Hi there Im new to the site,
I was wondering if it is a good idea to put my female guppie in a goldfish bowl right before giving birth and taking her back out right after birth and keeping the babies in the bowl until they mature. I keep my house at about 68 degrees so would that be ok for the babies beings I cant put a heater in it? Also, if the bowl is not a good idea, how many usually survive out of a batch if I keep them in the aquarium it is a 30 gallon and I only have a few plastic plants? And lastly, I used to put them in a plastic breeder but I do not have it anymore, lil short on cash to keep getting new aquarium items, I didnt breed guppies for a couple years and had different fish, but when I did breed them I would find alot of babies getting sucked up in the filter and it was a pain looking in the back of the filter 5 times a day taking them back out, is there any way I can avoid that from happening again?
Thanks Alot!!!

I also forgot to ask, about how many guppies can I put in my 30 gallon tank and have them still feel comfortable and non stressed? The only thing I have in my tank right now is a pleco and it is 10 to 11 inches. My plecos name is Beast, he or she always uplifts the plastic plants I have as well as knocks over some of the other fixtures, this is going to be a problem as I start breeding guppies once again do You have any advice?

Sorry forgot one more thing, when I bring back my guppies Im buying today, before I put them in the tank how long should I let them float in thier bags from the store in my aquarium until I let them out?

Hi, Steve. Let me see if I can answer some of your questions. If you put a female guppy into a goldfish bowl when she is ready to birth, it will be stressful for her. She could miscarry or perhaps die herself as female guppies often due around birthing time. Also, unless you put in some real or fake plants within the bowl, the babies wouldn't have a place where they could hide from their mother, so she could eat them. You can put in some non-dyed yarn in a pinch to provide hiding places. Guppies like it 70-75 degrees F but they can survive at 68 degrees F. How many might survive in your 30 gallon tank with just some plastic plants depends mostly on how many and what animals that you have in there. What animals and how many are in your 30 gallon tank? I suggest the net breeder instead of the plastic breeders because it has better water exchange with the main tank, and the fry are less likely to go through the larger cracks in the plastic breeders (if you have a kind with holes, some have none, providing no water exchange with the main tank which is bad for water quality in the plastic breeder). The net breeder costs about $3 so I hope you can get one. If you keep fry in a tank with a real filter, you can keep them from getting sucked up by cutting off a piece of pantyhose (preferably new or bleach and then dechlorinate a piece of old pantyhose), sticking it onto the filter intake, and using a rubber band to hold it on if necessary. The pantyhose will have to be cleaned off when it clogs but this will keep the fry out of the filter. Some people use pieces of sponge filters to cover the intake.

In a 30 gallon tank, I would say that you don't want more than 30 guppies, with 20 adults being ideal. Fry, of course, are smaller and have less of an impact, at least until they grow up. An 11 inch pleco needs more than a 30 gallon tank so in that regards, the tank is overcrowded without any guppies. I have a 15" pleco in a 40 gallon tank, and yes, he should have a larger tank. My pleco has never eaten small fish but others claim that their plecos have. I have not found a way to keep my pleco from rearranging the fake plants on a basically daily basis. I just keep putting them back! My pleco will eat any live plants I put in. Guppies like live plants in which to hide and search for things to eat.

The bag floating is simply to equilibrate the water temperatures and should only be needed for about 10 minutes. It's important to get the fish out of the bags and into good water. Never add store water to your tank. Net the fish out instead. It would be better to quarantine all new fish but I don't always have a place to do that. A better way to acclimate fish to your water quality (and not just temperature) is to empty the store fish and water into a bucket. Add about half that amount of water to the bucket from your aquarium. Wait 10 minutes or more. Then, add more aquarium water, wait, and repeat. Check that the fish aren't spazing or anything. Once the bucket is mostly aquarium water, then net the fish out. This slowly gets them used to your water parameters and lets them adapt. A sharp change in pH for example is much more stressful than a few degree in temperature change. Be sure to cover the bucket while acclimating the fish to prevent jumping. A piece of stiff cardboard works for most fish (not the mega fish of course). A net can work too. When you're done, you'll have to add some more tap water with dechlorinator to top off your main tank so you've also done a small water change.

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice Robyn!!!
I went to the local pet store and they had no male guppies left and only 5 females left, all were pretty small so I only bought the 2 biggest females. Then I noticed in the next tank that they had some Mollys and 2 of the females looked huge like they are ready to drop so I bought them also. Mollys I guess have alot of babies also and I asked the store clerk and she said mollys and guppies get along fine. I think what I may do now is get 3 more females and 1 male from a different store. As for the Mollys I wil just get 1 male to cohabitate with the 2 females. Then I will have a total of 9 fish and then just wait till they have the babies and raise them. Was wondering 1 more thing, Is it cool to have only 1 male and 5 females or should I get 2 males? Oh and by the way I did net the fish out of the bags. They werent as nervous as some fish I bring home. I also always add stress coat to the water after releasing them into thier new home, helps them chill and adds the slime back that they lose when they get stressed. ( Stress coat the chill pill for fish ) lol! Anyway, thanks again!!!

