Guppies Are Fun and a Large Responsibility

Raising guppies is easy and hard both at the same time. Are you wondering why? Well, raising them is easy because most times you can probably buy a pregnant guppy at the pet store for the same money as one that is not pregnant. It is easy to tell a pregnant one, they look like they are practically busting out of their stomachs when they get close to giving birth.

Raising guppies is harder because you need to be sure to be there for the birth so that you can immediately separate the parents from the baby guppies. What happens if you do not separate them? The guppies will eat the babies. Yes that is gross. But that is the truth. Big guppies eat baby guppies. So who do they survive in the wild if they eat their babies? The reason they survive is because they give birth to so many guppies at one time, they cannot possibly catch and eat every single one. But in your tank, since it is not the oceans or lakes, your baby guppies have nowhere to hide and the parents can catch all of your baby guppies and eat them all.

So, if you want guppy babies do this:

1. Buy a pregnant guppy OR buy three or four females and one male guppy.

2. Put them in a large tank together.

3. Right off the bat, decorate the tank so that there are good plants in there where the fish will hide when they are born. Put some small tunnel or hiding place ceramic in there too. Both these will help the baby guppies hide if you are not present at the birth.

4. When you see the babies have them separate right away and put them in their own tank.

There you go, now you have successfully raised your own guppies. If you are not interested in guppies, how about considering going straight to the "live" food section and choosing some "feeding" fish for pets? You can save a life. In almost all pet stores, they sell what they call feeding fish, usually they are tiny goldfish or other different fish. And in some stores they sell them about ten for a dollar or around that price. So you can go into almost any store that stocks feeding fish and find some new pets for your fish tank.

Once I did take about five feeding fish home and I gave the fish a tank of their own. They lived for a long time, beautifully. So consider all fish when you are trying to decide what kind of fish you will stock your tank with.

Linda Perry, living in the present, continues to flow like water, volunteering wherever she is needed.