Guppies are beautiful because of their colorful spots, splashes, and stripes. How to stop guppies from breeding when they give birth to a lot of fry?
They can give birth once in 30 days leading to overcrowding of the tank.
In this article, I will highlight the ways you can stop guppies from breeding.
How To Stop Guppies From Breeding?
The three best ways to keep guppies from breeding is to:
- Separate the males and females in different tanks.
- Adding a betta female into the aquarium.
- Alter the water conditions of the tank in such a way that it will not be ideal for breeding.
If you are keeping guppies of both genders under ideal conditions, there are chances that you will run into overcrowding issues. Excessive fry and uncontrolled breeding can be a detriment to your tank.
Why You Should Control Guppies Breeding
Why should breeding of guppies be controlled is essential because excessive breeding can be detrimental to the overall health of your tank members.
One of the three reasons why you should control the breeding of guppies is to:
- prevent overcrowding of the tank.
You don’t need an expert to help you understand the problems attached to an overcrowded tank. Guppies are capable of producing many fry because of their prolific breeding ability.
Increased population in the tank without proper control can:
- lower the oxygen level in the tank.
Guppies need oxygen to survive, and too many members in the tank can limit the amount of oxygen in circulation.
- increased waste production
Accumulation of waste in the tank can lead to several issues in the tank. These issues include debilitating illness, deterioration in the health of guppies, as well as the death of the fish population.
Stop Breeding Guppies
Here are 5 tips to stop breeding guppies:
- Keep only males. The more the better to prevent dominance and bullying.
- Keep only females. Watch out for females who have sperm stored and may still deliver fry.
- Buy virgin females. This is hard to source. Good luck finding them without stored sperm!
- Don’t keep guppies. You may need to care for fish you don’t breed as often and as easily as guppies.
- Introduce fish that eat guppy fry. I recommend:
- Betta Fish
- Angelfish
- Gouramis
- Swordtail Fish
Breeding Guppies
Breeding guppies is easier than stopping them from breeding. Which do you prefer? Too many guppy fry will become hard to manage. Breeding them will give your tank a vivacious community or excess guppies that you can share with other aquarists.
How To Breed Guppies
- Buy a single female guppy,
- Female guppies store sperm for future pregnancies
- Introduce one male guppy.
- Separate the tank with a mesh divider.
- Let fry to swim in and out, but the parents won’t fit through.
Alternatively, you can net out pregnant females and put them in breeder boxes. Once they drop their fry, you can remove the female to prevent her from eating her babies.
How To Get Rid Of Unwanted Guppy Fry
In a case where you were not able to control breeding, and you have an excessive fry population in your tank, you can take some simple steps to get rid of them. What to do with unwanted guppy fry is mainly dependent on the aquarium owner.
- You can keep the fry with adult guppies and let nature take its course.
- Naturally, adult guppies will feed on guppy fry if they are kept together.
- Likewise, you can also give them out for free or sell them for profit.
Selling guppy fry can be a viable source of income, and if you are not interested in such business, you can give the fry out for free.
Conclusion
The risk of overstocking your tank highlights why you should always be in charge of your tank. You can control the breeding in your guppy tank with just simple steps.
You can also get rid of excess fry in many ways from selling or letting other fish consume them.
Thank you for stopping by at HelpUsFish.com. We have plenty of articles on a wide variety of aquatic and marine life that may also pique your interest. See you again soon!
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