Hi there.

I'm something of a novice aquarist and I've had several tanks through the years, from 10 gal community setups through 125 gal cichlid rigs and just about everything in between.

Currently I run a 40gal bowfront with Jewel cichlids, a poly, a raphael cat and some giant danios as dither. I actually just had my first pairing and spawn of jewels last month, however the eggs didn't last long.

My GF has a little 2gal hex desktop tank, filtered, that she housed a betta in for a while, but it went belly up a few months back. She decided to replace it with guppies.

Now, to be honest, I've always avoided guppies. I've always thought they were beginner fish and only novices would keep them.

I have no shame in admitting that I was wrong. Fascinating fish with amazing coloration and, having at one time aspired to become a geneticist (I blame Jurassic Park lol) the short gestation cycle and the ease of breeding them has lit something of a fire.

So, here's the deal.

I have a 30gal sitting empty. I want to go for a natural tank, live planted, with a grouping of gups (1 male 3 female), maybe a little shoal of ruby pencil fish and some shrimp, either amanos or snowballs, if I can locate them.

I would like for the gups to be of a single strain, perhaps snakeskin deltas, though the moscows are really nice as well.

Any suggestions on materials to use, plants to choose, or breeders / LFS to contact about getting set up?

Eventually I'd like to get into serious breeding, though I don't have a lot of space right now. I assume a series of 10 gals would be sufficient for keeping strains seperate.

Thanks for your time.

--Chris

Welcome Chris!

I did the same thing you did-- always was kind of snooty about guppies as beginner fish.  When I set my 55 back up after several years with no tanks, I got guppies just to have something in there.  The colors I've gotten in the gups that have spawned has been amazing!  I was going to use two 10 gals to separate the color strains,but ended up lucking into some Class N(Ithink that'sright?) Endlers, so one of the 10 gals went to them.

We have a handful of guppy breeders around who I am sure will reply to your post when they sign in!

The gups I am going to try to reproduce have velvet black bodies with silver topfins, and silver tails shot with red and yellow and sometimes black stripes.  Gorgeous little fish!!

All my tanks are planted, and low-tech.  Two(10gal endlers and 75 native species) have soil/sand substrates, the 55g tropical has gravel until I can get it in gear and switch the substrate(been meaning to do it for like two months now) to soil/sand.

I am sure that Gene will chime in here soon.  In terms of keeping a tank with some guppies that would be ok but you will have to watch the following generations if you want to keep the line clean.

serious breeders will have a trio (male and two females) and enough tanks to seperate off spring to cull and control traits.  The number of tanks I hear often from those breeders is between 10 and 12 tanks all 5 or 10 g. in size. 

and then they will keep a second line to breed back to to control unwanted traits and to keep the line healthy genetically.

I want to set up a simple system of show quality guppies to use for genetics lessons in class but still do not have the time.  

There are a couple very good books on the subject that I strongly suggest as they explain the breeding and most current thoughts behind selection of lines far better than I could do.

Maybe serious breeding isn't going to be the path for me as I am quite space limited.

But in terms of substrate and such, here's what I'm leaning towards...

Read some articles and it seems like this may work. A very thin layer of rinsed peat, covered by about 3 inches of top soil topped off with 1/2 inch of black sand.

I know most fish tend to be more at ease with a darker substrate, thus improving their colors. When I had white river rock in the bed of my bowfront, the jewels were very pale. Now that I'm using a black gravel they're nearly maroon. Beautiful.

For lighting, I read an interesting article about using a standard socket and a spiral flourescent bulb to help aid in the growth of the plants. Seems like a good cheap lighting solution. And I can always build a hood with exhaust vents to class it up a bit.

I visited Trilby's for the first time this week. Some beautiful plants in there. Can't wait to start stocking.

The only thing is, I wasn't too impressed with what livebearers they have available. Anyone know their restocking day or maybe someone know of a local guppy or even other livebearer breeder locally who might have some stock on hand I could peruse?

Also, what would be a really good quick spreading groundcover? I like those tiny little clover guys, do they reproduce fairly rapidly?

Thanks for all your help, folks.

--Chris

If those are Marsilia, they seem to want to send stems to the surface, like water lillies, and seem to do better outdoors. With a lot of sun, they do go wild, but in an aquarium you will probably see a forest of stems, if you have enough light.

Motor City Aquarium Society auction on 9/20 would be an excellent place to pick up some guppies- there are a passel of good guppy breeders up in Michigan!

Guppy talk?  Guppies are so beginner!

Just kidding. I am the really wierd person who likes the wild strain of guppies.  I have two wild strains.  I have several species of livebearers, wild and varietals (Platys rule!)

Recently, I got some really cool guppies from Trilby Tropicals.  They have the wild colorings, but the tails are larger and sort of split like a "V". Since I like the wild varieties, these really caught my eye - just a little fancy

Trilby does get in some very interesting fancy guppies at times - always worth a look.

Oh, and I have several "natural" tanks.  No filters or pumps -  just light, heater and plants. Some of the tanks have a soil substrate with sand over top, some are plain gravel. I do have air driven corner filters in some tanks too.

My tank at work has the Eco-Complete substrate - a commercial substrate for planted tanks. It is working quite well, but I wish I would have put some sand over top so that the hairgrass would root better.

tames said :

Recently, I got some really cool guppies from Trilby Tropicals.  They have the wild colorings, but the tails are larger and sort of split like a "V". Since I like the wild varieties, these really caught my eye - just a little fancy

 

I need to get my video camera to speak to one of the computers so I can show you all what they look like.  They're just too fast of movers for my ancient digital camera.