Starting with Guppies
The guppy has been the fish that has brought many a person into the tropical fish keeping hobby and so it was for me but not in the usual way. A tank full of various beautifully colored male guppies in a fish shop is an attractive sight which someone starting in the hobby would find hard to pass by. I started tropical fish keeping in Nairobi, Kenya decades ago when fish shops were scarce. I didn’t start with fancy guppies but rather with wild guppies caught in a small stream. The short tailed male guppies had ocelli and bands of colour on their bodies and tails and were very attractive. Wild females didn’t show any fancy colour being for the most part shades of brownish green and were huge compared to the male. However, I still recall the rare wild gold female guppy that got away from me in spite of frantic efforts to catch it all those years ago. It is difficult to imagine that these types of guppies were the starting points for all the strains on the market today. The colorful guppies are the result of painstaking selective breeding for colour and form, over very many generations.
Poecilia reticulata, the guppy is said to originate in Trinidad and Barbados. It was introduced to many tropical waters in an attempt to control mosquito larva and hence the disease malaria, thus explaining how the guppy ended up in my net in Africa. In the UK, delta and veil tail guppies appear to be the most popular and are available in a range of colours. One of my favorites is the half-black red delta because the black body really offsets the red tail. Guppies with a variety of other tail shapes such as swordtails, lyretails and pintails have also been bred, but these are rarely available in shops but can be obtained from specialist breeders. Male guppies are colourful but small, reaching about 2 inches TL, while females are larger but not as colourful. Today the trend is towards producing more colourful females and great strides have been made here.
Setup
I first maintained guppies in one gallon jars with no filtration but with plenty of pond weed, and with no heating as I was in the tropics. Today, guppies can be kept in their own species aquarium or as part of a peaceful community of small fish, which does not contain barbs, other fin nippers or large cichlids. However, dwarf South American Apistogramma cichlids, neon and cardinal tetras, harlequins and pencil fish among others make good tank mates for the guppy. They tolerate a wide range of water types as long as it is clean and well aerated. A well-planted tank always looks good even if the plants are of the plastic variety. Gentle filtration perhaps using under gravel plates and an air pump can work well in here. Temperature needs to be maintained at around 24 0C with a heater thermostat. In the aquarium, guppies can be fed a staple diet of good quality flake. However, if possible, an occasional feeding of small live food such as daphnia, bloodworm and mosquito larvaeis much appreciated. I never ever feed live tubifex having lost many fish, including a whole brood of young guppies.
I first maintained guppies in one gallon jars with no filtration but with plenty of pond weed, and with no heating as I was in the tropics. Today, guppies can be kept in their own species aquarium or as part of a peaceful community of small fish, which does not contain barbs, other fin nippers or large cichlids. However, dwarf South American Apistogramma cichlids, neon and cardinal tetras, harlequins and pencil fish among others make good tank mates for the guppy. They tolerate a wide range of water types as long as it is clean and well aerated. A well-planted tank always looks good even if the plants are of the plastic variety. Gentle filtration perhaps using under gravel plates and an air pump can work well in here. Temperature needs to be maintained at around 24 0C with a heater thermostat. In the aquarium, guppies can be fed a staple diet of good quality flake. However, if possible, an occasional feeding of small live food such as daphnia, bloodworm and mosquito larvaeis much appreciated. I never ever feed live tubifex having lost many fish, including a whole brood of young guppies.
Breeding
In a tank full of guppies, males are constantly displaying with extended finnage to females while trying to mate with them. All male-male displays with some sparing are also constantly taking place, but little or no fin damage ever takes place. All this activity makes for a very colourful action packed setup. As everyone knows, the guppy does not lay eggs but is a live bearer. A male guppy is continually displaying and trying to inseminate female guppies by suddenly darting in close, inserting his gonopodium in her reproductive tract and releasing his sperm. The gonopodium is a specially adapted anal fin, which can be pointed forwards or backwards, so that it can be lined up as necessary. Females for the most part tend to ignore the advances of the male. Sperm from one mating can be stored by the female and used to fertilize several broods of young. In fact, females can be fertilized by a male at a very early age and only start to produce fry several months later when they are mature.
In a tank full of guppies, males are constantly displaying with extended finnage to females while trying to mate with them. All male-male displays with some sparing are also constantly taking place, but little or no fin damage ever takes place. All this activity makes for a very colourful action packed setup. As everyone knows, the guppy does not lay eggs but is a live bearer. A male guppy is continually displaying and trying to inseminate female guppies by suddenly darting in close, inserting his gonopodium in her reproductive tract and releasing his sperm. The gonopodium is a specially adapted anal fin, which can be pointed forwards or backwards, so that it can be lined up as necessary. Females for the most part tend to ignore the advances of the male. Sperm from one mating can be stored by the female and used to fertilize several broods of young. In fact, females can be fertilized by a male at a very early age and only start to produce fry several months later when they are mature.
The young develop inside the female and are released fully formed, with the yolk sac already absorbed. From now on the young fish have to fend for themselves as there is no parental care and they could end up as a meal for the next passing fish. In the aquarium, well-fed guppy females will produce brood after brood every four or five weeks. In the wild in Kenya, I remember seeing particularly large females, only towards the middle of the summer, when food was plentiful and the temperature was up. It was during this period that large numbers of fry were produced in the wild. To save the fry, I remove the gravid female to a small well-planted separate aquarium. Once the female has dropped her young, which can number for as few a four or five to around fifty, she is returned to the main community to prevent her eating her own fry. The large wild guppies that I first came across in Kenya would release sixty to a hundred young. The fry grow quite quickly if fed a basic diet of good quality flake and some live food. Clean, uncrowded conditions are of course also essential for good growth.
Conclusions
For selective breeding, one needs virgin females, the male of your choice, several tanks, lots of patient hard work and many years. However one does not need to be an expert to keep and enjoy the guppy. They are an obviously hardy fish, available in every fish shop, in a wide range of colors and styles to suit everyone’s taste. Guppy maintenance is easy and they produce live young almost automatically. I have started keeping guppies again and am enjoying it. I hope you do too.
For selective breeding, one needs virgin females, the male of your choice, several tanks, lots of patient hard work and many years. However one does not need to be an expert to keep and enjoy the guppy. They are an obviously hardy fish, available in every fish shop, in a wide range of colors and styles to suit everyone’s taste. Guppy maintenance is easy and they produce live young almost automatically. I have started keeping guppies again and am enjoying it. I hope you do too.