...well, thanks for listening.
< I'll be on vacation! | 18 months later >
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My Fry Lived! It's a miracle! | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: My Fry Lived! It's a miracle! (none / 0) (#1)
by guppylvr1003 on Wed Jul 13, 2005 at 05:34:40 PM PST

I think she had a LOT more than 5 fry, and she ate the rest.
"When life hands you lemons, throw them in the face of the person who gave em to you"


Re: My Fry Lived! It's a miracle! (none / 0) (#2)
by Alisha13 on Wed Jul 13, 2005 at 06:17:33 PM PST

Yeah, that's what I was thinking because they usually have at least 10, usually closer to 20 fry right? But why do you think she didn't eat these 5? Just wondering if you had any ideas, I'm sort of new to guppies. Thanks!

[ Parent ]


How big was your female Alisha? (none / 0) (#5)
by unclescott on Wed Jul 13, 2005 at 08:51:28 PM PST

Was she only in the neighborhood of an inch long? If this was her first drop, she may have had more fry, but maybe not that many more.

Did you have some hiding places in your aquarium? That, along with your Mom fairly regularly feeding them, should have been what was needed. (Kudos for your Mom, by the way!)

In Tropical Fish Hobbyist Magazine, a couple of months ago, was an article by a 13-year old aquarist who ran a series of experiments with pregnant guppies. Basically he kept the female guppies in drum bowls and recorded where the fry swam after being born. Often the female would occupy the middle of the bowl. Almost immediately after unwinding from his release, the fry almost always swam either to the bottom of the bowl or to the surface.

A few did stay in the middle, within the plane of the female's vision. These may have been Scott Lockwood's stupid ones which get eaten. ;)

Newborn fry, who were immediately removed from their mother's company and put in the same sized bowl, spread out all over the bowl. Yet when these same fry were put into a bowl with adult guppies, they headed for the bottom or the top of the water. He concluded that this survival tactic was an innate behavior.

The beauty of that behavior is that in many guppy habitats there would often be some kind of cover both on the "substrate" and in a plant canopy near  where the female would have taken herself to birth her fry. In aquariums, we see females in similar situations trying to keep as invisible a profile as possible. With many predators, the prey is spotted by movement. If they are out of sight, they are out of mind.

Even livebearer species notorious for eating fry in Aquariums (Gambusia, Xenotoca, Brachyraphis) seem to do ok in the wild. It may be that as their females drop, the fry head as far away from them as they can (not being confined by a small glass box) and either hide in the surface plants or bottom mosses and muck. One could suggest that if the slow ones are eaten, that is the species culling and selecting for the fast and the clever, so that the species will survive other predators to grow and reproduce.

On 6-10 I posted a log on mops for livebearers. From the ALA mailing list came a terrific idea for giving fry shelter in tanks with no light and no chance. I have worked with egglayers and mops of synthetic yarn for a long time, but - duh - never thought to use them as cover for livebearer fry. Hopefully old dogs can learn new tricks.

Livebearer guru James Langhammer has long maintained that cannibalism in livebearers is learned. If the parents are well fed, they don't take the opportunity to learn how tasty their fry are. In one of the best guppy books around, Stan Shubel notes that he will try breeding a female guppy one time after she eats some of her fry - a rare case among his fish. If she does it again, her fry are not saved. He feels that the tendancy towards cannibalism is inherited and he will not raise such guppies.

Adult guppies who are starving, will eat two-week old fry. But if we don't miss-treat the adults, they will come to accept the youngsters, especially in a single species tank, as just a part of the adult's world.

So if we give the fry a half a chance to save themselves, they will. Pretty soon you, if you are  like those who wish to save every fry, will be wondering where in the world you can raise all of those guppies. ;) One of the first nick-names given to guppies, by collectors and aquarists almost 100 years ago, was "The Millions Fish". That still applies. :)

All the best!
uncle scott

[ Parent ]



Re: How big was your female Alisha? (none / 0) (#6)
by Alisha13 on Wed Jul 13, 2005 at 11:45:56 PM PST

Thanks a lot scott. That was very helpfull! My female was about an inch long I'm guessing. And I am still so surprised they were able to live. I thought for sure either the mom or the filter would get them but this is my first batch of fry and I am SO happy they are still alive. Do you know what age I can feel safe with them being in with the mom, knowing for SURE she can't eat them...I have researched it and I got a range of answers anywhere between 2 weeks to 4 months! So I was wondering what you thought, thanks again!

[ Parent ]


Since the mantra on this is, "If a fish can (none / 0) (#7)
by unclescott on Thu Jul 14, 2005 at 02:10:22 PM PST

fit into the mouth of another, it probably will," youngsters are at risk until they are too big to get in a parent's mouth. I would guess 5/8 to 3/4 of an inch would be when one can rest easy. However if the mama guppy is well fed and the kids have cover, they will be fine after those first crucial hours.

Every now and again, a little rinsed, formerly frozen food is good for the female and tempers her interest in the kids. Frozen bloodworms or glassworms are among my favorite frozen foods. Certainly a lot of brine shrimp is used by aquarists and ironically the frozen b.s. is probably more nutritious that the live brine shrimp - which may have been without food for quite a while in shops. If they leave uneaten frozen food in the tank for more than an hour, siphon or turkey baster it out! That is important for the health of your guppies.

A few blackworms (in a floating feeder or in a soapless jar) are also excellent conditioners for female guppies. See the foods section of Immediate Help.

Ironically if you clean up all of the flopsam and jetsam you have alluded to in your tank, some plants would be useful and maybe necessary, unless you want to go that mop route. For more on plants, again see the Immediate Help section.

All the best!
u.s.

[ Parent ]



Re: My Fry Lived! It's a miracle! (none / 0) (#3)
by miskairal on Wed Jul 13, 2005 at 07:33:43 PM PST

Your fish may have eaten what she could before she got fed by your Mum and the surviving fry may have had time to learn how to hide before she got hungry again. Same with the filter. Maybe the fry that survivied were the strongest at birth and were lucky enough not to get near the filter.

The water is probably not so filthy as you only have the one adult fish in the tank and the good bacteria would be there to assist in cleaning up after her. Those same bacteria will grow in numbers to cater for the fry growth.

I'm assuming you are in the northern hemisphere where it is summer right now so your tank temp probably isn't a problem.

When you go home to your fish, don't go and do a big water change in one day. Do just 10% on the first and second day and then increase it slowely or you may shock your fish.
--
Repeat after me,
I will read the Immediate Help
[ Parent ]



Re: My Fry Lived! It's a miracle! (none / 0) (#4)
by Alisha13 on Wed Jul 13, 2005 at 08:10:55 PM PST

Oh okay, thanks for the advice. That makes since. Also, with the water change, thanks again because that's just what I was going to do...a 100% water change right when I get back which is in a few days. So I will do a 10% like you said, thanks again.

[ Parent ]


My Fry Lived! It's a miracle! | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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