Guppies are perhaps the easiest fish to care for and are often considered among the hardiest fishes in any freshwater aquarium. They always remain active with the male species courting the female all the time. They usually breed in great numbers, often overrunning the whole aquarium. A guppy can tolerate several ranges of aquarium temperatures. They are usually not sensitive to a change in the water quality as regards building up nitrate and nitrite. Due to this reason, they are often released in newly constructed community aquariums as starter fish, so that they can fully cycle the aquarium’s water before other fishes could be added to it.
Guppies come in a variety of colors and sizes. The most familiar colors are green, blue and red. Guppy variations include, veil tail, lace tail, lyre tail, flag tail, double sword and bottom tail, long fin, fantail, red tail, triangle tail, tuxedo, glass, rounded, mosaic, grass, snakeskin, king cobra and peacock guppy.
Fancy guppies are usually bred for color. Thus over the decades, this domestic fish has grown weaker. A fancy guppy often doesn’t survive a sudden drop or increase in temperature.
As with most animal species, a male fancy guppy is more attractive than its female counterpart. Males come in an extensive variety of vivid colors like gold, black, red, green and blue, while females usually have either tan or gray color. Bringing a riot of colors to your aquarium, they look beautiful when several of them swim together.
A fancy guppy prefers warm aquarium water. You must keep the temperature set between 79 and 83 degrees and must add a tablespoon of domestic aquarium salt every five gallons of water inside your tank. A livebearer guppy would fair better with added salt. While a fancy guppy can survive on freeze dried bloodworms and floating flake food, they would become hardier and stronger if you occasionally add black worms or frozen brine shrimps to its diet.
While putting guppies in to the aquarium, try to put twice as many female guppies as male guppies. Recent researches suggest that attractively colored males are preferred via sexual selection while natural selection using predation happens for the ones with subdued tones. You can also add other fish which are compatible with guppies like Cory catfish, small tetras or neons, ghost shrimp or African dwarf frogs and honey gourami.
There is a wide deal of variety amongst the guppy population, many with distinctive patterns or color. Those that exist in environments where predators are frequent, tend to have less vivid decoration as a protection. Guppies that have to deal with lesser predators are more colorful.
Acclimatizing your guppies to your aquarium is crucial. As already mentioned, a sharp contrast in temperatures could lead to their death. As a result, float the bag of guppies in your tank for at least twenty minutes. Then slowly introduce some aquarium water into the bag, before releasing them inside the tank. This would give your fish the scope to slowly adapt to its new environment.
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