Well, I kept looking for all the signs that were listed as to imminent guppy birth, didn't see them, then this morning found a couple stray fry in the tank. I popped in the net breeder and relocated them in there (turkey baster worked fine by the way, only problem is they swim out of it.) and relocated the most likely suspect for the mother into the breeder trap.

It appears I guessed right, because I now have 8 fry in my net breeder and 1 particularly quick and resourceful fry in the main tank since it continues to elude me and the other fish alike.

The problem is that they were born last night sometime or some time during the day while I was away and I didn't get a chance to feed them until about 2 pm. Oddly enough, I would have expected them to be hungry. I can't seem to get them to eat, and I won't have brine shrimp for them until about this time tomorrow.

I tried some "fry bites" which seem a bit too big as well as a small shrimp pellet(since they separate) but they don't seem to be eating much.

How long will their nutritional supply last, and should I be concerned?

Get some Liquifry No. 2. I feed my fish No. 1 because they're egg-layers. It's a liquid-type food that they can just suck in w/the water. I have also used fine-ground flakes for my guppy fry. Mine always ate what the other fish ate. I was VERY successful breeding guppies. I fed them to my bettas.

As an update, I managed to get that last stray fry into the net breeder with the others.

As for ground flakes, how exactly do you go about grinding them up? I have tried just doing it by hand, but the pieces are always too big still.

dont feed the fry brine shrimp or baby brine shrimp yet. they were just born! i crunch the flakes up. sure its a little big but the take bites out of them.

baby brine shrimp is good when they get a little older. Matt im curiouse, how do you breed brine shrimp? i would like to have a supply of those for my fish. :D ;) .

Baby guppies will live off their yolk for a day or two after being born so they may not eat at first. As they are larger fry, they can eat newborn live brine shrimp when only a few days old (a week at most). You can also just roll your fingers over some flakes to crush them into little bits. There are half a dozen brands of fry food around now from Liquifry to Tetra baby foods and more. All will work for guppies until they can eat the crushed flakes with total ease in just a few weeks. I go over feeding fry at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/breed.htm

matt do you keep a smaller tank for them to breed in?

Tommy: Regarding brine shrimp, I have no idea how to breed the things, I just get the eggs(cysts) and hatch them. It is actually very easy. Here is the best link I found while I was doing research on how to do it:

EDIT: should be noted that the link below is a general guide.

http://webrbiz.com/angelfish/bbshatch01.html

If you want a specific design, here is the one I used:

http://www.petfish.net/brine.htm

The rigid tubing is not absolutely necessary, just helps keep the airstone in place.

Unfortunately, I don't have a smaller tank for them to breed in. Some day I might get them a 5 gallon, but for now they just sit in a little net breeder in the 20.

Found another straggler in the tank this morning, bringing the total up to 11 fry.

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Robyn: I just got some liquifry # 2, and I have been using the but end of a pen and a measuring spoon as a crude mortar and pestle to make ground flakes for them. Just gave them a dose of brine shrimp too, and they had no trouble eating them.

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Unfortunately, I just ran into a very stupid mistake. You see, the bottle of liquifry was apparently clogged or something, I just thought it squeezed hard. I squeezed out one drop with a degree of difficulty, then the second one just wouldn't go, so I slowly increased the pressure, and just when the thought went through my head "Wait a second, what if it is just clogged and about to shoot into the tank..." that was exactly what happened.

So, it shot a stream into the tank. According to the bottle the dosage would have been 1 drop per gallon, but I have no idea how many drops were in the shot.

For what it is worth, it hasn't clouded the water noticably. Still, should I do some water changes or something?

i have no room to set up a breeder for brine shrimp but i may eventually set one up. A nice water change would be good. when did you do it last?

I did a 25% water change last wednesday.

As for the brine shrimp hatchery, it really isn't very large at all. Pretty much just a 1 liter pop bottle, a jar, an air pump, a little tubing, and an air stone. All in all, mine takes up less than a square foot of desk space. Less if you don't count the pump and tubing.

I just put mine next to the tank so it gets an appropriate amount of light. Alternatively, if you happen to have one, I find that a lava lamp serves as an excellent heat and light source for hatching brine shrimp.

yes i do have a lava lamp somewhere. thats a good idea. so you just use a jar and air stone and you buy brine shrimp and they breed?

if you want to go for a 10-20% water change. you dont really have to but it wont hurt :lol: ;) .

I sort of doubt that I need a water change. It was a relatively small amount squirted in there and it is supposed to be 20 drops twice to four times a day. I can't imagine it being a big deal if they get a slight overdose.

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As for brine shrimp, breeding them is possible, but it is extremely tough to do from my research. The water quality and temperatures pretty much have to be perfect.

Too much trouble if you ask me.

No, I don't try to breed them, I just make the saltwater as directed and wait for them to hatch(about 24 hours with good conditions.) then I use the turkey baster, a makeshift funnel, and a coffee filter to strain them. Then you spray them off a few times and introduce them into the tank.(turn filtration and aeration off while the fish eat, otherwise most will go into the filter/get shot around so much the fish have trouble finding them depending on which you left on.

After they are fed to the fish, I just start up another batch.

The eggs are relatively inexpensive. Top quality(or pet store ripoff) eggs sell for about $5 for about 2 ounces. Since a large batch for an aquarium is about 1/4 teaspoon, they last quite a while.

that sounds like a good thing to start doing. Robyn, will my adfs eat the brine shrimp? i feed them frozen blood worms and i would rather feed them the shrimp now.

