I am setting up a Guppy Breeding tank to raise my own "feeders" for my two Oscars, and as I progress I will post photos and results here like a blog of sorts.

Initially I am starting out with a 20 gallon aquarium.
(I purchased a used clean 20 gallon tank, stand, hood, light and accesories off ebay, and picked it up locally for a cost of only $15 US)
I have ordered a new Bio Wheel filter made by Marineland, an Emporer 280 rated for 275 GPH. This is overkill filtration but ideal for overstocking a feeder tank. I plan to seed the tank with 14-16 Guppies of about 2:1 ratio of females. (With guppies, you should always have at least two females for every male as males pester females continually).

The normal gestation period for a female guppy is 28 days but can range anywhere from 20 to 40 days. An adult mature female can give birth to anywhere from 25 to 200 babies at a time. So, by keeping 8-10 females (of varied age), you should see several batches of babies born each month with an average birth yielding perhaps 50-100 babies bare minimum. Now for ease of maintenance I do not plan to seperate the babies from mother or other adults (at least not initially) so I will need to plan that about 50% of the yield to be eaten by the adult guppies themselves. But still I am aiming at attaining a useable yield of roughly 50 fish per month that can be fed as feeders, or roughly 10-14 per week. That is my goal which I feel is easily achievable with not too much work. I will adjust the number of "keeper" parents until the monthly goal is closely achieved. Naturally, there will also be a delay of a month or two to allow the babies to grow to a size worth feeding to Oscars in the first place, but from that point forward the feeders should be regularly ready to go on a weekly basis.

End for now...

Feeder Guppy Blog - day 2

Well, if things are going to go wrong, let them go wrong right from the start I say. I put the Guppies I purchased into a cycled but empty 37 gallon tank which was to be a holding tank while I set up their real destined home, a 20 gallon tank.

Today I noticed that two, (scratch that, four now) had died and I had an early outbreak of ICK. Only a very few fish show a few spots but thats enough. So I am treating the whole tank for at least 5 days with a medication. I should have been more diligent about picking fish from the LFS (local fish store) but I let the clerk just net me my desired mix of males and females. Certainly no one would individually pick or inspect feeder fish either so let this be a lesson learned. As I buy more guppies now I will exercise better judgement and carefully inspect the fish. I do inspect the store tank overall for dead fish and obvious signs of problems but did not see any problems. That's why QUARANTINE is so vitally important.

On the bright side, My new filters arrived today! The new Marineland canister that I will add to my Oscar tank as a suppemental filter and the new Marineland Emporer 280 (Bio Wheel) that will be an overkill filter for the 20 gallon guppy tank.

(I cant even remember the last time I even saw ICK in one of my own tanks. It's a perfect example of why you don't want to bring feeder fish home to your Oscars and why you might want to set up your own feeder fish system in the future too.)

End..

Feeder Guppy Blog - Post #3

OK, So I had a minor setback but that simply turned into an opportunity. The ICK claimed about half of my initial batch of fish so I decided instead of wasting so much medication to treat my 37 gallon tank, to transfer the remaining fish into the new uncycled 20 so I could save on half the medication. (Am using "Lifeguard" by Jungle Labs.) The remaining fish will now be used to help cycle the new tank and if they die, the will have been put to some use after all.

I removed the filter cartridge because it contains a fair amount of carbon and that will only hinder the cycle process. I filled the other empty media basket with filter floss padding to act as the mecchanical filter and the big bio wheel will provide excellent biological filtration once it gets established. (This is overkill filtration for this 20)

Inside this bare bottom tank I placed a big heater and several free standing plants as well as one really long floating one which will go far to protect newborn babies from being eaten by the other adults. Once babies are born I intend to harvest them and place them into a seperate smaller "grow out" tank of 10-20 gallon size. Here they will be fed and grown to feeder size.

Once this Breeder tank is cycled, I will refill it with adult guppies to make up my desired mix of 8-9 females and 3-4 males. This should yield several batches of fry on a monthly basis.

SALT: With Guppies, you do want to maintain about 1 tablespoon of aquarium salt per 5 gallons of water, (no less then 1 tablespoon per 10 gallons.)

end

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This ones hard to reads, it basically says:
Bio Wheel Marineland "Emporer 280" Filter (280 GPH)
Overkill filtration allows some overstocking
(without undue adverse affects to water quality)

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