Basic Guide to Set Up a Guppy Aquarium

What to Think About Initially?

Before making any purchases for the type of guppies you want to keep, there are a few things to consider. The very first thing to think about is the type of aquarium that you want to setup. To make your guppies look livelier and colorful, I suggest setting up a planted aquarium. Then decide on how large or quantity of the guppies community you want to keep. Then buy the appropriate tank and equipment. The filter will also need to be able to cope with your tank size and the guppies community but if you aren't sure always opt for a filter which seems a little larger than the one that you think you will need.
Make sure that you measure the space that you have available for your tank, don't assume that a 36 inch tank will fit into a 36 inch alcove because it won't, quite a few manufacturers use internal tank measurements when stating the size and the stand and top could make it wider still. Then there is all the wires and pipe work to consider along with being able to access the filter easily. I would recommend allowing at least 42 inches of space for a 36 inch tank.

Where to Position the Guppy Tank?

It depends on personal choice but there are few do's and don'ts
Places to avoid having an aquarium are next to a door, in direct sunlight, next to a radiator / heater or in place lots of human activities.
Those are quite obvious but there are other things need to be taken into consideration too. Make sure there is a power point close by to the tank and water source too. Make sure the area to place the tank is absolutely level and use a thick polystyrene (20mm thick) to sit the tank on in order to avoid stress fractures caused by an uneven surface.
The main key point is that it must be sited somewhere that allows you to sit and look at it comfortably.

What equipment to use?

Basic equipment needed are external filters (recommended), power head lighting and CO2 tank if you're going for the planted aquarium. Heater is not necessary unless you are in a cold environment below 18 degree.

How to Mature Your Guppy Tank?

If you intend to have gravel in your tank, then wash them and place the gravel in first. And make sure all the electrical connections are correct and safe. Fill the tank about 1/3 full and put in stones or bogwood and etc if you like, and then carry on filling until the tank is full. Switch everything on and make sure everything is working. Leave it all running without any fish in the tank and switch the lights on and off each day. After a couple of days, say about three days, introduce some plants if you are planning for a planted aquarium, Let the system to run for another 3 days to settle and get established before any fish are added. This time consuming process will also give you chance to become familiar with the workings of the tank and all the equipment and to ensure that everything is full working condition.
The main objective of maturing or cycling the tank is to build up the numbers of these helpful bacteria so that there are sufficient numbers of them to cope with a tank full of fish later on.
After that, start adding your first few guppies. The newly matured tank won't be completely stable for the first few weeks so great care must be taken to keep the tank clean and not to over feed the guppies. After two weeks or so some more guppies can be added and this is how you should proceed for the first 6 months of the tanks life.
The above are basic information on setting up a guppy tank, novice guppy hobbyist should check with their local fish shop on the proper use of the recommended equipment before installation
 

Basic Guide to Breeding Guppies

What is the first step?

In order to get the best quality guppy fry you must very carefully choose the adults, feed them properly, ensure they are in perfect health and keep them in good conditions so that the guppies will breed easily rather then under stress condition.
How to select the parent guppies for breeding?
Choose parents that are young and still not quite at their full adult size or fully colored, this is when they are at their most fertile. Ensure they are free from any deformities and in 100% good health.

How to set up the breeding tank?

Try not to breed in a community tank where the guppies will be distracted and worst the fry would prey for other bigger fishes. The best way is to set up a special breeding tank with plenty of live or artifical plants. Sometimes, female guppies may eat their young just as rapidly as they give birth to them, perhaps due to hunger. If you provide the fry with plenty of hiding places among the plants, there is less of a chance they will be eaten by their mother. The tank should also be in a fairly quiet location so that disturbance is kept to a minimum. Introduce the female guppy to the breeding tank first and allow her time to settle before adding the male guppy.

How do I know if my guppy is pregnant?

