Guppies are originally from South America and are from the Poeciliidae family of fish. There are nearly 300 different varieties of Guppy that come in a wide range of colours, shapes & sizes.
Tank Requirements
- Community
- Temperatures between 24°C and 28°C
- Water between pH 6.5 and pH 8.0
- Minimum of 40cm x 20cm or 5 Gallons
- Kept in a ratio of one male to a minimum of three females
Few tropical aquarists have gone through their fish keeping career without keeping either a common Guppy or an Endlers Guppy. These are busy little fish that add a splash of colour to your aquarium, and with so many different types to choose from you are bound to find one that catches your eye.
Feeding
- These are omnivores
- Flake
- Bloodworms
- Artemia
- Daphnia
- Pellets
Guppies are very easy to care for. They require very few things to thrive, just a bit of food and a reasonable amount of space to swim around in. They are not fussy with food and will eat pretty much anything that is put into the tank.
Male Guppy
Size: Maximum length 5cm
Colour: You name it, they come in it.
Sexing: Male guppies tend to have more elaborate fins than the females and the colours of the males are generally brighter.
Female Guppy
Size: Maximum length 5cm
Colour: The majority of female guppies have a brown body with some colour in their tails, however with more specialist breeding other colours are available at a higher price.
Personal Review
Guppies are easy to care for and rediculously easy to breed. You don’t have to do anything for them and as long as there is a male and a female you will end up with guppy fry. They have their place in the tank as dither fish and they are an easy way to add colour to the tank.
The fact that they bred quickly is a pro and a con. The first batch you raise is exciting, but once grown… what do you do with them? They are so cheap to buy its hardly worth trying to sell them and realistically how many of your friends and family actually keep fish. In my case, the answer is none. If you continue to breed guppies and save the fry, you will soon find yourself over run with guppies. For this reason, I don’t save any of my fry and I just let the other fish in the tank eat them.
The males spend alot of their time chasing the females around, this does annoy me to be honest. I feel sorry for the girls! I try to keep a ratio of one male to 5 females to try to keep the pestering down a bit.
Every tropical fish keeper should have at least one guppy throughout their fish keeping career, but now later on in my career I want something that’s a bit different and a bit more challenging. If I were to start a new tank, I wouldn’t include guppies on my fish wish list.
