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Guppy (Male)
In nature the guppy - Poecilia reticulata, originates from the Central American region.
Guppies consume large numbers of mosquito larvae and have been introduced into non native waters for this purpose.
Black mosquito larvae are available freeze dried in some aquatic stores, although not locally to me.
Guppies may be kept at a temperature of 18-26C, I keep those housed in community tanks at 25C.
I feed them flake food, spirulina content is important for guppies.
Spirulina is a single cell algae that is highly nutritious as a food source, both for fish and humans, due to this there are eco farms where they grow and harvest spirulina, you will therefore not only find it in fish food you may well find it in your local health food or wholefood store.
Guppies are at home in a planted tank, I have not seen them damage the plants.
They like a clean tank with regular small water changes.
Guppies are a hardy fish that are suitable for beginners and experienced aquarists alike.
They are ideal fish for a peaceful community tank or a first species tank.
There are hybrids and named strains available, with both tail type and colour morph variations.
Many fish farms in Asia and Florida, USA produce guppies on a large scale, if you buy your guppy in a pet store there is a good chance it originated from facilities in these locations.
There are also many specialist breeders who maintain high quality stock, if you are intent upon breeding a specific strain or developing a new strain, it is better to source stock from a specialist breeder as it is far more likely the females will not be gravid from a breeding with a different strain.
The Guppies I have kept are - multi coloured hybrid, Green Snakeskin, HB(Half-Black), Blue Tuxedo (most recently).
Breeding
Males mature at approximately 3 months with females maturing slightly earlier.
The only sure way to identify a guppies gender is to look for the gonopodium which is located near the anal fins, only males have the gonopodium.
The male uses the gonopodium to inseminate the female she then becomes gravid.
When the female guppy is gravid she has a black patch known as the gravid spot, it is said this is the babies eyes showing through the females body as they are darker in colour.
The female will continue to grow and become much larger in appearance until approximately 4-6 weeks later when the fry will be born.
The fry can be fed upon crushed flake.
The female guppy can have several batches of fry over a several month period from a single breeding with a male, 20-30 fry are born in each batch.
The females guppies will choose red males over other lighter colours, if you do not wish to have red in future generations then you need to ensure you have no red males or males with red tails in the tank.
If you notice your female guppy is gravid either in a community tank or soon after getting her, one solution is to use a net breeder, the female is placed into the net breeder with some floating plants, when the fry are born they hide amongst the floating plants.
Some strong fish can pull fry through the breeding nets, so you will need to take into account what the other fish are in the tank.
Net Breeder (image kindly supplied by Hagen)
 
Plastic breeder boxes 2in1 and 3in1 (images kindly supplied by Hagen)
Another solution are the plastic breeder boxes, the type shown above are floating ones, there are various combinations of the breeder box available some have clips to secure them to the tank side, the clips do not work on tanks that have euro-bracing.
Planned Breeding
Initially I used a 12 gallon tank with floating plants, the parents predation of the fry was quite high.
I next tried a heavily planted 10 gallon tank, place the trio in and once it was apparent the females were gravid the male was moved into the next tank, once each females fry were born she was moved to the tank with the male, this method provided much improved results.
Finally I used the set up for the breeder box as described in the swordtails section , a trio were placed in the tank with 2, 5 way breeder boxes, once it was apparent the females were gravid each was placed into its 5 way breeder box.
The male was transfered into the next tank, as each females fry were born she was rested for 1 day then moved into the tank with the male.
The fry would drop through the box into the 12 gallon or 10 gallon, (used a mix of both sizes), this would be their nursery tank.
This was the most successful of the methods I tried with the highest fry survival rate.
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