Guppy Behavior - Power Outage

As the power went out in my house (for a good hour) and my aquariums shutdown, I laid in bed watching how my guppies would react to the motionless water that then lacked a light source aside from what was coming in through the windows.

I have 2 guppy tanks in my room, one 10-gal which houses male guppies and the other 10-gal which houses female guppies. The power outage really did not seem to phase the male guppies as they continued their daily mating rituals with the other males in the aquarium. The power outage in the female aquarium however, well that made a big behavioral change...

The females began to group/school together as they sank down to the bottom of the aquarium as if they were ultimately terrified. Their body movements were brief as they moved themselves inch by inch about the tank in search of what was happening. The behavior continued for about half an hour as they began to realize they were all still okay. When I got out of bed they quickly relaxed as they knew I was about to feed them and after that point they no longer seemed afraid at all (to a guppy I suppose I am its means of positive well-being and a sign of their food source).

Overall, this makes me wonder if female guppies are perhaps better suited for survival over the male species. Which wouldn't be all too surprising since females aren't as colorful as males, thus aiding them in camouflage if/when hiding from predators. For more info on that topic checkout this article.

Fish Photo Post

I mentioned in my last post that I'd get up some new pictures of my fish that you've probably read so much about on this blog. I'm still trying to get the hang of my new camera so hopefully my photos start getting better overtime but, I can definitely say these pics are a major improvement over older ones you may have seen on here prior to this post. Let me know what you think or anything else you'd like to see a photo of in the future.

Male tuxedo guppy "Peppermint" and some of his fry

Closeup of Peppermint

Female tuxedo guppies: Freckles and Rudder

Male Betta: Ebo

P.S. Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Guppy & Betta Updates

About a month ago Freckles gave birth to her first line of fry with Peppermint, and she's expecting again, very soon from the looks of it! This will be Freckles last drop though *fingers crossed* and then I'm retiring her from breeding (it's only good to let a guppy give birth twice really, it's a lot of work for a guppy and they're usually 'pre-hit' for a 3rd pregnancy anyway). Rudder gave birth for the first time a few days ago so, I'm on fry overload in my tanks currently, and Peppermint is on a breeding frenzy with these two gals (this being the case I am actually just going to retire all 3 from breeding). I also plan to update the decor a bit in there aquarium setup soon so, maybe I'll post up some before and after photos of that. I don't know why I have my tanks looking the way they do currently because they aren't overly appealing so, hopefully I get that worked on before I start college again this month.

Now that Mr. Moto has passed on I will be cleaning out his 2.5gal Minibow setup for my other betta Ebo to live in since Ebo has been living in a small plastic container, poor fella'. I still don't think I have yet to put any photo's of Ebo up on here but now that I have a new camera I'll definitely try to get some new fish photos up soon.

Dropsy

This week as I checked on my female guppy tank I noticed my main fish mom (the one that started all the current guppies I have) had developed a case of dropsy. I don't think I've had a fish get dropsy since about 5yrs back when I had some zebra danio's. I treated the tank with Maracyn Two and Mardel CopperSafe and within a few hours the female had unfortunately passed away. All my other fish seem to be doing fine, I moved the fry into the male guppy tank after 24/hrs of treatment and left the other adult females in the treated tank which I will clean out this coming week.

What's Dropsy?

Dropsy is a bit difficult to diagnose but it is generally a bacterial infection which could be introduced through poor water quality (high in nitrates). It could also be kidney/heart failure (possibly due to too many water chemicals), excess fluid to the liver, or other possible causes. It could possibly be contagious.

Dropsy Characteristics?

Rapid Breathing, Protruding Scales, and Bloated Body. In early and latter stages of dropsy you may notice the fish going to the surface often for air, possible lack of appetite, or even spends most of its time at the top or bottom of the aquarium. There may also be a change in color (female guppies tend to turn a bit gray on the body).

