Help, babies everywhere!

MeatTwoVeg

Hello,

We've had a tropical 95 litre aquarium for nearly 10months now and all was going swimmingly, so to speak.

We had 5 guppies and 6 tetras, all males, or so we thought.

In the last few weeks however we've had a number of new arrivals. Not sure how many as they're small and keep moving around, but my wife claims she counted 14 the other day.

My question is, what can I do?

I presume some of these new arrivals are females and they'll start breeding too. I don't even know who the current culprit in the tank is.

ShaShaBear

MeatTwoVeg wrote: »

Hello,

We've had a tropical 95 litre aquarium for nearly 10months now and all was going swimmingly, so to speak.

We had 5 guppies and 6 tetras, all males, or so we thought.

In the last few weeks however we've had a number of new arrivals. Not sure how many as they're small and keep moving around, but my wife claims she counted 14 the other day.

My question is, what can I do?

I presume some of these new arrivals are females and they'll start breeding too. I don't even know who the current culprit in the tank is.

I'm going to presume it was mostly the guppies, in which case it should be really easy to pick out the female. Just take a look at the anal fin. If it's barbed-like, it's a boy. If it's fanned (looks like other fins) then it's a girl. Generally the girls are much less impressive, don't have bright arrays of colours and don't have long, flowing tails.
This is a great image for telling them apart. As for what to do, probably just wait till they get past the fry stage. The males will develop beautiful tails quickly enough and you'll know straight away.

MeatTwoVeg

ShaShaBear wrote:

I'm going to presume it was mostly the guppies, in which case it should be really easy to pick out the female. Just take a look at the anal fin. If it's barbed-like, it's a boy. If it's fanned (looks like other fins) then it's a girl. Generally the girls are much less impressive, don't have bright arrays of colours and don't have long, flowing tails. This is a great image for telling them apart. As for what to do, probably just wait till they get past the fry stage. The males will develop beautiful tails quickly enough and you'll know straight away.

I guess there is a guppy that's a bit less flamboyant, I'll have a good look at him/her this evening.

So figure out which are the females and bring them back to the pet shop?

Would most pet shops be OK to take them?

WhoWhatWhere

MeatTwoVeg wrote: »

I guess there is a guppy that's a bit less flamboyant, I'll have a good look at him/her this evening.

So figure out which are the females and bring them back to the pet shop?

Would most pet shops be OK to take them?

They should be happy enough. Just make sure to call and ask first, they may want you to collect a bag of water from their own tank as not to disrupt anything.

Knine

If you want some to survive you need to catch them & put them in a breeding box or net. Otherwise the adults are going to eat them all. You also need some Fry food which most petshops have. As they get bigger you can feed ground up flakes.

Not all Petshops take them as it takes a while before they reach a good enough size to sell. Some just use them as feeder fish. I have rehomed them on Adverts to buyers with good feedback.