The female guppy's abdomen will swell, and her gravid spot (an area at the bottom of the abdomen near the pelvic and anal fins) will become very much darker. On larger females, it may even be possible to see the eyes of a few babies if you look closely. Sometimes a female will become rather still and solitary when pregnant.

How long will it before my guppy has her babies?

The gestation period, that is the time between fertilization and birth, is about 22 to 24 days. Broods are produced, under optimum conditions, every 27 to 30 days.

What do I feed the fry?

Fry need to feed right after birth. It would be better to keep the fry in a small tank as they may not know how to find food, and waste valuable energy if the search for food gets arduous, The food particles must be small enough to fit into their mouths, or they will go to waste and pollute the tank. Baby brine shrimp, cooked egg yolk and microworms are suitable foods for fry.

How and when can I tell the sexes apart?

At 30 days old, the different sexes can be distinguished. The male begins to show a developing gonopodium ( a modified pointed anal fin). The female develops a larger body, as well as a gravid spot - use a small magnifying glass and flashlight to try and spot it.Tail color differences also start to show within 14 to 28 days: the colors tend to be repressed in the females.

Must I separate the sexes of the fry and why?

As immature females may receive sperm from mature males and carry it till they are mature, it is essential to remove all the adult males from a tank of fry, or remove the fry to another tank soon after birth. When the male's anal fins become pointed, it is time to remove the females. Use a small glass or net to catch the fry. Examine each closely for either a gravid spot or developing gonopodium).

Basic Guide to Water Changes

Why must water change?

Water changes are vital and are a necessity for keeping a healthy aquarium in an aquarium environment. Water changes replace a portion of old water with fresh clean water. This in turn dilutes the concentrations of the undesirable substances that are produced (like nitrates and phosphates), and other chemicals or medications that you may have added to your aquarium. The main reason for water changes is to remove compounds that are not removed by any of the filtration methods such as nitrates phosphates. Water changes also serve to replenish trace elements, and to clean the gravel of accumulated detritus and waste.

When to water change?

Every week - you should do a 20% to 25% water change to maintain proper water chemistry. Smaller volume, more frequent water changes are even more beneficial.

Twice a month - you should service the filters, scrape algae from the glass and check water quality using a test kit that test ammonia, nitrite, nitrates and PH.

Once a year - you should do a 100% tank clean.

How to water change?

Note: It is not necessary to switch off the power filters, powerheads or air pumps unless you are doing a 50% to 100% water change.

First remove any ornamentation other than live plants from the tank and use a siphon or gravel cleaner, which is recommended for taking out water. Move the siphon or gravel cleaner across the entire bottom of the aquarium, agitating the substrate in the gravel a bit until the water being extracted is almost free of debris. If water is being removed too quickly to remove all the debris, pinch or partially close the siphon or gravel cleaner hose to restrict the water flow.

Clean the interior glass with an algae scrubber. Sometime I do this just before changing the filter media or doing a partial water change so that dislodged algae will be removed from the aquarium.

Glass canopies, if any, should be cleaned regularly to provide maximum penetration of light.

Once the require amount of water has been siphoned out from the tank, you has to replace the equal amount of  water back into the tank. Water changes can cause some stress for the fish. The most important thing is to ensure that temperature and water conditions are equivalent to what you replace. I usually use treated tap water for my guppies. Water should be very slowly poured back in so that the gravel will not be stirred around. Distilled water can be used if your water is hard and has a high ph level. Doing a 25% water change with distilled water will lower the water hardness and ph level quite a bit. Please do not do 100% distilled water change as it does not contain any trace of minerals which are require by your guppies and plants.

Basic Guide to Guppy Food

What can I feed my guppies in addition to the common flakes food?

Besides the common tropical food flakes you can find at your neighborhood stores, you can try these…….to feed your guppies.

1) Baby Brine Shrimp

Baby brine shrimp is one of the best and popular food for guppy especially guppy fry. You can purchase the brown roundish tiny eggs from most tropical fish store and hatching brine shrimp is a fairly easy process which does not require much time and money.