Dropsy Treatment?
As dropsy is hard to diagnose it makes it difficult to treat. Moving the fish to a quarantine tank may make matters worse due to the stress it will cause on the ill fish. If the fish is already showing the bloated spiny appearance than chances of survival are probably slim. An aquarium salt bath may help to draw out the fluid in the fish. Some medications that may help are penicillin, tetracycline, and nalidixic acid. Water changes and clean water are a must to help prevent fish from getting dropsy.

*These remedies are only what I've researched on the Internet thus far and may/may not work.

Tail Split Remedy



A ginkgo leaf looks similar to a tail split



After moving my male guppies back into there 10gal aquarium last week I noticed one of my males had a tail split straight down the middle of his tail to the base. Tail splits can occur for many different reasons such as...water parameter changes, fighting, or even getting snagged on aquarium decor. After waiting about 2 days to see if his tail was going to mend itself, it really didn't seem to be so I took a shot at trying to correct the issue.

I decided to pour in a bit of PimaFix (originally I was going to try Melafix but I couldn't locate my bottle of it) into my 10gal aquarium. By the next day I shocked to see that his tail was halfway repaired! So I continued putting in 1-2 capfuls of PimaFix into the aquarium every day (I actually didn't remove the carbon from my filtration either) and in under a week, his tail split was basically gone. Click here to see how it helped my gold barbs in the past as well.

What's PimaFix?
PimaFix's active ingredient is Pimenta Racemosa (1.0% in the API brand I used) which is a bay rum oil that comes from the West Indian bay tree (or bay rum tree) which is part of the myrtle tree family. Common remedy uses for Pimenta Racemosa are for colds, flu's, digestion and insect repellent. PimaFix claims to rapidly treat internal and external fungal infections on fish as it's an anti-fungal product. It also claims to help cottony growth and reddening on fins and body.

Guppy Updates

Today my first guppy (the original store bought pregnant guppy that started this strain) gave birth to her sons fry (yes, that sounds weird but true). I now have at least 20+ new fry and I believe her daughters are also pregnant from there brothers so, I'm sure I'll end up with more fry at some point in the near future. I am hoping that with my new fry I will be able to perfect the strain a bit however, there are many other factors to consider but I'd rather not make things too complicated. In the mean time, I have 3 months before the new fry has mature males to breed (from my past experience it usually takes the females twice as long to fully mature for breeding) and I have put the mature males into a separate tank from the females and new fry as I don't want them to breed together again. Keep in mind that a female guppy can continue giving birth months after she has dropped one batch of fry without having mated again (this additional batch has always been a low number of new fry for me though as it's generally just one fry born but I'm sure it could vary).

Guppy Origins and Environment

Guppies are native to areas around the northeast side of South America. Which include Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Brazil, Guyana, Netherlands Antilles, Trinidad and Tobago, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Venezuela. To better re-create a guppies biotope in an aquarium, you'll probably want to research the Amazon River and Rainforest areas.

You'll find such plants like Amazon Swords at your local petstore that are obviously native to the Amazon. Other native plants are Sagittaria, Ludwiga, Syngonium, Myriophyllum, Caladium, Orchid, Giant Water Lillies, Anthurium, Bromeliad and Cabomba to name a few. Other South American fish you may come across locally are certain cichlids, discuss, angelfish, rams, cory's, oscars, tetras, barbs, gouramis, and killifish. Your best bet to re-creating that rainforest feel in your aquarium is to also check the reptile isle at your local petstore as they have lots of rainforest/jungle inspired decor which you may be able to use in your aquarium.

Keep in mind that South America consists of (3) major water types...whitewater, clearwater (blue water), and blackwater.

(1) Whitewater rivers pick up large amounts of sediment from the Andes giving the water a muddy-brown color. Whitewater receives its name from the white foam of the rapids of the upper regions. Whitewater rivers lack abundant plant life. Most aquarium species are found in quiet, backwater areas like oxbow lakes. The water properties of whitewater rivers are a pH from 6.8-7.1 and a dH of 3-5. The best example of a whitewater river is the Amazon River.

