http://fishprofiles.com/interactive/forums/default.asp

Here is a far better Aquarium site. I strongly you have a look and post your question here.

It sounds like water problems it also could be the relocation are you doing all the correct things before you add them to the tank.

Keith

There´s a reason for not having guppies thriving in your aquarium like they used to thrive, SALT, most guppies you find at pet stores now are raised in Malaysia or Singapore in brackish water because they grow faster, when you change the fish from brackish water to freswater they suffer from fin rot and die. The catch with "modern" guppies is to place them in a tank with brackish water and antibiotic like erithromycin and slowly change the water from brackish to full freshwater over a period of two weeks, problem solved. More questions ?

Depending on their tankmates maybe 1 teaspoon of salt per 10 gallons water may be enough for the guppies. I would also check the water from the store's PH against your tanks. Fish need to adjust slowly to ph changes.

Guppies are tough fish. I have just one guppy that I bought on a whim. It lives in a 77 gallon tank with different species of rainbowfish that are at least 3 inches long. My female guppy also lives with a variety of characins and livebearers. I think the secret is having a tank with good water that is replaced once per week. I also add aquarium salt to the tank everytime I change the water. Hope this helps.

Dasheen

if you have a heater turnit to 80*F i did that and i had tons of babies my gupie just had babies 2 days before Christmas, guppies can die within days in cold water
good luck funkymonmkey

I just started having fish tanks a few years ago, and Ihave to say I thought the guppies were the easiest fish to have and mine never once died. I had hundreds of them because they bred like rabbits. I have been reading on this forum for a few days now, and I keep hearing about putting salt in your tanks. Well, I have never once done that and I've not lost any fish. I had guppies, a betta, a catfish and 2 bala sharks. I am no pro, but I don't think luck was involved either. I cleaned my tank often. I would siphon the rocks atleast once every 10 days or so and once a week run my filters under high pressure water to clean them, then every few weeks buy new ones. My fish liked about 78F. I am just in the process of setting up a new 55 gal since all of my others are in MT in storage. We moved to AK and the fish tanks couldn't make the drive (too full of load in the pickup) and the roads aren't the smoothest driving up here in northern canada.
Good luck with the fish!!!

For those who add salt do you have a 'salt meter' to measure the level. (sorry, don't know the technical name for it).

All I have been doing is when I remove a gallon of water, I replace with one gallon of fresh water and then add one teaspoon. It sounds like I don't need to add even that much.

I bought six guppy's from the pet store and had 3 die within 2 weeks. I assume it was just because of the shock of being transported, or that they weren't well to begin with. Now I had 3 adults and one baby, who's a month old. He now swims with the others so I guess he's big enough not to get eaten. One adult, however, does swim up to him and then suddenly stop. I guess from far she think's the baby is food, but upon closer glance she realizes he isn't.

Thanks to all of you whom have responded to my post! After multiple times i am proud to announce that i have bought two pair of fancy guppies a little over three weeks ago and they are doing well! the problem is that i have a small 2 gallon plastic hex tank that i was keeping two pairs of feeder guppies whom have hardly reproduced. I keep these feeders in my containers where i keep some of my water garden plants. They help control the mosquito population. Anyways i tried to put the fancy guppi3es in my smaller tank( 10 gallon) where i have two neons, two rasbors, a small angelfish an algae shrimp and a kuhli loach. All do well together until i put the guppies. My neons,rasboras and angelfish all attacked my guppies with in moments. I though t give them a minute they will settle in, nope. i had to remove them and put them in the tiny hex tank! So now tose poor fish are crammed in there and i feel bad. Im thinking of buying another 10 gallon tank just for the guppies. I knopw that neons and rasboras are a good comunity fish but i dont understand why these guys are so aggressive. Ive never seen neons and rasboras aggressive! the only thing that i can think of is that perhaps the neons and rasboras have become dominant in the tank. Territorial for the most part. I have had these same fish for over two years in the same tank. My neons and rasboras are probably the largest that i have ever seen! I am so pleased to finally have some guppies but now i need to make new homes for them! lol.
Tell me has anyone ever tried to breed the fancy guppy with feeder guppies? Im curious as to how the colots would be when you see the pretty flashy colors of the male feeder with the bright colors of the fancy. Im still on a hunt for the oldfashioned guppies that i remember as a kid! Iwish i could find them!
I also want to mention didnt add any salt to the water for the guppies. However it does make sence that you would if you got guppies from a country that grows them in salt water and slowly wean them off like mentioned above in another listing. im learning that salt is one of the best and cheapest treatments for a variety of fish illnesses! I have just bought some expensive japanese koi and are housing them in a all glass 125 gallon tank in my basement and i have treated nitrites and smaller infections with sucess! YAY! i finally have sucessfully kept guppies once again!