2) Egg Yolk

Boiled egg yolk is great protein source for your guppies (fry). Add some water to the boiled yolk to make a paste for your guppy fry or to make into small balls of yolk for the adult guppies.

3) Daphnia

Not may tropical fish store sell live daphnia nowadays, as they are quite expensive and do not live long.  Do remember to feed to your guppies as soon as you get them home as they will exhausted the oxygen in the container and will not survive long. You may also find frozen daphnia in some fish store.

4) Mosquito Larvae

Mosquitoes lay eggs whole year round on the surface of any water they can find, especially water which has some decomposing organic matter in it. The eggs are deposited in tiny rafts and hatch into small wigglers which will develop into sizeable dark-brown larvae - a prime delicacy for your guppies. For guppy fry, you can collect rafts which can be found floating on stagnant water, which contain larvae, and left them floating in the fry tank, the fish will consume the tiny larvae as soon as the latter hatch and starts swimming downward in the tank.

5) Worms

• Micro Worms -                     The next common live food useful in feeding the guppy fry is the microworm. It is just large enough to be visible. They grow in many media; a mixture of bread and yeast kept almost liquid and easily inoculated with a starter culture. They can be scraped off with spoon and fed to your guppies by dipping the spoon into the aquarium water.

• Tubificid Worms -                You can buy them from almost all fish supply stores. They live in tubes in mud in either still or running water, sometimes in such quantities as to form reddish patches on those mud where they wave their hind-ends in the water.

• White Worms -                     These are small white worms and lives on decaying organic matter and fresh food, such as bread, cracker crumbs and dried milk. You may find them in some fish stores.

• Blood Worms  -                    Bloodworms are available live from most fish supply stores, as well as frozen and freeze-dried. They are an excellent food for your guppies too.

• Earth Worms -                      Commonly found in most soil ground where you need to dig to find them. Guppies will only eat shredded earth worms due to it size.

• Glass Worms -                      These are the larvae of aquatic insects and are long, almost transparent creatures, pointed at the ends and half an inch long, with darkened areas near each end. They are frequently netted under the ice in winter and sold in fish supply stores. They are also a good source of live food for your guppies.

• Black Worms -                      Can be purchase from most of your neighborhood fish stores. Their appear are identical to tubifex worms except they are darker in color.

Basic Guide to Hatching Baby Brine Shrimp

Why you need Baby Brine Shrimp?

Guppies of any age relish baby brine shrimp. They are small enough for you guppy fry to eat. They will produce good growth and healthy fry as they are extremely high in protein.

Where to buy Brine Shrimp eggs?

You can buy the brown roundish tiny eggs from any tropical fish store, but it is much more economical to purchase them in one pound cans if you have any fairly large size breeding operation.

So, what are the procedures?

Use a cleaned two gall tank as hatching tank and filled with clean water. To improve the hatch rate and healthy brines shrimp, put in a 50w heater (set at 82 F) together with an air pump to keep the eggs in suspension. Add about 8 level tablespoons of marine salt into the hatching tank and dissolved into the water.

Prior to this, scoop a small tea spoon of eggs and soaked them in fresh water in a small container. 

After one hour in fresh water, put the eggs into the hatching tank, all the salt will have dissolved by now and the tank will be up to set temp. Keep the tank lit all the time while the eggs are hatching, this will takes about 24 to 48 hrs. 

Once the eggs have hatched switch off the air pump and then wait for a few minutes to allow the water to settle. Then place a torch over one corner of the tank and wait for about 10 to 20 minutes. The newly hatched brine shrimp will all swim towards the light thus makes collecting them very much easier.

With all the shrimps gathered near the torch like a mass of reddish brown color, siphon out the brine shrimp using a air pipe and collect them onto a clean cotton cloth. Once you has collected enough brine shrimp to feed your fry, gently rinse over the shrimps with clean water to wash away any salt around them.