(2) Clear or blue water rivers are tributaries which flow through ancient Brazilian and Guyana rock beds where little sediment is released into the rivers. The water of these rivers is very clear and allows plant growth. Clearwater rivers have a pH of 6.9-7.5 and a water hardness of 5-12 dH. The Rio Xingu and the Rio Tocantins are such rivers.

(3) Blackwater rivers are nutrient poor and tea or black in color from the tanic acid released from decaying vegetation. Blackwater has been compared to distilled water due to its lack of dissolved minerals. Blackwater rivers are acidic and have a pH of 6.0 with little measurable water hardness (0 dH). The Rio Negro is the most famous of the blackwater rivers.

Maturing Guppy Fry

As it's nearing the beginning of May, my guppy fry will then be reaching three months of age, they're currently around half the size of their mother (nearly one inch in length) and I am sure they're going to start growing more rapidly at this stage as they're taking on more food now. I have decided to finally clean out my other 10 gallon aquarium this coming weekend in order to have it setup before the males mature and begin chasing my females around (as I don't want to go overboard on the breeding ordeal right now). It appears about half my fry are male/female this time around. They all look very similar to their mother (showing a tuxedo body) which is slightly disappointing because I was hoping they would show different characteristics in order to better identify what their father looked like (perhaps he was similar to the mother in this case) but this could change in the males as they begin to mature more.

New Guppies

Pregnant Guppy

The female guppy I bought appears to be a variation of White Tuxedo (correct me if I am perhaps wrong), however when under stress her black tux turns yellow with a black trim. The black appears at the very base of her fins and caudal as well, and her fins also have a bright blue line down the front (which you may not be able to see in the photo). She was pregnant when I bought her (which you can see from her photo above) so it will be interesting to see what her mystery fry will look like (since I don't know her mate) and she has recently given birth in my tank to over a dozen fry that I have found thus far. I had purchased a Blue Tuxedo male guppy at the same time (shown in the background behind the female)I bought the female but he turned out to have a case of fin rot and unfortunately didn't survive the week.

Moto & Marimo Ball

Moto my betta is still doing great and he loves to watch me while I'm laying in bed typing away on Guppy-Guide!

Quick Tank Update

I purchased the Top Fin Greek Pavillion with Airstone for my 10 gallon fish tank recently but unfortunately it was slightly too wide to fit inside the tank, so either I'll return it or keep it until I decide to setup my larger tank again in the future. I did look at some of the other Greek style decor they had but I opted to purchase the Conceptual Creation Stack Stones I found in the terrarium isle instead. The devils ivy in my tank has grown a lot so I trimmed down the length of the vines and re-anchored them back into my tank. I am considering setting up another tank I have because I am looking into the possibilities of purchasing a Ranchu in the near future and I would not want a goldfish type living with my current fish. Unfortunately I did lose one of my store bought guppies during my week vacation (and no it was not the barb lover, hah). I also purchased a fisheye lense for my DSLR camera so you can expect to see a lot more of those photo's to come. I have been medling with my water quaility lately and it has been a learning experience which I hope to share more of soon.

Hope you enjoyed my quick video!

Fishy Behavior

A few months ago I purchased a new male tequila sunrise guppy and several small gold barbs. I've noticed that my new guppy does not seem to be interested in mating with my young female guppy, but rather tries to entice my small gold barbs with its mating dance ritual and my gold barbs have no real interest in him what-so-ever. I have heard that guppies are capable of mating with mollies, platties and sword-tails, but mainly because they all reproduce live-bearing fry, although more often then not the fish which are born can be too mutant for survival. It has been said that a male guppy is more persistent mating then these other live-bearing species and that it can cause harm to other female species. So perhaps my guppy is in no way capable of reproducing with a gold barb and perhaps he is more enticed by the gold barbs because they have similar colors as himself. Or it could possibly be a sign of aggression but it does not seem like overly aggressive behavior as when my guppies fight they have a nose to nose stare down and move around the tank until one seems to tire himself out and retreat.

