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Okay. I have a friend with like 6 bazillion baby guppies. she wants to give me some and well, i only have a 10 gallon tank free. its already cycled and everything but i have some questions BEFORE i commit to taking some.

1)how many can be housed in a 10 gallon tank?
(and i am aware they need to be all male or all female)
2)if my mollies have fry, would it be safe to put molly fry in with guppies, or are they big enough to eat the little ones?
3) SHOULD I???
4) Are they aggressive? Can i house some in a tank with my other fish? (listed on profile)
5) maybe just some basic tips and facts i should know that dont pertain the same to mollies?!?

Thanks a bunch,
Chelle

*Chelle*
_______________________________________________
I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

how many fishys do you already have in the 10? Guppies are very hardy fish,they will have many fry every month!!!!if u dont want this get all female or male.males have nicer more colorful tales.if u dont have any fish in the 10 gallon u can hold 3.i asked all the same questions a few days ago if u already have 3 or more it would be very crouded well good luck and any fish with a mouth big enought to eat a fry will eat one if u want to keep them all and dont have a second tamk just keep alot of plants.dont expect them all to live(its hard to see those cute lil fry)good luck!!

u need to get all males so they dont breed, again livebearers aren't the best pet for fish keepers due to over population. a ten gallon if u were to get breeding males and females would need a 55 + and many of them, if u are not looking for that get a group of 4 male.

yeah, my ten gallon is completely empty, the over-breeding i can easily deal with, as i have a 55 gallon and a 29 gallon tank that arent overstocked. but... its sad you can only keep 3-4 in a ten gallon. i was thinking maybe three or so for my 55 gallon with my mollies and swordtails.
and then maybe 3-4 in the 10 gallon and 1-2 in the 29 gallon.

Thanks for the advice.

Chelle

*Chelle*
_______________________________________________
I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

You don't have room for their breeding. In 1 month from 1 female I have 1 dozen fry and that's probably a small number. 1 male and 1 female guppy could overpopulate a 55g tank in a few months. Unless you know a source that will always take them or you have several empty tanks laying around don't mix males and females. As far as I've seen guppies are completely peaceful. I stuck a few of the colorful males I liked in my 90g community tank and keep the ones I want to breed in my 20g. The 20g has 8 sparkling gouramis that devour fry so I only get fry if I move a female to another tank. Complete population control. I don't know the size of molly fry but some guppies don't eat their own fry and some do. It depends first if the fry are small enough for the guppies to consider them food and then if they guppies want to eat them.

If there is nothing in the tank you could have about 4-5 male guppies.Possible some kind of bottom feeder.

im fully aware that i need either all male or all female guppies as i stated in the first post. I have mollies, i KNOW how rapid they can breed. im just trying to get the basic facts before i agree to take some fish that i've never owned before.

thanks for all the help guys,
Chelle

*Chelle*
_______________________________________________
I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

You just said up a above:

the over-breeding i can easily deal with, as i have a 55 gallon and a 29 gallon tank that arent overstocked

That definitely sounds like you were planning on at least 1 male and female and just sticking the fry in the various tanks which obviously would be filled with less than 1 time of the female(s) giving birth.

1. You'd want to get all males, simply because females can become impregnated at a very young age, and continue to drop fry once a month for up to 6-9 months. Scary thought, eh?

If you had ONLY male guppies in a ten gallon, you could safely stock 10-12 on a good cleaning regimine.

2. You COULD put fry into the ten gallon if the fry were big enough. Best rule of thumb when dealing with fry in a tank with other fish is to make sure the fry are bigger than the biggest mouth in the tank.

I've found that my guppies won't eat their own fry, really... they chase them, but I've never seen them EAT them.

3. Not sure what you're asking. Yeah, you can put the fry in with the guppies, but note that platties CAN interbreed with guppies, and you'd be kind of negating the idea of getting a one-sex guppy group.

4. No, they're not aggressive at all. However, they can be picked upon, due to the long fins. I've seen them dart after small fry, but never see them hurt anything at all.

Looking at your fish, I'd say you're pretty okay. Danios are good at keeping population in check (they eat fry) if you have the need for it.

5. Not sure what else to tell you... the care is pretty much the same. I've never personally kept other livebearers, so I can't really help out on that, though.


Quick question... you say the ten gallon is cycled? By your profile, there doesn't seem to be any fish in there (besides being labelled as a fry tank...) How are you keeping it cycled?

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

well i recently just removed the danios to cycle the 29 gallon that i changed substrate on, and i gave away most of my fry and moved the others to the 29 gallon and the 55 gallon.

the 10 gallon just mainly housed the danios and whatever fry i could save from my evil sailfins. i would keep the fry in a net breeder for a week in the ten gallon away from the danios until they were big enough.

so now its empty has been for 5 days i think?!?

i'm ready for a new kind of fish, but yet im not. i DIDNT know however that platies and guppies can interbreed.

what comes out? half platies and half guppies?

i may have to rethink that one.

*Chelle*
_______________________________________________
I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

Muppies. Molly/guppies.

I'd be concerned about the ten gallon now... without fish for nearly a week, I'd venture a guess that the cycle has either been killed or is in a very delicate state.

The cycle feeds on the waste that fish produce, and without fish in there... might be kind of iffy. Even if you added fish at this time, you might have at least a mini-cycle or have to recycle the tank completely.

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

that was one thing i wasnt sure of, how long exactly do tanks hold a cycling without fish..

i dont even know if im willing to adopt guppies seeing as how i've had three mysterious fish deaths in three weeks.

a fish a week... im starting to get worried. All my parameters are fine, i dont know if these fish are just getting old or over-bred. i have no idea.


ugh.

-Chelle

*Chelle*
_______________________________________________
I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

so more about these "muppies"... are they an actual type of fish? or do they just look like normal mollies and/or guppies?


you've intrigued me. HA.



*Chelle*
_______________________________________________
I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

I'm not sure... never had mollies, so I've never seen what can happen. I think someone on the board DOES have what I'd call "muppies." You'd have to ask around, though.

As for the cycling bit, I don't know. I'd be very leery about the cycle in that tank, though.

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

I actually prefer female guppies to males myself.
I find in the absence of females, the males always tear each other to shreds. So much for all the pretty fins!
If you wanted you could always try just a group of females, and likely you would get a few birthings, but eventually that would peter out and the females would be very very happy.
I once kept 6 females in a 10g tank for almost a year, and they made the males seem neurotic! So quiet, happy, pleasant with each other, so calm.
Female guppies are one of my favorite livebearers. Much prefer them to the males.
As for Muppies, I assume they would have some characteristics of each species, and more traits of the male, whichever he may be.


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So I have a 40g long. It has say 10 silver mollys. I think they are all female but I am not sure. They are kind of small still. About an inch long at most. A friend gave them to me for feeders because she has a tank with about a 100 of them. Could I add some male guppies to make muppies? Do you have to do anything special? Does it happen easy or is it just a some times thing?

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