Once rinsed, carefully overturn the cotton cloth and use the tip of your finger and put it into the fry tank to feed your fry. Gently move it around until all the shrimp are in the water and being eaten. The brine shrimp will only stay alive for few hrs in freshwater, so try not to over feed as the shrimps will die and will cause some water quality issue to your fry tank later on.

Basic Guide to Aquarium Water Parameters

When we say water parameters, we refer to the reading s of the measurable components such as chemicals and minerals that are present in water.

Different species of aquarium fish require different types of water conditions to stay alive and healthy. Thus, it would be useful for aquarium fish hobbyists to understand some basic knowledge of water chemistry, the living conditions suitable for fishes.

Chlorine

Chlorine is a chemical found in municipal water suppliers, tap water. It is used to kill harmful bacteria and other pathogens in drinking water and must be eliminated before used in an aquarium as it is harmful to fishes.

Before adding tap water into the aquarium, let the water stand overnight, to allow the chlorine fumes to disperse. Reason is that Chlorine is very volatile, so it will evaporate quickly from the water. You can speed up the process by bubbling air through the water with an air stone, as this increase the surface area of the water and allows the chorine to evaporate even faster. The other alternative is ass dechlorinator to neutralise the Chlorine.

Chloramine

Chlorine is a combination of chlorine and ammonia. It is a stronger disinfecting agent added to tap as compare to chlorine. Same as chlorine, you must eliminated this chemical from the tap water before adding it to your aquarium.

Use a dechlorinator to neutralise the Chloramine. Dechlorinators can be easily purchase from any aquarium shop, just follow the dosage recommendation on the product's label for directions on correct administration. Remember that you only need to treat the amount of fresh water that is used to replace what has been removed, and not the entire volume of water in the tank.

Ammonia

This chemical is the leading cause of most fish death. It is formed from fish waste and decomposing food in the water. The water in new and heavily stocked aquarium is most likely to contain high levels of Ammonia. The main objective of maturing or cycling the tank is to build up the numbers of these helpful bacteria so that there are sufficient numbers of them to cope with a tank full of fish later on.

Regular weekly 25% water change or use ammonia eliminator or ammonia detoxifier which can be purchase from most aquarium shop.

Nitrite

Ammonia will get converted in nitrite by nitrifying bacteria in the aquarium. Nitrite levels will soar in new tanks that have not yet been cycled or matured.

Regular weekly 25% water change or properly mature your tank before adding fishes.

Nitrate

Nitrite is converted into nitrate during the cycling process. Though nitrate is not as toxic as ammonia or nitrite, it can cause fish stress if a high level of it is present in the aquarium.

Regular weekly 25% water change.

Phosphate

The main sources of phosphate are from tap water, dead plants and uneaten fish food. High phosphate levels can lead to outbreaks of algae, especially black hair algae. Phosphate level in aquarium water can be control by having regular partial water changes, or by using chemical formulated for its removal.

Copper

This heavy metal may be present in tap water that has been transported through old copper pipes. It can also get introduced to the aquarium through copper-based medication that has been used to treat the fish.

pH

The pH scale is used to measured the acidity or alkalinity of the water. The scale ranges form 0 to 14, with 0 being the most acidic, 7 being neutral and 14 being the most alkaline. It is possible to raise or lower pH levels by carrying out water changes or adding chemicals into the water.

Water Hardness

The hardness level of water pertains to the amount of minerals dissolved in the water. Calcium and magnesium are the primary minerals that are dissolved  in tap water. Soft water has relatively fewer dissolved minerals, whereas hard water has more of these.

Salinity

This is the measurement of the amount of dissolved salts in the water, obtained by using a hydrometer.

Specific Gravity

This is a density measurement of the amount of dissolved salts  in saltwater, as compared to fresh water. Saltwater is composed of many more elements than fresh water.