I should warn you, I have no idea how many it would take to sate a larger fish. I have thus far only dealt with smaller quantities, and I only use them primarily as a treat for my fish and as a food for fry now.

They have a very high nutritional value, but they aren't big at all. Hence having to use a coffee filter.

i feed my fish brine shrimp as a treat too. after thinking it over i will stick to the frozen stuff.

Frozen stuff is a lot more expensive as I recall, and not as good nutritionally. Might want to consider some of both. Live ones as a treat, frozen as a meal.

It is a lot more work than dropping a little cube into the tank, but they certainly enjoy it.

my fish like the frozen food much better than live food. my adf also likes it better. i will stick to the frozen stuff. it also lasts longer.

I use a kit my mother bought in the 60's to hatch my brine shrimp! They don't make them like they used to! I use new eggs though. Stores sell the eggs as well as various hatcheries, or you can make your own. They don't hatch well in the winter unless you put them in a saltwater tank with a heater. My local fish store sells adult brine shrimp I get as treats sometimes for the adult fish. Most of those female shrimp are carrying eggs. The problem becomes that they have to be properly dried in order to ever hatch. Here is one hatchery for sale:
http://www.thatpetplace.com/Products/KW/br...6/Itemdy00.aspx
See these days, you have to supply a bottle. My old hatchery is like a tire with a dark ring covering the salt water and an opening in the middle with a collection cup.

When the liquifry clogs (mine does to), I stick a pin into the hole to open it. You will know if you need a water change if the ammonia goes up, the water gets cloudy, or fry start to die. With fry tanks, it's best to do small water changes often. When I had a fry tank, I would siphon the bottom every day and replace that water with fresh. The water changes were pretty small with perhaps a larger one once a day. If fry are kept in a main tank in a net breeder or something else, the regular schedule can be kept. For me, that's weekly 50% changes. Established tanks can deal with a little extra dose of Liquifry.

My ADF's don't seem interested in the live brine shrimp (adults or babies) but then again I don't watch them that long. They are supposed to be willing to eat live brine shrimp. The blackworms or bloodworms though I think are better for their needs.

Baby brine shrimp = sea monkeys :o Anybody remember those? All this talk about hatchng brine shrimp made me think about that. We were hatching brine shrimp back in the 70's & calling them sea monkeys! Your guppies are eating sea monkeys!!! I'm laughing myself silly :lol: It's not a bad thing is just struck me funny. Great that it's working ;)

i breed them once too. i think i will stick with my frozen blood worms. the frog waits all day for them and chases off any fish that gets in his way of his beloved worms.

Hey Matt how are the baby guppies? They grow pretty fast.

They are all still alive. Just did a water change today and they didn't seem to care a whole lot.

They have definately grown (they aren't all eyes anymore) but they still haven't been able to eat the "fry bites" that I bought.

Still, they are making progress and they all seem healthy.

I wonder how long before I can let them out?

when the are about an inch.

actually maybe smaller depending what you think is right and how big the guppies mouths are(adults).

When you can let fry in with the adults depends on the size and type of fish in the main tank. If it's mostly adult guppies, the fry should be okay (not likely to be eaten) when just over half an inch long. But, it really depends.

half an inch sounds good.

Ugh... I think I may have to now. Another one just gave birth. Just found 3 more of them hiding in the tank and put them in with the others. I also rounded up the most likely suspect mother and put her in the plastic breeder.

This brings the total up to 14 fry, 11 old, 3 new.

Good thing I got a good deal on brine shrimp. Looks like I will need them.

are you keeping all these guppies?

Like I said...worse than rabbits! Have fun & hope you can find homes for all of them or you're going to have a guppy infestation. They're neat but you CAN have too much of a good thing.

No, I don't plan to keep all of them. I will raise them to at least young adulthood then sell them off to the pet store, keeping the ones I like the most.

As for the current count, I have no idea. I just kept finding them in the tank. I probably have at least 10 more now.

thats alot of fry!

Speaking of which, I am curious as to the best method for cleaning a net breeder. I bought two of them and transferred from one to the other because the netting took on a brownish orange color.

my bros, guppy fry eat the algae on the breeder.

I don't really think it is algae, at least not entirely. I suppose it could have been a colony of the brown algae, but if that was the case, they weren't in any hurry to eat it.

post a pic of the stuff.

I really don't think a picture of it is necessary. It is just a net breeder with a brownish orange tinge to the netting. I can't imagine anything you could learn from seeing it that I can't just type out.

i was talking about the algae on the tank, opps wrong thread.

I used to have black mollies and guppies in tanks... worse than rabbits is100% true about both of them!! I was giving away mollies for months! (kids like mollies that people put in tanks with no salt content because they will "kiss" your fingers if you stick them in the tank to get at the salt in your sweat) I just let the other fish eat the guppy fry when I couldn't find anyone to give them to. I was also one of those lucky people who has tap water that fits the breeding habits of fresh-water angel fish. I'm not sure if I really meant lucky there... I had 2 angel fish in a 10 gallon tank with no other fish. I was "lucky" enough to get a male and a female. Many sites say it's hard to get them to breed without conditions being just right. Well, you can't tell me that since I had 12 angel fish 3 months after I bought 2! :o :blink:

wow you must have had some good water and a large tank for all those angels! angels love to eat guppy fry.