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I got babies!

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By KMcCaig
from the K department, Section Diaries
Posted on Wed Aug 29, 2007 at 01:36:12 PM PST
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I got babies!!

Two of my females dropped fry in the middle of the night.



All my guppies were in the 10g, while the 55gal was stabilizing (which I am sure it was okay, but just to make sure I waited until the water clear and everything settled down). I woke up and there was all these "things" floating around in the tank... and being chased by my adult guppies! I said to myself, "K, what are those guppies after?" Then I put on my glasses.. and lo and behold! FRY!

So, I grab my trusty net and attempt to catch the lil buggars, but they slip right through the holes! Then, I grabbed my birthing net and bagged about 6 or so. Well, I figured, 6 is better than none - its not like I was really counting on breeding for a living. I would see the occasional fry hiding out in the plants and ornaments, but they were few and far between.. and I suspected that they would not last very much longer. After a day or two, my 55 was ready and I moved the adults (with the exception of one about the pop. I took all the fry out of the net and put the female in the net.

It was like magick! After I removed the adults, fry just started appearing from the plants and substrate!! I cannot accurately count, but I am guessing I have between 30-40 fry. They are sooo much fun to watch and cover the tank! Feeding time is especially fun. Of course, I am not sure what I am going to do with all of these fish... and I am expecting more in the next couple of days.

But for now, I totally excited!

I GOT BABIES!

< pics of my fish | Rating a post >
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I got babies! | 8 comments (8 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: I got babies! (none / 0) (#4)
by KMcCaig on Mon Jan 16, 2006 at 09:38:14 AM PST

Thanks everyone! This has been a very exciting time for me. My last momma guppy dropped two days ago.. and we now have more fry than I know what to do with.

But now, with all the fry in the tank I am having trouble. I have been changing the water, about 10% every 3 days.. but I am afraid to vacuum the gravel. I have been testing the water and nothing seems out of the ordinary - BUT I noticed a few of the fry are missing edges of their tail fins or the whole thing.

Sigh.
~K



" I noticed a few of the fry are missing (none / 0) (#5)
by unclescott on Mon Jan 16, 2006 at 12:03:13 PM PST

edges of their tail fins or the whole thing."

Yikes! That could be ammonia burn of the edges, a bacterial thing or, if they are clamping, velvet. That could be partly because, if your tanks are under 9 weeks old, they could still be cycling.

Every time we add fish, that ammonia equilibrium will slide off balance. That is why adding a few fish at a time is better than adding a lot. There will be a bubble rising in you ammonia, then nitrates and then nitrite levels all over again.

You may wish to season you water longer, try to work another water partial water change into your busy schedule and maybe add plants (if there is light) or put something into your filter to absorb some of the ammonia.

It may sound gratuitously mean-spirited for someone else to say that to you. (I'm fascinated by work, so long as someone else is doing it.) Not trying to be that way. Just want your fish to thrive and you to enjoy the hobby. :)

All the best!
uncle scott

[ Parent ]



Re: " I noticed a few of the fry are missing (none / 0) (#6)
by KMcCaig on Mon Jan 16, 2006 at 12:57:37 PM PST

Not mean spirited - I appreciate the advice! I am still a young hobbyist and perhaps should have waited to try and save my fry. I will try to work in more water changes...and I was afraid of the ammonia thing.

Hopefully, not too many fish will suffer as I learn the ins and outs of all this! Not as easy to keep multiple aqauariums as I thought.
~K
[ Parent ]



Re: " I noticed a few of the fry are missing (none / 0) (#7)
by miskairal on Wed Jan 18, 2006 at 12:43:40 AM PST

Not as easy to keep fish on the whole as I thought ;)
--
Repeat after me,
I will read the Immediate Help
[ Parent ]


In time however, multiple aquariums, assuming (none / 0) (#8)
by unclescott on Wed Jan 18, 2006 at 08:29:12 AM PST

one doesn't over extend oneself, have a real advantage. (People who expand to a zillion tanks within a year, will discover that they aren't keeping the fish, the fish are keeping them. In most cases they are out of the hobby by the second year. In one exceptional case, a fairly young guy had a nervous and physical breakdown and was hospitalized. His wife purchased "things" with the same dazzling immoderation and they were divorced within another two years.)

If one gets a couple of tanks and several small filters of the same sort, it is relatively easy to move fish and water back and forth and set up new tanks. As equipment seems to drop through a black hole into a recently established fishroom, it is a heck of a lot easier to establish a new tank because filter, gravel, water and plants can be imported. Voila! Instance nitrogen cycle!

Having said that, while catching up on my e-mail, I started a small siphon from by 15-gallon "start-up" tank. Partway through the top paragraph on this page, I realized that the siphon has exceeded that 5-gallon mark. (It is handy to have been married 30+ years, while still being 23, because we have all the old towels for dog drying, car washing and fish tank over flows onto the tile.) Multiple aquaria make no difference if one is absent minded, except that there is a capacity to do more house damage. ;)

When we first got involved in a local killie club, one of the non-fish-keeping spouses mentioned to my wife, at least I know he is in the basement, not out with the guys at the corner tap. Any passion will have to be balanced with family and other priorities. :)

My old friend Paul of Tarsus suggested one pursue "moderation in all things." Well ... most things. ;)

In our local killie club, only a few of the 30 of us have consistently kept fish over most of their adult lives. "Life stuff" interferes and lots of times it is very wise to gave away the fish and moth-ball or give away the equipment. (I was absolutely dismayed to walk the dog past the remodeling home of a former fish-keeper and see a dozen 10-gallon tanks in the dumpster.)

