Step one: Choosing your founding adult guppies

For serious breeding, you need to buy you founding fish from a professional and skillful breeder. You cannot just walk into a pet store and buy founding guppies off the rack. A professional will provide you with better options and a whole lot of advice as well. Make sure that your founding fish are healthy, mature and have the traits that you want them to display.

Pick fish that have good conformation, have no deformities such as spine curvature or flat heads which is indication that the guppies are not of high quality. This is as important as selecting shape color and pattern. Remember that the female guppies aren’t that bright and vibrant as the male guppies. This does not mean that you look for female guppies that aren’t desirable to look at, pick the ones which you find the most attractive as it will affect the whole process of attracting the male and mating.

male-guppy

Step two: Breeding guppies in the main tank

After choosing the guppies, put your male and two female guppies in a large tank so that things move on. Guppies are known to breed quickly and frequently but will be needing time to settle down in a tank. It will take 24 hours for guppies to breed after being settled in a tank. Always provide good and nutritious food for the fish when the female and male are around, this encourages breeding. Also keep the tank temperature around 25-26 Celsius.

Step three: Recognizing conception in guppies

It is very easy to know if the female guppy in pregnant. She has a gravid spot where her eggs are. After conceiving, this area will become darker.

Step four: wait…

The period of development of the guppy is between 26 and 31 days. Throughout this time, the gravid area will become darker and darker and will become boxier than round. You can spot it if your guppy is still and you have a sharp eyesight!

Step five: Moving your female guppies to a breeding tank

As the time of delivery comes near, you need to shift the female in their separate breeding tank to make identification easier of the produce.

Step six: Labor

If you will be using a partition or a breeding trap, then put it in the tank just when the time for delivery comes near. You can know when the time has come by seeing if the female guppy has become less active and more lethargic. They will hide a lot. You can view the contractions as well. It will appear as if the guppy is shivering. Another indication is that the guppy will be more likely seen near the heater and won’t be consuming food leading to the birth

Step seven: Care for your new guppy fry!

The time it takes to deliver the fry is not set. It all depends upon the number of fry that will be born. Anything from five to fifty is normal. Don’t be sad if some of them don’t make it to maturity. It is natural. After the fry has come out, make sure that you care for them properly and endure that they have every chance to survive. This time is critical and attention to detail is needed. Keep the young in another tank so the larger fish don’t eat them. Separate the mother and keep her in the main tank. She can become pregnant again though.

If you don’t want another tank, then add a divider or a partition in between to keep the young safe from the adults. Also add a lot of plants to protect them.