Guppies are a phenomenal fish to keep for any fish owner. They are quite easy to take care of for beginners, are great tank mates to many other types of fish, and look absolutely beautiful in the tank, with their bright colors and beautiful bodies, often times stealing the show.
However, caring for baby guppies can be a different story. In fact, since guppy parents don’t really care for their babies themselves (and often end up eating their young), the responsibility falls on you. But how do you care for baby guppies? Saving them before they’re eaten, feeding them properly, protecting them, and giving them a safe environment are some great ways of caring for baby guppies.
But there’s a lot more to it than that. Read on to find out everything you need to know about how to care for baby guppies!
How Are Baby Guppies Born?
Baby guppies, contrary to most fish, are not born in eggs. In fact, baby guppies are born in a live birth. Guppies reach sexual maturity at around 4 months. After this, they tend to give birth around once every 30 days for a couple of years.
The guppies are born directly into the water after a multi-hour (sometimes multi-day) labor process. They will then immediately try to find a place in the aquarium to hide.
For the first few hours of this process, the guppies will be a bit deformed and unable to move effectively until they get their bearings and figure out how to swim. It is at this point that they are most vulnerable to their hungry parents.
The guppies will then immediately start searching for food and hiding until they grow large enough that the larger guppies won’t see them as a tasty lunch!
How Do You Keep Baby Guppies Alive?
Although it might seem hard, keeping baby guppies alive is actually a rather simple process. There are a number of effective strategies that you can employ in order to make sure that your guppies stay alive so you can have a healthy, thriving tank. Read on to find out how to keep those baby guppies swimming
If your Guppy is swimming upside down, however, It can be a sign of something else. Find out what it means here!!
Get a Breeding Tank
The first thing you can do to help keep your baby guppies alive is to get a breeding tank. A breeding tank is a fish tank, separate from the fish tank that your guppies are currently in, specifically for putting guppy fry (or other baby fish) into in order to keep them safe.
Put the pregnant female guppy into the breeding tank and watch it carefully. Upon the birth of the fry, remove the female from the breeding tank and place it back into the normal tank with the rest of the guppies.
This can be a bit difficult, as you need to make sure that the water is treated properly for fish in both tanks. However, a breeding tank is the best strategy for protecting your baby guppies, as it is a surefire way to make sure they are separated from the larger guppies so that they aren’t eaten.
Separate the Mother From the Rest of the Tank Before Birth
It’s not always possible, however, to have an entirely separate tank just for breeding purposes. In these cases, there are still steps you can take to protect your guppy fry from the rest of the guppies in the tank.
Try separating the pregnant female from the other guppies in the tank. Use a glass jar or some other container and place the pregnant female inside. Make sure the water is at the correct temperature, pH, and hardness for your fish. This isn’t ideal, as a jar or container won’t have the filters, temperature control, and other helpful aspects that a tank has. However, this is a less expensive alternative.
Get a Breeding Box
If you don’t want to separate the mother and you don’t have a separate breeding tank, you can try solutions that only require one tank. One such solution is called a breeding box. A breeding box is essentially a mesh or plastic box that goes inside of your current fish tank.
This will protect the female and the fry from other guppies while allowing you to not have to control the water conditions in more than one tank.
Get the pregnant female into the breeding box. After she gives birth, immediately remove her from the box, and allow the fry to stay there for a little while to grow. Afterward, either move them into their own container or allow them to hide and feed into the tank.
Provide Your Fry With Ample Hiding Spots
One of the most important things you can do for your guppy fry is to provide them with ample hiding places in the tank. These include little rocks, caves, vegetation, and decorative pieces that they can swim between and around, allowing them to hide from the larger guppies in the tank until they are large enough to avoid being eaten on their own.
Guppy fry needs around two weeks to grow to this size. Planting things like guppy grass, water lettuce, or java moss will help them hide for a couple of weeks from larger guppies that don’t need to hide as often (especially if there are only guppies in your tank).
How Do You Care for Baby Guppies?
Baby guppies are fragile, so there is more to taking care of them than just protecting them from being eaten by adult fish. There are a number of techniques you can employ in order to make sure that your guppy fry grows into healthy, strong, beautiful guppies.
Caring for baby guppies includes making sure they are well-fed, protected from adult guppies, and that their living conditions are proper to allow them to grow well. Read on to find out more about caring for baby guppies!
Water Temperature
One important aspect of caring for baby guppies is making sure their water conditions are good. A big part of this for fish is the temperature of the water they are swimming in. Many different kinds of fish prefer many different water temperatures, so it’s important to know what temperature your specific fish are best suited to.
For guppy fry specifically, you should keep their water at 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Guppies are freshwater fish, so make sure they aren’t swimming in saltwater either. The reason that they like to swim in such warm water is that it speeds up the metabolism of the guppy fry, allowing them to grow faster.
Guppies can handle a wide variety of temperatures, so this isn’t entirely a necessity, but it will help your guppies grow, which is the most important part of caring for them, as it keeps them safe.
Light Conditions
Guppy fry also likes to be in the light for a significant portion of the day. Try to keep the lights on in and around your tank for at least 12-16 hours per day. There are lights on timers you can purchase, so you don’t have to manually track light hours and turn the lights on and off.
The reason guppy fry like to be in the light for so long is so that they can grow properly. Guppies that don’t receive enough light as fry often grow in deformed ways, as their spines may not grow properly. Make sure not to give them too much light, as fish need their rest as well. They don’t necessarily sleep, but too much light will cause them to remain overactive.
Again, 12-16 hours of light is enough. It doesn’t have to be very bright either. Mild light for most of the day is more than enough for your guppy fry to remain comfortable.
Water Changes
Make sure that you are keeping your water as fresh and clean as you possibly can. This means doing partial water changes quite regularly in order to ensure that your guppy fry is growing in the cleanest environment they can.
