Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Raising the Fry

I guess this will be a pretty much interesting topic. Guppies breed easily but are you able to bring up the fry to adult stage ? Guppies are livebearers. Livebearers will not lay eggs, but give birth to free-swimming offspring.

When the fry is in newborn stage, their first source of food will be microworms. I choose microworms because its a live food ! The wriggling movements of these tiny worms will catch the fry attention and since the worm is so tiny, it even fits into the mouth of those egg layers fry.

Where to get microworms ? Very few local fish shops carry them as the culture really stink !! You may try PetMart located at Serangoon North Ave 2. Alternatively, many home betta breeders do culture them. It is priced at $2.50 to $3 for a container. Once you obtained the culture, you can keep culturing it and keep the microworms going. I will not elaborate no how to culture the microworms. Google has plenty of information on it !



I keep my guppy fry in shallow transparent plastic containers. Its easier for them to look for food in a confined space. Water changes including siphoning the feces is carried out daily. Besides feeding microworms, I will supplement them with daphnia occassionally. Some hobbyists advocate baby brine shrimps as they have no parasitic problem but I find its quite time consuming.

After two weeks of microworms and daphnia, the fry could try on tubifex worms and micro grandules fish food. The first month of feeding is quite critical to the development of the show guppies. Feed them frequently with small amounts will ensure a healthy growth of the fry.