"What does it profit a person if he breeds every tropical fish in the world and loses his soul?"

Still, fish keeping is a little bit like Malaria. It gets in your blood and reinfects you from time to time. ;) A lot of the organized hobby is "hello, so-long and Hi again!" And, I, of middling faith, hope to get a chance to sometime say hi again to a friend we lost to cancer a couple falls ago.

Never realized all that would come out of buying two 20-gallons on over-under stands. This guy was going away to college and didn't want the responsibility of the fish. Me? I was going into my senior year as a history major and in grad school was even crazy enough one year to haul them (in the back of a borrowed Mustang) to the house several of us were renting. We set up a study room/ fishroom. The star of the room, aside from an 8-track stereo, was a strain of purple snakeskin guppies, the like of which I have never seen again.

All the best,
uncle nostalgia boy

[ Parent ]



Re: I got babies! (none / 0) (#2)
by angelhologram on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 07:33:48 PM PST

Congratulations on the fry! They are so fun to watch grow, especially when you aren't quite sure who the father is and you start seeing the colors develope. That's one thing I love about LFS aquisitions and females that get pregnant in general population. You could ask your local pet store if they would be interested in aking some if you decide you have too many. Some will even give you a store credit.
*BEFORE you buy fish make sure you understand what "Cycling" a tank means <- quoted from miskaral* ~Trying to make a difference one fish at a time~


Re: I got babies! (none / 0) (#1)
by miskairal on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 01:32:17 PM PST

Ahhh... you have been hit by the guppy bug :)

Isn't it amazing the different behaviour of the fry when there are no adults to eat them? They are good at hiding in the gravel too. Imagine what it is like to be born and then have your heart beating so fast all the time in fear of your life?

It's just such a shame that guppies won't do something sensible like have just 8- 10 fry at a time (4 or 5 would be even better).

Read up here on segregating the sexes and maybe consider using your 55 for the males and the 10 for females. It's nowhere near the fun without babies but it's better than guppies dying from overcrowding - been there done that.

--
Repeat after me,
I will read the Immediate Help



Congratulations "Mom"! :) (none / 0) (#3)
by unclescott on Fri Jan 13, 2006 at 08:33:29 AM PST

You are also finding out that baby guppies have evolved strategies for hiding and surviving. It is still to your credit that they found so many places to hide. That would be so cool watching yet more keep appearing from their shelters.

Miskairal's point is well taken about convenient numbers, but again these fish aren't evolving for survival in aquaria, but in nature. (And to the extent that professional fish breeders play a role, they are probably trying to produce more prolific females.) If a pair or two of offspring survive to reproduce in the wild, the female and her consorts have done well.

In comparison to the 20/25 per female per month in your tank, at the moment, or the 90 per month in the case of Angelhologram's late bloomer, most egg laying fish need to produce far more eggs for there to be a breeding pair produced for every breeding pair giving it their all. The only exception would be some of the mouth-brooding cichlids. Especially in the case the Lake Malawi mbuna, their eggs and fry are even larger than baby guppies. There are even fewer fry, but by the time they are finally released from the shelter of the mother's throat sack, they are big enough to eat baby guppies.

How big the egg or young is, where the young are produced and how developed the off spring are, will have a lot to do with how many are produced. So a pair of killies will produce 10 to 70 eggs a day. (Or 1,200 a month.) Tetras may produce even more, on a more or less daily basis. Big cichlids with open nests on the substrate will lay 100s to 10,000 eggs each spawning cycle, which in the wild could be 1 to 3 months in interval. A mature ocean going codfish female will produce a couple million eggs annually.

The largest bony fish is probably the two-ton adult ocean sunfish (Mola mola). Living to maybe 100 years if they get past planktonic stage, they can lay 300,000,000 eggs a year. They are about 2-3mm in diameter or roughly three times that of a guppy, double that of than angel or 1/3 bigger than the eggs of the golden wonder killies (Aplocheilus lineatus).

By the way, there are many families of livebearers. Only about four families of livebearers (Poeciliidae, Goodeidae, Anablepidae - the four-eyes - and the Hemirhamphidae - the halfbeaks) commonly kept in aquariums. The freshwater stingrays might be number five, but one needs huge aquaria, better yet large family room ponds, to properly care for them.

Over a 1,000 species, worldwide, are livebearers. Several shark families are livebearers too. A female Great White may drop as many as a dozen youngsters, already about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long! (But see "Are All Livebearers Conceived, Carried and Born the Same Way?")
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2003/11/11/203510/74

And you thought your guppies had babies! :)

All the best!
uncle scott

[ Parent ]



I got babies! | 8 comments (8 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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