Current Tank Setup & Fish *Updated*

I've recently donated dozens of my guppies(all but one actually) to live in aquariums all around DC, so I'm now down to one 10 gallon fish tank (purchased from Petco) which has made life a lot easier now that I'm in college. I kept only one of my bred guppies, purchased 2 new guppies, bought 5 small gold barbs which will hopefully grow to befriend the 2 larger barbs I currently own and I still have my 1 black neon tetra(whom doesn't seem to mind being solo).

Although I have 11 fish currently in a 10 gallon tank, I did purchase a new Aqueon Aquarium Power Filter (20gal) filtration system which is made to accomodate a larger tank. I could classify my tank as overstocked by a smidge, as for each 1 inch of fish should be 1 gallon of water(this is a rule of thumb I learned in school but some say otherwise for different fish) although the larger filtration system should hopefully make up for the tank size. I do like the Aqueon brand for power filters thus far and my only complaint is that the lid of the filter seems to rattle a little on occasion but this might just be my indicator to clean out the filter cartridge or replace it.

My fish's current staple diet is the Aqueon Tropical Flakes, this seems to be their favorite of the many different flake foods I've tried in the past...I honestly think they love this more than the Hikari Freeze-dried Brine Shimp I give them as a treat.

I haven't had much luck with any aquatic plants I've purchased from local pet stores so I decided to take some of my Devil's Ivy, snip off a few vines and place them into my tank. Surprisingly it seems to give off a lot of oxygen into the tank and started growing roots almost immediately. I really am not sure if this plant is toxic or not but the fish don't seem to be harmed thus far and it has been in their for nearly 4 weeks now.

I have a new Aqueon Deluxe Full Fluorescent Black Aquarium Hood (20" Length) which is setup on a timer so I have it running for a good 8hrs starting at sundown. I didn't really care for the color and brightness this hood gave off but I think it's starting to grow on me and the plants seem to be doing great so far.

As for substrate I use a mix of old gravel I've been using for awhile now which I believe is a mix of PETCO Nutmeg Mix Aquarium Gravel, PETCO Pebble Beach Mix Aquarium Gravel and PETCO Rock Gravel Accents in Black Miami Beach. This combination makes for a natural looking gravel substrate and the rocks help keep the Devil's Ivy in place.

The background of my fish tank is a design I created on my computer which took 3 whole sheets of print paper and a little tape to adhere it all in place.

As for water conditioners and additives I'm currently using Jungle Plant Care Solutions Fertilizer and Water Conditioner, PIMAFIX and MELAFIX (I use them all as directed on the bottle).

After 2 weeks I changed a little more then a liter of water and added some of my water additives to it, washed off the Aqueon filter cartridge and placed it back into the filter. I also used my new battery operated Eheim Gravel Vacuum which does work nicely and is great for getting out any debry the filtration system missed, this doesn't seem to disturb the fish while I'm using this either.

So that's pretty much it for how I run my current tank setup, its been working great, the water still looks clean enough to drink and my new barbs seemed to have a grown a bit!

Guppy Fry

When I cleaned out one of my guppy tanks a few weeks ago I syphoned this tiny fry right into my dirty water bucket, apparently it's the only one from this new mommy guppy I have. Perhaps just a lucky fry, between the other fish that could've gobbled it up, the two filters that could've sucked it up...it managed to beat the odds. I'd make a guess that this will perhaps grow to be a female, anyone else want to take a guess?

Guppy-Guide Comic Ep2

Guppy-Guide Comic Ep 1

The first series of my guppy comic and my first attempt at really creating a comic...sorry if it was terrible! hah. Click the images for better viewing, these are all photos I took of my fish, some are actually pretty nice if I do say so.