19.5.12
If you want to make your aquarium attractive and beautiful, fancy guppies are your ideal choice. They are available in a wide range of colors like golden, blue, black, green and red. All these colors attract the attention of kids and the visitors. In fact if you select a good combination of a bunch of colorful guppies, looking at them is a cool and relaxing experience.
Fancy guppies are freshwater fish and they love to stay in warm water. If you keep the temperature of your aquarium between 77 and 83 F, they are very happy to live in. To make them more comfortable, you can add around 1 tablespoon of salt every 5 gallons of water.
They make no complaint for the food offered to them. Any normal food available in the pet fish shop like flaked food is fine with them. You can even feed them boiled vegetables. However, if you can afford to feed them live food like brine shrimp or blood-worms, they will become stronger.
You should take care in balancing your aquarium if you plan to keep fancy guppies. You should keep at least two females per male. In fact, if you keep more females for a single male, they are happy!
Many species of fish are compatible with fancy guppies. You can keep Cory catfish, Gouramis, glass fish and even African dwarf frogs with them. However you should make a small research over the Internet for finding out the compatibility. Sometimes pet shops try to sell mollies with guppies recommending that they go well together. That is not true. They make such a recommendation because they want to sell their mollies. Remember, if the mollies grow in size, they will attack guppies and there will be continuous fights resulting in injuries to guppies.
You should also avoid Platies and Swordtails with guppies. They just cannot get along well. In fact the basic criterion in deciding the compatibility is the size of the fish. The fish you want to keep with guppies should always be smaller in size than the guppies. Guppies are not capable of fighting and the large fish will harm them. In fact your guppies will always be under stress because of such attacks and they will get sick and may even die in a short time.
Fancy guppies will not live longer anyway. They will live maximum up to three years. They will not very large in captivity. They grow only up to 2 inches. The females may grow slightly longer, up to 2 inches. If you take good care of them by providing excellent conditions of water, regular cleaning, good food and nice friends, they may live up to five years. Some experienced fish-keepers have successfully shown that they can grow bigger than the normal size if they are looked after well.
Acclimating guppies to your tank is a job requiring a lot of time and patience. If you receive them in bags from the shop or breeders, do not rush to open the bags and put the fish into the aquarium directly. Instead, keep the bag floating in the aquarium for at least one hour and then slowly add some tank water in the bag. After keeping them in such water for at least half an hour, you can slowly release them into the main tank.
Remember, the fish are smaller in size and they take time in adjusting themselves to the new environment. So you need to be patient before you show them their future residence.
Fancy guppies are freshwater fish and they love to stay in warm water. If you keep the temperature of your aquarium between 77 and 83 F, they are very happy to live in. To make them more comfortable, you can add around 1 tablespoon of salt every 5 gallons of water.
They make no complaint for the food offered to them. Any normal food available in the pet fish shop like flaked food is fine with them. You can even feed them boiled vegetables. However, if you can afford to feed them live food like brine shrimp or blood-worms, they will become stronger.
You should take care in balancing your aquarium if you plan to keep fancy guppies. You should keep at least two females per male. In fact, if you keep more females for a single male, they are happy!
Many species of fish are compatible with fancy guppies. You can keep Cory catfish, Gouramis, glass fish and even African dwarf frogs with them. However you should make a small research over the Internet for finding out the compatibility. Sometimes pet shops try to sell mollies with guppies recommending that they go well together. That is not true. They make such a recommendation because they want to sell their mollies. Remember, if the mollies grow in size, they will attack guppies and there will be continuous fights resulting in injuries to guppies.
You should also avoid Platies and Swordtails with guppies. They just cannot get along well. In fact the basic criterion in deciding the compatibility is the size of the fish. The fish you want to keep with guppies should always be smaller in size than the guppies. Guppies are not capable of fighting and the large fish will harm them. In fact your guppies will always be under stress because of such attacks and they will get sick and may even die in a short time.
Fancy guppies will not live longer anyway. They will live maximum up to three years. They will not very large in captivity. They grow only up to 2 inches. The females may grow slightly longer, up to 2 inches. If you take good care of them by providing excellent conditions of water, regular cleaning, good food and nice friends, they may live up to five years. Some experienced fish-keepers have successfully shown that they can grow bigger than the normal size if they are looked after well.
Acclimating guppies to your tank is a job requiring a lot of time and patience. If you receive them in bags from the shop or breeders, do not rush to open the bags and put the fish into the aquarium directly. Instead, keep the bag floating in the aquarium for at least one hour and then slowly add some tank water in the bag. After keeping them in such water for at least half an hour, you can slowly release them into the main tank.
Remember, the fish are smaller in size and they take time in adjusting themselves to the new environment. So you need to be patient before you show them their future residence.
