Spawning Report: Poecilia Reticulata (Guppies)

Finally! Guppies galore. We’ve had many false starts with these aquarium hobby mainstays. While originating in the northern regions of South America, they have been introduced in nearly every continent of the world in regions warm enough to sustain them. In the Aquarium hobby, they have been selectively bred to the max. Our strain are called “Dumbo-Eared Firecracker Guppies.”

PVAS BAP SPAWNING REPORT

04 August 2020

VIDEO JOURNAL

SPECIES

Poecilia Reticulata

Guppies (Dumbo-Eared Firecracker)

REPRODUCTION

Method of Reproduction: Live Bearer

Number and Gender Distribution of Parents: Two Pairs

Origin of Parents: Tank Raised - Bought from fellow PVAS Member

Approximate number of fry: (single drop) ca. 30-40

Date of Birth: 20 June 2020

Approx. Number of Fry at 30 Days: 33 (counted in transfer)

AQUARUM CONDITIONS

pH — ca. 7.8-8.0

KH/GH — 71.6 ppm

Temperature: 75-degrees Fahrenheit

Average Nitrate: 30-40 ppm

Aquarium Size: 10 Gal. (standard)

Water Source: town / city water

Water Changes: 15% 1x per week

Filtration System: One medium sponge filter, One hang-on-back with a pre-intake sponge

DECOR & ENVIRONMENT

Live Plants: Amazon Sword, Bolbitis, Wisteria, Riccia, Java Moss, Pothos (in HOB filter)

Caves or Similar Hiding Places: large shells from Outer Banks, N.C.

Substrate: Standard aquarium stones, sand, several cups of crushed coral

Lighting Type and Timing: 5,000-K shop light LED filtered through cabinet liner grid for diffusion

FEEDING

Food Fed to Parents and How Often: 2x / day. Parents fed on a variety of dry foods throughout each week ground fine in a pestal and mortar, and baby brine shrimp

Food Fed to Fry and How Often: 2x / day. (same as parents)

PHOTOS

COMMENTS & ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Most folks find Guppies to be the easiest fish in the world to breed. We have actually had more problems with getting Guppies going than with many other fish. The main difficulty has been purchasing healthy adult stock. Unfortunately, many stores get shipments of fish plagued with livebearer disease — requiring costly medication at the outset; or stock grown in brackish water — making the trasition over to fresh water challenging. In addition, our water is really soft out of the tap — not a favorite for guppies.

We bought our parents from PVAS member Frank Cowherd. They shipped just fine, and came in very healthy. We set up out aquarium with crushed coral to help buffer our soft water, and also added two filtration sources for increased flow and aeration. We heavily planted the tank so that fry could hide when dropped.

One thing that we also did was to treat guppies with a round of API General Cure. This has worked wonders with guppies we’ve bought since.

The first drop from both females, we set aside and did not count for BAP. The second drop we kept. We are sure it was just from one female. We used a fry net suspended inside the aquarium to isolate the fry from predation. Once we reached 30 days, we moved the fry to another divided tank to help them growout.

Newly hatched artemia (baby brine shrimp) has been the staple food for our guppy fry. They are hardy eaters from day one. We also have abotu 20x red cherry shrimp in the aquarium. They get along well with the guppies in the tank. When we moved fry over to the breeder net, there were a few that we did not catch. They grew up in the tank with the parents. We noticed that their growth rate was faster than the pulled batch — likely due to more frreedom to forage for food in a larger environment.

Our stand / aquarium spacing setup was not “engineered” very well. We highly recommend making sure there is at least 8-inches of space between the top of an aquarium and any structure above it to ensure that containers and nets can easily access the tank.

While we’ve monitored this batch indoors, in the future we would probably choose to breed them in an outdoor mini-pond. A separate batch of guppies that we set up in our outdoor mini-pond have hundreds of fry. The coloration, when grown outside in the sunlight and rainwater, is unbelievably intense.