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Currently, my ten gallon has a dozen female guppies in there. I recently removed the three danios that were in there, to start up a new tank. I'm attempting to work on this overstocking issue I have thanks to the obviously NON-female guppy that was given to me...

My question is exactly what the topic is... how many adult female guppies would you suggest as reasonable maximum for a ten gallon tank? The mother is largest (though not by much) at just over an inch and a half.

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

one inch of fish per gallon of water. 10 gallons equalls 10 inches of fish


10 each of 1 inch fish
5 each of 2 inch fish

That rule really only applies to small schooling fish though, not to anything else. I sure wouldn't put a fully grown oscar into a fifteen gallon tank, that would be a disaster!

I think that seven or eight of the guppies would be a nice, comfortable stocking level. When you do get all set up, be sure that your females haven't stored up any male sperm. Otherwise, you'll keep finding some extra guppies in there, if you get my drift.

Last edited by sirbooks at 07-Feb-2005 16:51

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

sirbrooks is correct hence I didn't list "1 each 10 inch fish"

that rule is also thrown out the window when you are dealing with compatablity issues and territorial issues also.

Oh, no, this tank is already set up and I've been fry free for quite some months now, thankfully!

I was thinking the same... 7 or 8 of my lil guppy girls seems a bit more reasonable than a dozen or so! That was fine when they were younger, but I've long since decided that I needed to thin the ranks, and just now have the opportunity to do so. Now to decide which ones go...

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

Maybe you can do more water changes & keep them all, but keep up with the water changes & keep the water as clean as you can.



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Space wise, 12 female Guppies should be fine in a 10 gallon. If your Nitrates are under control, I wouldn't worry to much, keep them all if you wish.

I would only keep 7 at the max.

Full grown females are also pretty fat.

I planned on keeping seven, but wound up with six... because apparently I can't count. Actually, with all of them in there, they moved around too fast for me to tell if there was 11 or 12, so when I fished five out, I left myself with six. Ah well...

I feel a lot better... despite having done my best to keep up with waterchanges and such, I knew the girls weren't growing properly. They're more than half a year old and are still obviously smaller than their mother. I had removed three of the smallest guppies to my five gallon tank for a while and you should have seen how much they grew in a few weeks...

Anyway, thanks much for all the advice.

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~