Again thanks to all of you who have shared your helpful input! Have a good one!
Missa

hi there, i go to guppies.com quite a bit for help and also i put one tablespoon of salt per gallon for my fish and have very little problem with disease. they also breed like flies this way. good luck to you!

Glen3a, and anyone else adding salt to tanks, when you do a top up of your tank do NOT add more salt. The water evaporates off but the salt does not. So if you originally added 1 teaspoon to a 10 gallon tank and a gallon evaporates off, that 1 t of salt is still in there, but now in 9 gal instead of 10. If you were to add a tenth of a teaspoon with the added gallon, now you would have 1.1 t salt in 10 gal instead of 1 t in 10 gal.

There's a huge difference between salt rates I'm seeing here - 1 t per 10 gal, 1 t per gal, and now 1 T (= 3 t!) per gal. A tablespoon per gallon is a lot of salt! What's the correct rate to make a lightly brakish tank?

I never could keep guppies in good contition. The tails went ragged right away. The expert at the shop said it was the extreme alkalitiy of our water, which defied treatment, also any other fish in the tank treated those tails like chew toys.

what you are saying is EXACTLY right about topping off a tank, and if you have alkaline water to boot its even worse as the minerals continue to build up in the tank. i try to do water exchanges regularly to keep things in order, but even so over time its easy to get the balance out of whack. one fancier i know of changes 10% every DAY in his tanks, and he has like 25 of them. anyhow, good luck to you!

I bred feeder guppies to fancy guppies before; my own cheap way of starting my own fancy guppies. I picked a female I liked from an all female aquarum at a petstore ( virgin female), I had already selected a male from the ones I had wild caught in a nearby creek, rather large bodied with lots of tail color. In fact, this particular male had a pale yellow tail, but when displaying would turn it almost black, kept the hobby strain for several years, many of the sons showed the color change ability of the father, unfortunately lost them all to a bad case of rapidly spreading columnaris. Only the yellow tailed showed this ability, she had some red tailed that didnt show this remarkable ability. The tail size was not as great as regular fancy guppy strains, but had I selected for wider tails I'm sure I'd improve on that. Ah, the things we learn while kids ( was 13 at the time). Now I'm feeling inspired, maybe I'll try again with my "gold" bodied guppies, now to find the perfect male...

There is a lot of mis-information out there about guppies. I suggest the Internation Fancy Guppy Association as a place of great info. Also, it can be a great resource for finding breeders of high quality show guppies. These guppies are SHOW guppies. This is important to remember, as will pay a premium price for them. (up to $100+/trio) There are also guppy shows held nation-wide, guppies seen there put store guppies to shame! You can sometimes get show guppies at these shows for good deals at auction. Aquabid.com is another good place to find some good quality breeders. Like any auction site, use your judgement. If they're real cheap, it's probably descended from store bought stock and may have parasites and probably lower quality.

Salt is NOT neccessary for guppies, and is used primarily for reducing ick and other external parasites. (typically at a variable rate between 1 tbsp/5 gal up to 1 tsp/per gal) They are not raised in strictly brackish water in the east (not just malaysia) but are placed in salty water for the reason mentioned above prior to shipping. The problem with store bought guppies is that many of them have an internal intestinal nematode parasite called Camallanus, which will eventually kill them. This is because it spreads easily, is hard to control, and farmed guppies are all raised together without being checked for such parasites. (watch the vent of the fish, you may see worm-like projections- this is the adult spreading larvae)
Nick

Here is a link that might be useful: International Fancy Guppy Association

I've got lots of feeder guppies if anyone wants them. I can't keep them all, I don't have enough room.

Nichole

hello i have 3 fancy tail guppys 1 male 2 females my 1 female has a big black dot and i no its her babys but the gravl spot is really dark black does this mean she is close to her due date. HELP ME PLEASE

Here is a link that might be useful: fancy tail guppys

You can often see the eyes of babies from the gravid spot. Also, she will have a squared off shape to her stomach when she is close.

I hope this doesn't sound too cruel, but when I was a teenager I bought a Jack Dempsey. As his named implied he was terribly aggressive. I had a fish bowl that I used for quarantine before introducing new fish or separating sick ones. What I did was watch him for a period of time. If he attacked another fish I would smack him gently with my fishnet then put him into the bowl for a day or so. Each time I put him back into the tank, I'd watch until he attacked another fish and I would repeat the procedure. After a couple of weeks I could leave him safely in the aquarium because he'd run away if any other fish got close to him. True Story