Five females will be just fine with the one male since they'll have more peace. The male though may exhaust himself! Mollies like a good amount of aquarium salt in their water (a tablespoon per gallon) but guppies like some but not a ton (maybe a tablespoon per 3 gallons). Mollies don't do well without added salt.

I ended up buying 8 guppies total, 2 died already, And what I noticed bfore they passed was that thier mouth would stay open, do You have any idea what that could be??? Im lost I know about fungus, ick, etc... but never saw a mouth that would stay open it is happening now to one more of my guppies? I have no idea what to do. Thanks again in advance!!!

Hi there steve in your post you mentioned that you bought the biggest females in the shop, If you are an interested breeder get the smaller ones as they will live longer as they are often younger, and if you only have guppies in the tank they wont get eaten. I find that the best ration of boys to girls is about 10 good girls and three spectacular males I have found the colour mutations from such mixes to be quite interesting !.
I have bread some nice red male guppies with white heads and a pink sheen recently and these are making my next generation.
If you really want to transfer your females do it a good week or so before she pops as she will be less likley to abort her pregnancy and will have time to settle in her tempoary tank.

Fish will open their mouths and gasp when they are dying sometimes, especially if a lack of oxygen or poisoning (including ammonia or nitrite) is involved. I have seen dying fish that will purse open their lips and leave them open, dying in that pose. I haven't seen that recently but have in the past. I'm not sure why they would keep the mouth open, perhaps it makes them feel they are better gasping for breath. When animals die from most anything, they will often gasp for air because they just can't breathe. Be sure you have enough oxygen, and the ammonia and nitrite levels are zero. Be sure you've used dechlorinator. If all those things check out, the guppies could be dying from an illness they had when you got them.

Ok I just got a net breeder, One of my females had 10 fry but it was before I bought the net breeder, so Im thinkin about just letting the babies try to survive on there own, as it will be too hard trying to catch them out of thier hiding area and if I scare them out and cant catch them right away the other fish will suck em up? Also I was wondering about when You know the time is right to put a female in the breeder, the one that just gave birth was the skinniest one in the tank I couldnt believe she was the one to give birth, I have another in the tank that is very fat and just got her 2 days ago, she adjusted to the tank easily and seems not stressed. So should I put her in the breeder now? Thank You!

It can be hard to tell when to move an expecting guppy. You will learn from experience. It's not something I can really describe or would even get correct myself. If you put some plants like java moss in the breeding net, the female should be happy enough in there since there is water flowing through if you want to put her in before she is actually due (of course, you don't know exactly when that is). Moving her could cause her to miscarry so that's always a risk but the net breeders are better than the solid plastic boxes and less stressful.

Steve,

My females would always go up and down and up and down and up and down along the glass when they were within hours or minutes of giving birth. If you see this happening, it's a clue they are imminent.

The other thing that you could do is float some plants. Some of the fry will hide in the floating plants. It's a lot easier to catch them in plants at the top - take a big net and net the whole thing.

Good luck.

So far so good Im actually quite amazed, after 2 days all 10 fry are still alive so I may not have to use the net breeder after all. I have 2 mollies, 2 male guppies and 2 female guppies, another female died yesterday from that mouth thing I was talking about. I noticed The mouth actually gets white and just about disinegrates after a couple hours. Im thinking this may be ick of the mouth? The guppies that have been getting this I bought from wal- mart, so I dont believe I will be buying from there again.

Fish can get mouth rot. Usually it's columnaris which is a bacteria. Search for "columnaris" in a search engine, and you'll find many hits. Antibiotics may help clear it up.

Well Im happy to announce I have over 20 babies and NONE have been eaten!!! I cant believe it! They are growing bigger each day it seems and half of them are dark in color and the other half are like a light orange color! In my tank my 2 mollies are still living and doing fine and all my guppies I bought died except for 2 males and 1 female. The lone remaining female belive it or not is from the first batch of guppies I bought and the one that gave birth!! She was sluggish after giving birth for awhile and didnt look to good I thought she was gonna go but She is full of life again and gained back alot of wieght already. I see another blck spot in her stomach so I think She is preageanant again!!! The only sour note is that My snail had a baby at the same time as my Guppie but havent seen the baby since then! I think my Pleco might have eaten it! No signs of the rot mouth stuff anymore, so I believe it may have been a disease they had from the store I bought them from! I bought the net breeder and never had to use it lol!!