Guppy: An Extraordinary Starter Fish
Are you looking for the perfect first fish for jumping into freshwater fishkeeping? If so, you may be interested in why the guppy is so popular.
Here are five of the best things about guppies:
Colors!
Guppies come in many different colors, including orange, blue, silver, yellow, violet, and red. And you’ll often find individuals with several colors. This makes them pretty popular in home aquariums.
Check out the guppy colors in this video (and learn a few things about their care requirements:
Easy to take care of
Speaking of care requirements, guppies are pretty laidback.
The guppy is an omnivore that eats many types of food. You can feed guppies tropical fish flakes and brine shrimp. They also eat algae and insect larvae, though they probably won’t come by these foods much in an indoor aquarium.
Here are a couple suggestions for brine shrimp and flake foods for guppies:
They also aren’t too fussy about tank requirements and love community life with other guppies. Just keep the water slightly warmed and the pH level just above neutral.
This is a good aquarium heater that you can find in different wattages for a variety of tank sizes:
Aqueon Submersible Adjustable Glass Aquarium Heater
Fight mosquitoes and malaria
Although I mentioned that indoors, guppies don’t get many insects in their food supply, guppies can be kept outdoors in the right conditions, and they will happily eat mosquito eggs. In fact, in places where malaria is more common, guppies are curated in natural habitats to reduce the mosquito population.
I’ll have an article about fish that reduce mosquitoes and how to maintain them in the coming month, so keep an eye on the blog for that info.
Easy to breed
Guppies are polyandrous, meaning that the females mate with multiple males. They then store the sperm for up to eight months to reproduce without further assistance from a male. Additionally, guppies can mate any time of year.
They also birth live fry, which makes breeding less complicated for keepers.
CAUTION: If you are keeping male and female guppies together, be aware that they can birth dozens of babies at a time, and as often as monthly. Per female. You’re going to have a lot of guppies.
Guppy Fish Care, 10 Things You Should Know About Guppies! Great Beginner Fish! By KGTropicals
Note that if you overbreed guppies, the adults will eat the offspring to counteract overcrowding. The fry that survive will be sexually mature at two to three months of age, and thus the process continues.
Get along well with tank mates
Finally, guppies are an easygoing fish that isn’t too aggressive and also doesn’t tend to hide and be shy. They get used to their human caretakers and may even recognize your face outside the tank.
Considering guppies as a pet? Come check out the varieties we have at The Tye-Dyed Iguana in Fairview Heights.