I loved reading about all of this. We recently purchased a 10 gallon tank. Giving it a full 2 weeks for water to be right. I am just doing this because that is what the man at the fish store told me to do. I know I will need to learn allot more from now on. I had Guppies as a child. I remember there being 10 and it got down to 3. I had no idea which was male or female. But I know my mother announced one am we had baby fish in the tank. She said its a good thing because another large guppy died that am. It was the only type fish we ever had that would multiply ever. My brother a year and a half younger than my self bought one of his sons a fish tank for Christmas. He also bought guppies. He did not remember the babies at all. He said that all of the fish died within 6 weeks...... and he was ready to buy a different type fish when he suddenly noticed he had baby fish everywhere in the tank. He has never had to buy another fish ever. He is actually overloaded. he even bought fish bags to send Guppies home with friend who have a tank because of the overload. I am sure I will get some from him to start this tank out with its first fish. We have a Male Betta. My husband release him the tank 2 days ago. We have had this Betta now for a year and a half. He is almost like a little dog as we say. He will follow us around in his bowl watching us. When we would get down to eye level he come to visit us and hes beautiful. I have been reading on if you can put a Betta with other fish. I think I will play it on the safe side...... and put him back in his Bowl before the Guppies come. Blue is one of the family. Yes very odd but we love this little fish. He is actually my grandsons fish and he named him blue.

Wow this is an an ancient post! I HAVE SINCE GIVEN UP ON GUPPIES. I have contacted a university in Florida years ago that had said that the guppies genetics are all messed up. Just like a lot of animals today due to inbreeding. I had had a pair oy lyre tail guppies for about a year and a half and their young for about two years a while back but eventually they failed too. I strated to see the hump back or spinal problems in the young and deformities. Ugh. I just don't 7 Der stand why people can't breed animals/fish responsibly!

Missa (this is long and I hope my success and failures help) I just started a tank in Jan...16 gallon Aqueon widescreen kit that i got at 50% off at Petco on black friday (it wasn't even $50!) A fancy tail guppy pair was one of the first I bought as the tank ended it's cycle (it cycled really fast 2 1/2 weeks!) I think this was because I had 9 plants and added TSS to it

I lost my male guppy within 2 weeks...started to hide and then 24 hours started swimming in large circles and within another day small tight circles and then upside down circles hours before he died. Returned him to the store and a customer said it's a common defect. I still have no idea what happened but I was also told that the males have weak genetics due to inbreeding and factory farming fish. SO sad...in the 80's you could throw anything into the tank including crayfish and tadpoles from the creek and they'd all survive together!

Your water parameters sound stable...a 10 gallon tank is small...the rule is 1 gallon per 1 inch of fish and since the guppies are about an inch and a half...that's three gallons for two. I'm assuming that your tank has cycled since it's been so long since the first post!

My female however...gave birth in the first week and I ran out and bought a breeder basket and saved 10 babies (the rest got eaten.) They are going strong a month later and will need to be given away. She is already pregnant and will give birth again any day now. (females had hold up to 6 months of fertilized eggs.)

I have since bought a 10 gallon for my daughter's room as a hospital tank...this one I salted for a gourami's wounds (he tried to wedge himself someplace while I was vacuuming the substrate) He looked like he had a pink pig snout!

I have read so much about salted tanks...it seems unnecessary unless it is for treating an illness. I found this because I was thinking of moving the baby basket to the new 10 gallon salted tank to relieve the stress off my 16gallon.

Where are you getting your water? Tap? Is there a water softener or chlorine? These may be a factor. Mine is softened well water and I have high ph 8.2...0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 5ppm nitrate. temp 75f. I add TSS after water change (to build up beneficial bacteria aka BB) and NEVER change a cartridge...just rinse in a separate bowl with tank water. I have even added filter fiber to the filter to build up "old media" with BB. They say if you use a cartridge...slit open dump out old carbon and add new...never throw out the cartridge filter material because that is where all the good stuff is!

I think that a planted tank does help although it makes vacuuming difficult. So things like driftwood with fernleaf or anubias on it and those cool moss balls are easily movable...I have successfully kept 3 bloodfins, 1 female guppy, 10 baby guppies (now 1/2"), 1 highfin tetra, 1 panda molly, 1 Gourami, and an apple snail (eats all the algae)...for a month now. I can't say it was a success since it's new but the baby guppies...are happy healthy and eat like piranha's.

I did lose a bloodfin to a spinal defect and a male guppy...as well as 4 raspboras to a betta attack, so it's been a learning process. Fishlore dot com is a GREAT forum and they may be able to help....helped me with all my newbie dumb questions!!!

andrea :)

I may be confusing 10 gallon with another post...sorry just saw that you have a large tank (so jealous!)

So I have guppies and I didn't have a air pump and they got very sluggish and went to rest on the bottom of the tank. I then got a air pump and they started being active and didn't seem like they weren't going to die. So maybe if you don't already have one (16 years later) then get it and it might help. (this is mostly for people who need it now and not this guy sixteen years ago.)