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Just wondering how long it takes for a guppy to reach full size?

I got my green cobra, "Cobra" in December of 2002 and he was fully grown, but youthful looking. I'm trying to determine how old he is. I know he is old for a fancy and I'm trying to determine his age.

I was asking because of this post:

http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/forums/Livebearers%20Lane/56405.html?200503232007

Last edited by Cory_Di at 24-Mar-2005 06:58

Males I would guesstimate about 8 months.

Females get much larger and it takes longer.

But there are a lot of factors involved. How warm the water. The warmer it is the faster they grow. How often and what they are fed. And how often the water is changed out.

Well, if I got him in December of 2002 and it is now Almost April of 2005, that is 28 months. Lets add a conservative number of 6 months to that....34 months

Yikes - Cobra is almost 3 years old! He truly is an old man

wow...im surprised...ur guppie is still alive..its a grandpa already at this stage...hmm....must be the water?!?

I think he is holding on for you to get him a mate so he can finally err you know. So he can die a happy shishy.

I'm pretty sure the size of the tank will have a big impact.

Some fry will probably never attain adult size because of the tank size. I could be wrong but I bet many people that have guppies keep them in small tanks due to their size.

My Scapes

I forgot about that. Not having mated, at least while I have him, it probably has contributed to longevity.

I did not want a population issue in my tank. I rescued a very tiny baby guppy, who is now endler-sized, from a defunct science project. His mother had given birth in one of those soda bottle eco-systems teachers have them create. The best lesson from the entire experiment is the one the teacher herself showed - research first, which she did not. She even put a mystery snail in there and he starved to death by the time mother guppy had died. They really aren't algae eaters and there wasn't any algae anyway - it was a newly cleaned bottle. It had one sprig of anacharis in it . Well, mom ate all the babies except Buddy, who was ever elusive and a survivor. When mom died in that cloudy stinky water with the snail, I can't imagine what the ammonia was and there was Buddy, surviving. The mother was reduced to a blob so she was dead at least 48 hours by my estimates and the snail I think much longer. My nephew looked at me as I stared into the pathetic stinky soup and said, "We need to do something.".

Buddy lived in a betta hex for about 2 weeks with water being changed 2-3 times daily until I could get something better. At the time I had no idea how to deal with such a tiny fish that could get sucked up into a filter. He got bigger faster and then I put him into a 3 gallon eclipse. But he was going nuts, running up and down the glass.

So, I decided to take a chance. I bought a male guppy, Cobra. They have been bosom buddies ever since. They practiced courtship poses on each other all day long and still do when Cobra is up to it. Buddy, in particular, is flirtatious. He even flirts with the cories and the harlequins .

It was an ethical dilemma for me at the time to keep two livebearing males away from females. But the greater ethical concern for me was how to deal with the onslaught of fry every few weeks, had I gotten a female. I prefer not to add fish to the feeder tank - it just breaks my heart. I know breeders have to do it and it beats flushing them, but I just don't have it in me. I see it as a matter of weighing the potential unhappiness of two males to the misery of hundreds, if not thousands, of fry they would have produced (had I gotten a common female instead of a green cobra male). Who would want them other than people feeding fish or teachers making ridiculous experiments? I also had no way of setting up additional tanks in this tiny condo.

Anyway, that is the story, but now that I think of it, I'm sure the lack of "kids" has allowed Cobra and Buddy to survive into these golden years. Buddy is only a few months shy of Cobra and has showed no sign of slowing down. I really expect to get a good five years out him.

You can see a pic of the two of them frolicking in that other link.

Last edited by Cory_Di at 24-Mar-2005 08:40