Guppies are entertaining, lively and hardy fishes with brilliant colors. They are the top choice of most aquarists because they are easy to keep, and their colors add beauty to the tank. However, it is essential to be cautious of what to feed to guppies because it can either be beneficial or detrimental to their health.
It is not advisable to feed guppies bread. Bread has many ingredients and additives that are detrimental to both the health conditions and tank conditions of guppies. Likewise, bread can cause a significant issue in the digestive system of fish by blocking it off.
There are several ingredients in bread and breadcrumbs that make them unsuitable for guppies. These ingredients include; high concentration of salt and sugar, yeast, folic acid, flavor, artificial coloring, and so on.
Also, guppies don’t usually eat all breadcrumbs introduced to them; therefore, it can serve as a significant source of ammonia to the tank.
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How Does Bread or Breadcrumbs Affect The Water Quality Of Aquarium?
Aside from the fact that guppies can be directly affected when you feed them with bread, the water quality of your tank can also suffer the effect. Bread might not be a big problem in outdoor ponds due to the large water quantity; it is, however, a big problem in the aquarium.
Bread or breadcrumbs have a high probability of falling apart into smaller pieces after getting wet in the aquarium. Aside from the fact that these pieces of bread will soak off some parts of the aquarium water, some portions of the bread will not be eaten by guppies.
Every part of the bread the guppies do not eat either sink to the tank base or get stuck in the filter. The pieces of the bread that fall to the bottom of the tank become organic wastes that can consequently lead to a hike in the ammonia concentration of the tank. Needless to say that ammonia is super toxic, and it is unclean in guppy tanks.
Similarly, those that get stuck in the filter will prevent it from effectively performing its function. Failure of the filter to perform its function can also lead to the accumulation of waste in guppy tanks; it can also damage the aquarium filter ultimately.
In another scenario, if guppies rush at bread in their tanks before it gets wet enough, it can get stuck in their digestive system. It can block off their digestive system and consequently lead to some health complications in the fish.
What Do You Feed Guppies?
The nutrition of guppies plays a significant role in their overall health, growth, and resistance towards diseases. Guppies will thrive better with a lot of nutrients in their diet. Likewise, it is also important to feed them with the right quantity of food.
However, the feeding of guppy fry might be slightly different from that of adult guppy. Guppy fry requires some specific diet and frequent food because of their active metabolism and rapid growth. Adult guppies, on the other hand, require more of a quality diet than frequent feeding.
Likewise, guppies have typical tiny mouths; therefore, it is essential to crush their food into sizes that will fit into their mouth before feeding it to them. Guppies, mainly guppy fry, require high protein content in their diet. You can also feed them with dry foods, live foods, vegetables, or a combination of two or all of the above.
Guppies’ dry food includes plant matter, flakes, egg yolk, milk, milk powder, fish food flakes, and so on. The live foods you can feed to your guppies include worms, small insects, shrimps, mosquito larvae, vinegar eels, daphnia, and so on. You can also feed guppies with chopped vegetables like carrot, cucumber, peas, algae, mustard greens, spinach, zucchini, and so on.
It would help if you also considered varying the diet of guppies to change their taste and improve their appetite. A proportional mixture of these food types will also ensure that your fish is living on a balanced diet. You can also vary their food type depending on the current health condition of the fish.
How Often Should You Feed Guppies?
One funny fact about guppies feeding is that more guppies have died from overfeeding than underfeeding. First off, you should understand that it is best to only feed guppies with food that they can finish within 2-5 minutes. You should also evacuate the leftover food as soon as possible.
The above measures are to prevent the contamination of the tank by organic wastes. Allowing food leftovers in your tank can lead to a drastic increase in the ammonia level of the tank. Any increase in the ammonia concentration of the tank is detrimental to the health of the aquarium members.
It would help if you feed guppy fry about 4-6 times a day in the first few weeks of their life. This frequent feeding is because of the rapid metabolism and active growth of guppy fry. You can then reduce the food to about 3-4 times a day as they grow older. This reduction usually comes after 6-8 weeks of their life. Adult guppies can do just fine with feeding once or twice a day.
However, it is essential to ensure that you don’t overfeed your guppies. You should also ensure that you are feeding them with both dry and live foods. Likewise, you should introduce a blend of protein and vegetables to the diet of guppies.
Conclusion
Guppies are one of the most suitable and most common fish types in aquariums. They are easy to maintain because they are quite flexible in their environmental demands. However, what you feed them can go a long way in determining their overall health conditions, life expectancy, immune system, as well as growth size.
Most aquarists think of feeding pieces of bread and breadcrumbs to guppies because it is quite cheap and readily available. As much as guppies can feed on bread and breadcrumbs, it is not advisable to supply them with it. Feeding guppies with bread has more considerable disadvantages than advantages.
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