50% water changes around twice a week is a good amount to start with. However, this number can change based on the size of your tank and the amount of guppy fry that is in it.
The denser the population of guppy fry in the tank, the more often you should change your water. This means more often for more guppy fry or in a smaller tank, and less often for a larger tank or a tank with less guppy fry in it. This is because the more crowded your tank gets, the dirtier it will become from uneaten food particles, fish waste, and other debris.
Protecting Your Baby Guppies
We’ve been over it already a bit, but it can’t be overstated how important it is to protect your guppy fry from the larger guppies in the tank. Larger guppies will eat guppy fry without a second thought, so if you’re breeding guppies, you obviously want to avoid this outcome.
Keeping them in a separate tank is best, but giving them plenty of cover and places to hide within the tank can be fine, too, depending on how many guppy fries you’re willing to lose. Giving plants for guppies to hide in significantly increases the survival rate of their babies.
Make sure that you give your guppies enough time to grow up before allowing them into the rest of the tank with the other guppies if you’re keeping them separate. Again, around two weeks is a good amount of time. They should be around full size by then, or at least large enough to not be mistaken for food.
Feeding Your Baby Guppies
Making sure your baby guppies are eating a proper diet is the last way you can care for them. Since they are much smaller than regular guppies, they are going to have a different diet due to what they are physically able to consume.
Guppy fries eat very often, as they have a quick digestion cycle. This is only helped by warm water if you are keeping them in a properly heated tank, which would be at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. We will get more into feeding your guppy fry below.
How to Feed Baby Guppies
Feeding your guppy fry might seem simple, but it’s very important to get it right. Allowing your guppy fry to grow into healthy, beautiful guppies is the goal after all, and feeding them, just like any other animal, is among the most important parts of making sure that they get the nutrients to grow properly.
How Often Should You Feed Baby Guppies?
Baby guppies love to eat and, as mentioned earlier, have an extremely quick digestion cycle. This means that they should be fed fairly often. The digestion cycle of the guppy fry is about 30 minutes, meaning that they are usually ready to eat again every half hour.
You don’t have to feed them this often, as you would basically be spending your whole day constantly feeding fish. However, it does mean you should be feeding your guppy fry a lot. Try to feed them between 5 and 10 times a day. The more you feed them, the faster they will grow.
If you are only keeping guppies for fun and not trying to breed and sell them, you don’t have to feed them as much. For fries that are being kept simply as pets, you can feed them once or twice a day, and they will be just fine. Do keep in mind, however, the more you feed them, the faster they’ll grow.
What Should You Feed Baby Guppies?
Surprisingly enough, baby guppies can mostly eat whatever adult guppies can eat. The problem is the size of the food. Flake food for guppies from a pet store will suit just fine, but live food works as well. Live food includes things like baby brine shrimp, vinegar eels, daphnia, and micro worms.
Frozen dry food or flakes suitable for guppies are also just fine. Although, similarly to the amount you’d feed them, you may want to change your guppy frys’ diet according to what you plan on doing with them.
If you want to get some extra protein in your guppy frys’ diet, egg yolk is a great source that is easy for them to eat! It might be a bit unconventional, but it works perfectly well to help your guppy grow up healthy and strong.
How Large Should Guppy Fry Food Be?
The mouth of the baby guppy is a mere 6mm wide. This means that they can’t eat food that is the same size as what the adults eat, even though they are eating the same foods. This means you’ll have to manually reduce the size of the food if it’s for guppy fry.
Crushing up dry food into smaller pieces, turning live food into a paste, or breaking up anything else you feed your guppy fry into smaller pieces will allow them to eat and digest it more effectively. This is very important so you can make sure your guppy fry are eating, as if they can’t fit the food in their mouths, they will starve.
Is Variety Important in a Baby Guppy’s Diet?
Variety is essential in the diet of your guppy fry. This is because no one food has all the proper nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that will help your fry grow into healthy, strong guppies. Try to mix up the foods you’re giving to your guppies so that they are getting a variety of nutrients!
Is Live Food or Flakes Better?
Live food is normally considered the better option for guppy fry. It will provide a larger variety of nutrients and provide protein in many cases, allowing your guppies to grow faster. This, in turn, will let them grow quickly so they can avoid being eaten or be sold as adults if that’s what you’re looking to do.
If you’re just looking to keep them as pets, the frozen dry food or flakes will work just fine. Live food will help them grow faster, but the flakes or dry food will keep them alive just the same.
When Should You Feed Baby Guppies?
Since you have to feed them so often, don’t pay too much attention to when you’re feeding them. Just try to feed them in evenly spaced out increments, around 5-10 times in their 12-16 hour active window. This will make sure they aren’t overfed while also feeding them often enough that they can grow quickly.
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FAQ
Q: What do Baby Guppies eat?
A: As stated above, baby guppies can eat frozen dry food, flakes, or live food like micro worms, daphnia, and baby brine shrimp. Just makes sure it’s small enough for them to eat!
Q: How to Make a Baby Guppy grow faster?
A: Feed your baby guppies live food very often (closer to 10 times a day, or even more) if you want them to grow faster. Also, please keep them in warm water (80 degrees Fahrenheit) to boost their metabolism.
Recap
Baby guppies are in danger as soon as their born, so it’s important to keep them safe. Keep them separated from the adult guppies, or at least give them hiding spots in the tank to avoid being eaten.
Feed them often, keep them in warm water, and give them live food to allow them to grow quickly. This will help keep them protected from being eaten by adults.
Make sure their water and tank conditions are proper. Lots of light (although not too bright), lots of vegetation, and warm water are great conditions for guppy fry. Soon enough, those babies will become fully grown, healthy, and beautiful guppies!
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