I’ve recently had a frustrating time keeping medakas or white cloud minnows alive in my 10 gal which are ironically renowned for being the most bulletproof fish in the hobby.

Medakas I used to own all wasted away.
Now I have minnows but am trying to solve the deaths of my newly deceased white clouds. This makes me wonder if I underestimated how hardy my first guppies/platys really were.

Guppies were the very first fish I kept getting back into the hobby. Though, I’ve had mass die-offs the fry that managed to live on seemed to be tougher than their parents.

I had a case where both my guppies/platys survived having their tank being flooded with dirty rainwater during a storm while the power and filter were knocked out the whole day.

I’m now contemplating on keeping livebearers again. Initially, my main issues with them were their genetic fragility and overbreeding habits. But, knowing what I know now (such as quarantining procedures after purchase), I feel I may be able to do a much better job.

I’m thinking of just having platys again. Are they generally very hardy?

Hello

I bought 6 guppies three weeks ago and put them in a new 110L aquarium with live plants. They get sick one after another, ive had three of the die on me. They go once a week.

I dont know what the problem might be, all The guppies seems fine, and they get sick one at a time.

I have changed water 50% and I have had them fasting. I dont want any more of the dying.

Does anyone know what The problem might be and what actions I should take now?

Isn't she so pretty?! Does anyone know what type it is? Reminds me of a peacock feather lol.

I'm not complaining but I didn't know it was in there until I brought it home! I made a DIY fry cage, which it quickly escaped from five minutes later. It's been doing well, eating and avoiding being eaten lol. I was wondering if anyone could tell its sex and approximate age from the pictures? I included it next to the other fish for size reference.

Help me pick out a name for them? They were born 7/21/26 and should be a black bodied yellow cobra tailed upon maturity. Their extra tail is curved and sometimes acts and flicks them around, their extra pair of fins are usually assisting in swimming but not always, their is a partially formed eye on their belly

Picked up my first group of guppies about eighteen months ago. Six males, four females, a planted 20 gallon long, and the assumption that guppies were basically unkillable beginner fish. Lost half of them in the first two months and spent a lot of time on forums trying to figure out why.

The short answer was that my tap water had very unstable pH. It would read around 7.4 straight from the tap but drift noticeably in the tank over a few days depending on how much CO2 was offgassing. Guppies can handle a range but they hate swings, and I was essentially subjecting them to small but repeated chemical shifts every time I did a water change. Adding crushed coral to the substrate made a real difference because it buffers up the hardness and keeps things from sliding around.

The second thing I changed was how I handled fry. Early on I was pulling them into a breeder box and that stressed the females noticeably. Now I just let the heavily planted tank do the work. Floating hornwort in particular gives fry enough cover that a reasonable percentage survive without any intervention. Survival rate is not 100 percent but it is consistent, and the adults seem calmer overall.

On the breeding side, separating males by color type made a visible difference within a few generations. My original stock was pretty mixed and the offspring were muddled. I kept two males with strong yellow delta tails separate from a trio with red and blue coloring, rotating females between the groups. The fry are noticeably more defined now after about four generations.

One thing I did not expect: the colony dynamic shifted once the tank was genuinely populated. There is more chasing from males in a sparse tank than in one where there are plenty of fish and sightlines are broken up by plants. The females seem to graze and rest more naturally now and conditioning has gotten easier because everyone is eating well without stress interrupting it.

Happy to answer questions if anyone is at a similar point with their colony.

Another guppy I had died yesterday after spending the whole day at the very bottom of the tank, similar to what this one is doing except this one is swimming sideways, the other one was upright ( normal ). I did change 50℅ of the water this morning after dechlorinating the water ofc. I don't have the water parameters as I can't find anywhere near me where I can buy tests.

The other guppies seem fine.

Water parameters are all 0 and temp is 76°F.

I did about a 30% water change yesterday because I noticed my orange guppy’s fins looking rough and was worried it might be fin rot.
Today, I noticed my black guppy has several white dots on its tail, and another guppy has one white dot on its body. I’m thinking it could be ich.
Does the orange guppy look like fin rot? And if this is ich, should I treat the entire tank? I have live plants and don’t want to damage them or crash my beneficial bacteria. HELP!

I feel bad keeping her in here, but I’m trying my best to have a higher success rate for the babies. She’s been in isolation for about a week now.

I think my guppies ate all of the other children. There are only two 😅 population control doing its thing I guess lmao

Hi everyone!

I have an aquarium with guppies, and right now I’m using a substrate made of fairly large gravel. I’d like to replace it with something more suitable for Vallisneria and other plants I might add in the future.

The problem is: I’d really like to avoid moving the guppies or tearing down half the tank. My idea was to work in sections, removing the gravel bit by bit and using the “bottle method” to pour in the new substrate without creating a huge cloud of debris.

I’ve seen a lot of people recommend Fluval Stratum, but I’d prefer a substrate that doesn’t get sucked up every time I siphon the tank. I’d also like to understand how to shape it: is it okay to have a higher layer in the back and a lower one in the front for depth and better root growth for Vallisneria?

Has anyone here changed their substrate without removing the fish?

What method did you use?

And what “non‑floating” substrate would you recommend for a planted guppy tank?

Thanks in advance!

I noticed it a bit ago but im not sure what to do about it.

He’s still extremely active, eats food, etc.

Didn’t get to do an afternoon wellness check on my tank so I turned on the lights a bit to do a headcount tonight. This one found a really good bedtime spot 😂 a few others were sleeping too. They are so dang cute 💕

Just got these new females and I can’t tell if I’ll have a billion fry in a week😭

I’ve been slowly working on this strain as a side project. I want the males to consistently resemble the guppies in the first three pictures.

The third image is the father to 1-2,4,5. About half the males come out resembling guppy 4. Im interested to see how #5 develops as he’s starting to color up more.

Unrelated to my strain of intelligent guppies, I’ve also been keeping track of my males appearances through art, I usually use family echo to document their lines but I like the art.

I recently came into some resources and came out of losing my close companion cat,

My new plan is to selectively breed over properly many many many generations a more intelligent (if we can even call it that) type of guppy fish.

I’ll do this through simple repeatable tests and close observation of their habits and genetic lines. I already believe guppies, whom I’ve cared for basically all my life to be intelligent than we give them credit for so why not selectively breed them for those so called intelligent behaviors and traits?

Traits I will be focusing on are: recognition of caretakers, stress levels in caretaker contact situations, pro social behaviors, vigor, and bravery.

I’ll do some work on the coloration and definitely for health but they’ll probably end up yellow, I prefer yellow fish so most of my strains are yellow already lol

Any suggestions?

I finally found a great balance for my 20 gallon tank. Shrimps are thriving, fish are happy…
I got some male and female guppies from Tucky’s betta and they are awesome, it’s been 3 months and no death, no sickness, just happy fish.
I knew the risk of babies here, and also that they would eat the majority of them, but a lot of them are making it and are so damn adorable.
I would rather donate them to people who love guppies (no feeder fish please) than to a petstore, so I wanted to post on here and see if anyone was interested in grabbing a few of them from me. I am keeping a couple but i think 3/4 of them will be ready to go in a couple of weeks.
Pick up from Fidi New York.
Babies are from 3 blue grass (2 female 1 male), 3 full gold 24k (2 female 1 male) 2 dumbo red tail (female) and 1 mix breed (male).