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Just a few weeks ago, I moved three of my smallest guppy fry (a few months old now) from my overstocked ten gallon into my five gallon minibow (along with the barb named "Baby" I rescued from a LCS around the same time as the guppies were born) to help with the population issue.

I'm sure the overstocking in the ten gallon is why the guppies were still rather small (a dozen or so guppies and three danios... silly breeding guppies!), but they started to flourish in the five gallon. I noticed the difference in size and coloring within a week or so.

Yesterday, I peered into the five gallon and nearly fell over. I had given all the males to my sister, but apparently the very smallest guppy who was previously unsexable decided that he was, indeed, male, and was beginning to show it! The two other guppies were quickly put back into the ten gallon in the hopes that they would NOT become imprenated (the young male wasn't ACTING male, but the gonopodium is distinct and his coloring is beginning to blossom).

This is NOT cool. I don't need more guppies. Anyone want some small lil guppy girls? I really need to thin out the population... it's amazing how you can't even tell which were the guppies who had been transferred to the five gallon... what were once noticeably smaller girls have caught up with their big sisters. Bad overstocked tank. Wish I could upgrade for them.

I'm hoping to give the male to my sister and then put a few of the girls back into the five gallon. We'll see what happens!

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

Hope everything works out for you, just to give you another story, I had a female swordtail that I raised form a fry. had it for a litle over a year, my only male died and about a month later my female grew male parts, now that is a late bloomer. She/he died about 1 week ago, now i have 2 females left for now lol

Hmm... yeah, but haven't swordies been known to do that? I've never heard of guppies changing. o.O

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

I had a large drop of guppies. Some of them developed normally in a month or so and others took three or four months. The late bloomers never produced many if any fry.
The late bloomers grew very fast compared to the normal males.

max

I have bred a lot of guppies. The never fail method I use of sexing the guppies is by their "gravid spot". The females get that little black spot underneath their bellies so as soon as I start noticing that I remove them. You can even tell using this method with the half blacks and such. I've not had an accidental impregnation at all. Good luck!

Jamie -

Yeah, that works... until you get a male who decides to play female. My guppies are yellow/black leopard spotted and threw a bunch of wild-type males. One of the male fry had a splotch of black right where the gravid spot would be on a female... sneaky devil!:%)

This last guppy was just ...different. He never showed a gravid spot (and now we know why!), but he also never had a gonopodium, at least, not until after I moved him. *shrugs* Just a late bloomer, I guess!

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~