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Hi guys,

I'm a complete Newbie to the game, so far I'm only at the "thinking about it" stage and reading lots about cycling, hardy fishes etc.

One thing I noticed is that a lot of sites mention how easy/difficult it is to breed species. The thing is, the last thing I'd want when I get my first tank is for fish to start breeding like rabbits, that is something I might try once I'm more experienced.

For example, one website suggested if I keep guppies I should have 2 females for every male, but to my thinking the poor bloke would be "shagging" the females non stop and I end up with lots of little ones that might get eaten by other fish and the leftovers will then contaminate the water. So how do I stop fish from breeding.

many thx in advance

Fish'n Chips

hi

welcome to FP with guppies if wat u are saying one male to two females you will end up with a lot of fry every couple of weeks (hence the second name the millions fish). The only way to stop them is to eather split them up or just buy one sex. That is the only way that i think you can do it and i do not know of any other way to keep them in the same tank a stop them from breeding it is just wat the do. And hence this is the problem with live beares. you could put a fish i the tank to eat the fry so as soon as they born they become food but this aint for every one. Hope this gives u an idea

Another point to consider: when purchasing female guppies from your LFS, they are often already pregnant. Additionally, female guppies can store sperm from a single mating to produce several broods. So, even if you get all females, you could wind up with a number of fry.

Joe Potato

If guppies are your plan. Check around. Because I have seen some local shops lately that receive and keep their male and female guppies seperated, I would hope your chances of them coming into your tank pregnant to be smaller.

Best way to keep any of them from breeding, is not to mix them at all. Just keep all males or all females

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

Very good point joe . I bought a few guppies a while back and before I'd even gotten them to the office I'd ended up with a few more than I'd paid for .
The female was kept seperate from the males but I still ended up with a few batches of fry. Once the fry were strong enough to swim against the current in a larger tank (but still small enough to be munched on by the tetras) they were moved to help keep the population down.

With guppies there's not really all that much you can do to curtail other than buying males only.

I'd suggest not getting livebearers as your first fish. Look at danios, some of the smaller barbs, white cloud mountain minnows (WCMM), tetras, corys. Many of the other hardy fish will reproduce but they're likely to be eaten before they can cause an explosion in populations. In case you havent seen it yet, this makes for a good read.

^_^

Depending on what size tank you're working with you could have some sort of gourami along with guppies; they're good at fry control

~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Well,
there is no birth control for fish, so thats out of
the question, though the repeated use of Tetracycline will render females and males infertile over time.

If you dont want baby fish, dont buy livebearers, get an
egglaying species. Egg laying fish rarely have fry survive unless you are trying for it, and many wont even spawn without certain conditions.


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Thx for your help guys, I'll bear your advise in mind.

I am in the process of setting up for multis]http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/profiles/423.htm[/link] ...................[link=(more pix)

And I am having to think about what to do with possible offspring too..... maybe Babel is onto something. I may have to pretend they are brine shrimp and donate them to my 4ft malawi setup.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~ My fish blow kisses at me all day long ~~~

Bettas also enjoy hunting guppy fry.

---

I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
~ Mae West

Depending on the tank size, investing in a gourami or betta may be a good idea.

All males would work as well

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

Guppies are bye far the fastest breeding livebearers out there. If you really want to have guppies I suggest that you stick to one of the genders. Another thing to consider is this: when I had my first tank, I bought a guppy, and he died with in a couple of days, they are not the most hardy of fish.
Usually when females give birth they will live, but sometimes, they die right after birth or in the near future. [This has happened to me more than once.] And there is a good chance that out of the birth you may get more than 30 fry, only a few will survive. [If any]
Babies are really fragile, and are more likely to get disease. If you ever have babies and you don't want them to live, just let them go in your tank and even the mom of the fry will eat them. Any fish see fry as a tasty treat. And sometimes a fry or two will live, and if so I am sure you will find someone who is willing to take the fry off your hands.
Hope this helped!

and he died with in a couple of days, they are not the most hardy of fish.

I'd have to disagree. When given decent conditions, a guppy can do well. An inbred guppy or one that has been placed in an uncycled or unmaintained tank is more likely to get sick and/or die(like most any other fish).

Guppies are a fish that are fairly easy to succeed with if you create a healthy environment for them.

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

Guppies are one of the hardiest fish. I rarely lose any and I was having a nearly 100% survival rate for fry. Which turned out to be a bad thing cause then I had more guppies than I knew what to do with. They have some of the hardiest fry I've dealt with and most losses are from predation not disease. Only time I ever lose guppies is when I get cheap feeders. If you keep having guppies die on you either your buying very cheap poorly bred strains that are already carrying diseases or your doing something wrong. If your keeping them properly you have to control how much access the males have to the females or have some fish to eat the fry. Otherwise you will end up with 100s if not 1000s of guppies in a fairly short amount of time. Mine are currently creating lots of live food for my gobies. Definitely easier to raise than brine shrimp.

As proof to how long female guppies can hold onto the sperm, I have a female that's not been in the presence of a male guppy for at least six months if not nine. I had a baby this morning...well the guppy did .

So unless it was the zebra danio getting her preggers......

^_^

Just get all males if you get guppies - without females around they won't be as aggressive to each other, they're the prettier ones, and if you only have males there's 0 change of having babies!

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i would go with all males, because if you go with the option of getting a fish, you will have to find one that doesn't get big enough to eat the adult guppies. if you get all males then its a benefit, no babies, but if you wish to have fry later on, all you have to do is go and buy a bunch of females. good luck.

Renegade545,
king of the frontosa

I'd have to agree on guppies being very hardy fish. They were introduced into our countries water system and are found in streams and creeks of our main cities even where local fish would not inhabit. I am referring to highly populated areas with very polluted water systems and water temperatures around 20 Celsius.

Talk about resilience!