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Hi there!

My female guppies have had 57 () babies between them and I've put them in a separate tank. the first lot of 23 are 30 days old and the second lot of 34 are 6 days old! I was wondering at what age will I be able to tell the males from the females and what age will they get their colours? How long does it take for them to become adult?

Thanks!

Vicky

In my experience with raising guppies for the past two years, the females get color a little earlier.
You will be able to tell male from female likely by 6 weeks of age. Guppies take about 8 months to reach "adult size" and much longer for the females to develop to large proportions. Guppies should be sellable size by 4 months.
Males get their color almost overnight sometime around 6-8 weeks of age.
Hope this helps!


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Thank you for all the info!!
I also heard that the males and females should be separated at 4 weeks otherwise they could start interbreeding.... is this true?! Surely not...please say no! Isn't that a bit early?

Vicky

You don't have to seperate them, but if you don't there is a very good chance of the females being fertilized...yes, it seems early but that is 2 months old, and some females have been known to have fry at 3 months, though average is 4-5...And it is so true how the males suddenly overnight get their tails and color...one of my girls with guppies came to school one day with a normal plain male, the next day she was squealing how he suddenly had a tail and color...of course I was the first one she called when she had her first fry last month also

Also if you do water changes more often, and feed smaller amounts more often they will grow faster for you.

Best of luck, it seems the week to be having babies

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

Yes, it is possible for female guppies to get pregnant at a very very young age. For example, I have a batch of young gupps right now, and the first time I noticed a female have a gravid spot, was when they were only 2 weeks old!
I would say if you want to seperate them, and end up with unpregnant or "virgin" guppies, you should do it as soon as you see little gonopodiums starting to develop. I would say probably as early as 1 -2 weeks they could be seperated. However, I have not had a guppy that young ever give birth, and my sister had one about 5 weeks old give birth, but all she gave birth to was 3-4 fry who were miniscule in size.
I never seperate my guppies, and unless you need to for some reason, like you are developing your own pure strain, then I wouldnt worry about it.


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How do you tell at that age the female??

Where do you look???

The males are pretty easy as to when they get there colour in there tail but don't want millions of babies.

To answer the first post here, it depends on how you raise your fry on how early you can tell the males from females and how early they get their colors and how fast they grow.

In my tanks, I am able to tell the females from the males at three weeks, and in each and everyone of my strains the males get their color first, though the females grow the fastest (they generally get bigger than the males anyway).

There are three things that contribute to these factors:
1) Water temperature.
2) How often you feed the fry.
3) How often you do water changes.

Higher water temperatures (like 82f) will cause the metabolism increase, and if you are feeding them small amounts 3-4 times a day then you will see faster growth patterns. If you do small water changes everyother day, you will be decreasing growth inhibiting chemicals in the water.

If you are going to separate the fry (male from female), I usually separate mine at about 4-5 weeks of age. You can tell the females sooner by the little black (gravid) spot at the underneath of their belly right by the anal fin.

Congrats on your new babies!!


Last edited by ~jamie~ at 15-Apr-2005 06:52

Our fry got began to get their colours at 5 weeks of age.
Seperate them as soon as you can. If your female fry get fertilised too early it will stunt their growth. :%(

I've found that lighter colors don't show up as early as darker colors. I had what was called either a purple or blue metallic guppy female (light body, dark tail, almost black) and all her fry started to show color in the tail much earlier than fry from other colored guppies I have.

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

In my experiance, males get their color before females. I have 2 2 month old fry, 1 female other male. the male has his bright yellow/green and black colors while his sister hardly has any! She has a slight sheen of yellow but thats it. they are both swimming with there mother and aunts! lol. there father is...well...there uncle.So i'd say males get there color at 1 month and female get it a little while later.

My big question is, how on earth did you manage to count them all? I've tried numerous times to count how many I have, but of course they refuse to coopoerate and stand in a neat and orderly line while I count.

I have to admit, I do still keep trying to count, but hey, I think 'lots' covers it for me. Definitely not 57 'lots', but I'm guessing 20 or so 'lots'.

3 months for females and 6 weeks for males...thought some earlier.