Please help out a NEWBIE!!!

[plec0]

POk, Ive always bred Plecostomus and Stuck to mainly Hypancistrus Species, well lately my wife has taken a liking to guppies and their beautiful colors so I decided to try and see what luck I might have in this..

Ok So I got a female that is HUGE!!! I MEAN HUGE!!! the male was chasing her around tank when I got home 2days ago and wouldnt stop.. so I pulled out one of my Pleco fry boxes and seperated her from rest of the fish in the tank and shes been by herself eating good, but I wanted your thoughts and opinions on the matter, far as when she may release these babies etc.. she's been this size now for atleast 2-3 weeks and everyday getting bigger... can anybody with experience with guppies shine some light on this subject, I've provided pictures of her in the enclosure I have her in...

[jodilynn]

Gestation for female guppies is 26 to 31 days, so probably any day now.

[plec0]

ok, Well Im feeding her and shes eating, I'm anxious and very worried as Ive never had guppies or had one thats pregnant full of babies and seperated her from the male and rest of fish in tank which are just a few community fish and albino bristlenose pleco's(just 2 and they are very young maybe 2 inch..)Thanks for your reply and I just mainly wanted to confirm by the pictures that she was indeed and 100% sure she was FULL OF BABIES..etc...

[pleco_breeder]

I would advise either getting her into a box which will separate her and the fry, or at least getting some cover in there to allow them to hide. Regardless of how well she's fed, and I know a lot of old books claim a well fed fish won't, she's very likely to pick the fry off as quickly as they're born.

Larry Vires

[plec0]

thanks for the tip, in the enclosure shes in, theres 2 slots for me to make 3 seperate compartments to divide them into 3 different areas.. so I will insert 1 slot, so that as their born they can/hopeful swim into/thru the divider into the other compartment, as the divider is super thin and is only big enough for very small fry esepcially guppies can fit through but wont allow the Female to bypass.. Ive had her now enclosed and seperated from the rest of the tank and Male now going on 48 hours and Im beginning to wonder if and when she will give birth.... I dont want to keep her housed in this small enclosure too long and risk her health and well being due to fact of poor filtration and the water circulating is constant but not at a rate of removing wastes on bottom of the enclosure nor any heat to keep her water warm other than the trickle of fresh water directly from tank, but that is just drops at a rate of maybe 150 per minutes.. thus very very slow water circulation,granted the runoff goes back into the tank and directly into the filtration system of the larger tank... if you can tell by my photos. and here I am more worried about a female guppy than rest of my fish in tank..LOL.. I just want this Female to have her babies and Not die nor all them to be eaten or sucked into the filter of the main tank even though I could swap to a sponge filter.

[plec0]

ok i have her sepereated and this morning I woke up and checked on her and indeed I got just 2 small livebearers in enclosure with her, i have them sepereated from her and shes still huge and Im puzzled as to why shes had just 2 ? Im constantly keeping an eye on her and just wondering is there anything I can do? I feel dumb writing this, im a Pleco breeder not a guppy breeder!!..LOL, this is an entirely new experience for me.. thanks for any help I can get!!!

[Bas Pels]

The fact of only 2 new babies can be explained two ways:

1 the rest got eaten
2 the rest has not been born yet

If no more are born, she must have eaten them - but in a month there is another chance.

Poecilia fry go to the surface, anbd is therefore easily protected by having lost of green floating, such as Cabomba or any other plant you can think of.

It is possible to limit access to the top 2 cm rather good, saving all fry.

[Lycosid]

I very casually breed guppies and a while ago I transferred them from a 10-gallon with moderate vegetation to a 50-gallon that was thick with aquatic grasses, including fronds that lay across the surface of the water. I went from carefully saving a few fry to ignoring the tank and still having it overrun with babies. All the adults are in that same tank - I don't move the fry at all. I think the major factors are that the tank is big enough that the adults can't spread out across the whole tank (there are always areas away from any adults) and that the grasses slow the adults down some and create lots of hiding space for the babies. Your setup looks pretty barren, and I'm not sure baby guppies are bright enough to run away through a screen. I agree that floating plants would be a very good idea.

[Fundulopanchax76]

you need densely overgrowing plants with thin threads where babies to hide immediatelly when they are born. these plants could fullfil almost all the space in the vessel where the female is. Leave just little space for her to moving. put in air stone with slow circulation. When the female is ready to give birth, the back side of her belly will become almost square

[Fundulopanchax76]

there is another possibillity - the female is still young and only few of her eggs are fertilized. she will give birth of the rest of the eggs after some days or weeks. you can keep it her constantly in the vessel prepared for birth. if she already gave birth her belly shape will change and will be rounded close to anal fin not square.

[StickyToe81]

Nice guppy!

Had two guppies myself with eggs, and about two weeks ago the first babies hatched.
However none of my guppies became that big as this one, so I was surprised they hatched so fast. I wasn't even sure they had eggs at first, but I saw a somewhat big black square near the anal area so I suspected it.

Now I have a new hatch.
The babies like to hide in the drifting plants at the top of the tank.
I feed them some crumbled Tetra Guppy food, and they seem to eat some algae of the plants.

Hopefully this guppy will also hatch soon, or has already.
Very cool.

[Tidebreaker]

POk, Ive always bred Plecostomus and Stuck to mainly Hypancistrus Species, well lately my wife has taken a liking to guppies and their beautiful colors so I decided to try and see what luck I might have in this..

Ok So I got a female that is HUGE!!! I MEAN HUGE!!! the male was chasing her around tank when I got home 2days ago and wouldnt stop.. so I pulled out one of my Pleco fry boxes and seperated her from rest of the fish in the tank and shes been by herself eating good, but I wanted your thoughts and opinions on the matter, far as when she may release these babies etc.. she's been this size now for atleast 2-3 weeks and everyday getting bigger... can anybody with experience with guppies shine some light on this subject, I've provided pictures of her in the enclosure I have her in...

I have had baby guppies before and im happy that you'll have some babies too! Im pretty new at plecos but guppies i can handle. First things first: as soon as she has the babies TAKE HER OUT she will eat them >:C i learned that the hard way. I have never seen a guppy that fat before haha! congrats.