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About 8 mo. ago I bought a couple of feeder guppies from an lfs to add some color to my tank. Thier tankmates (Plattys and an Apple Snail) ate them. Well, I always thought I had platty and molly fry, and now a few months after my mollys have passed on, I have discovered that they are guppies, and getting thier color in. The thing is these are cobra tail guppies... the ones I had looked closer to the nearly colorless "wild-type" guppies. I also have noteced that the males have become.... developed... and some of the females are pregnant. All of the fish are about 1/2 of an inch! Am I facing an infestation of ultra fertile guppies?!

Inky

Depending on your tank size the smaller the quicker it will be overstocked.

What size is the tank your refering to?

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Keith

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Its my 10-15g (Not sure as the dimensions are off and it was a gift, I did discover a sticker saying US 15gallons though) The tank currently houses 2 plattys and 2 Zebra Danios, I was thinking of adding some cories. Is there any reason why they would be multiplying so quickly? Is there anything I can do about it that isn't cruel? I have an extra 1gal sitting around my apartment that I can use if neccessary (I DONT WANT TO KILL THEM OFF)

Inky

They aren't ultra fertile they are just guppies. That is what guppies do. About once a month every female will give birth to anywhere from a dozen to more than 50babies. The older they get the more babies they have. The only way to stop it is to remove either all females or all males to another tank as soon as you can tell what they are. The females can still continue to give birth several months after being seperated from the males. You don't need ultra fertile guppies to fill a 15g tank. 1 normal female will accomplish that just fine within 1 or 2 batches of fry. Unless you want 100s of guppies you best start seperating and looking for a store that will take them. Also feeder guppies are often the result of people mixing various colored guppies together so they could be carrying the genes for just about anything. I got a few cobras and lyretails from mine.

Mine are tiny....... in my experience, guppies don't start breeding until they are about 3/4" or an 1". Isn't that a little sooner then normal?

Inky

Depends on the guppies. Feeders are smaller than fancy guppies. My feeders are not more than 1" at full grown size whereas both my fancy guppy male and female are the same age as the feeders and closer to 2". The males were breeding when they still had no color and were definitely less than 1". I never allowed them to breed with the young females from the fancy/feeder cross though. I was very careful to seperate males and females as soon as I could tell the difference irregardless of current size or coloring.

I actually had one of the guppies give birth the other day. The offspring are actually doing quite well, as they cant fit in thier parents mouths. If I leave them be will they be okay? Also, they are all feeder guppies, some just have Cobra markings, so they are probubly all crossbreeds. I'm thinking of leaving them be and setting up a seperate tank for my other fish. I'm begaining to get attached ^_-

Inky