Guppies

[EweSheep]

Why are most of my females are dying after they give birth to frys? They would do their darting around the acquarium and then settled on the bottom to die. Do they get stressed out giving birth or are those guppies are older than they said to be? We got them for a month now. They arrived pregnant and right now, two of them are ready to pop. Healthy and lively and eats well but after giving birth, they all go downhill.

We had the water tested and they were fine except for 1.0 in nitriates. Took care of that problem and they were still dying.

We do have a male guppy that would just pester after the girls often and relentlessly. Should I put him in a time out tank?

Also, how long would it take the frys to mature to find out if they are females or males or bringing in colors?

 

[MagsC]

I have a tank of fancy guppies. I have noticed that when they females get older, birth is tougher on them and they can die afterwards. How old did they say they were?
As far as fry, we always have so many that I never counted how long it took to see color on them, maybe six to eight weeks as a guess-timate?

 

[EweSheep]

roughly anywhere from eight months to a year old. And they were bigger than most guppies. And many of them are pregnant except for one.

Yes, these are Fancy Guppies.

 

[ConchRepublic]

The male could be harassing them to death. Do you have a breeding net? You can get them fairly cheap. Just mesh boxes you have on the side of the tank to separate gavid females or breeding pairs. Try putting a female in one of those, but be careful cause she'll eat the babies too.

 

[EweSheep]

Now down to one male and five females. Hopefully no more losses. We had alot of males and the orange one triumph!

He is not pretty at all and hopefully the babies will not take after the orange male's temperment.

We have one net box for the fries and we are planning on getting another net box for the over aggressive orange male....he looks very young and smaller but he sure can pack a punch! He never seems to stop only to eat and back to chasing. I got a mind to flush him down the toliet and say bye bye! His fins patterns are short, not the wavy like the bigger males are, more rounder. Does not have a swordtail or lyre tail. Simply UGLY! LOL! DD picked him.

 

[ladycrotalus]

How long ago were the nitrites high? In my experience it always took a bit before they went down. Do you put salt in the water?

 

[EweSheep]

A week and half ago for three days. Yep we put salt in the water.