The One about the the Fry of Jack, the Dumbo Guppy

Jack, the dumbo guppy was quite an aggressive guppy compared to the others. He was no doubt wanting to alpha male among the male guppies and being the only dumbo guppy, I figured that he needed to get rid of some of that aggression.

So, I gave Jack a few female guppy mates.

And each of these guppy mates got pregnant and gave birth. As for Jack, Jack has since passed on. But his fry continue to live on.

Jack, is my first test guppy to see what happens when bred with certain females and to see what colors would come of it.

Jack’s mates were the following:

And for the most part, this was my first test on breeding. Using different methods such as a breeding box, to letting the pregnant guppy give birth naturally with and without tank mates and learning how challenging it could be.

For one, two types of breeding tanks and a breeders box were used and noticed the females were getting stressed. Of the four female guppies, two pregnant guppies were stressed and died inside the breeding tank and I decided, never again would I use those.

So, natural birth was what I was going to do and then figure out a way to catch as many of Jack’s fry before they were eaten.

With the two females, I was able to rescue only 12 guppy fry, which is not a whole lot, but I’ll take what I can get as I wanted Jack’s fry to live, considering Jack was no longer among the living.

I’ve written about this before but many of the guppy fry passed because of the filter I was using at the time. I didn’t know how powerful of a suction it had and learned a lesson from there.

The guppies were separated into their own aquarium and for the most part, they loved the hornwort plant and Amazon Sword plant, also the Java Fern. But not all plants like brackish water (water with salt), so while I do use a lot of live plants in my multiple aquariums, for the fry tank, I used fake aquarium plants and they have been effective to give the fry their own space but also utilizing it to keep the fry away from the filter area.

While I noticed certain fry have different traits, one who was fearless and a loner, others who rather be in groups, while those who were too scared and stayed towards the artificial grass below.

I’m not sure if the loner that stayed below was weak but he didn’t survive.

I learned about how those first 4-5 weeks are telling of who will live and survive and learned that not all fry are going to survive. Some are stronger, some are vibrant, while other are sheepish and scared to be with other fry. Not sure if its the exclusion from the pack type of scenario but as much as I tried to get this one to be with the others, he chose to stay down below.

By week eight, I started to see much more color in their dorsal and caudal fin.

A week later, they showed much more colors… They were much bigger that I wanted to test two of them out in the community tank. I figured 9-10 weeks now, perhaps they are good enough to venture with another guppy community tank that I have.

I’ve read that as long as they can no longer fit in the mouths of their tank mates, they are safe from predation.

Big mistake… They were like the new kids at school that the other guppies had on their targets and other guppies were not so welcoming. Scaring them, nipping at their caudal tail. Others were like sharks, going in circles as if waiting for the two to pop back up.

Less than an hour of observations and seeing how the two would hide under the plants and stay away from everyone and seeing their vibrant nature turned to fear for nearly an hour, I realized, they weren’t ready and back to a separate tank they went.

While I could have left these two to survive in the community tank and see how well they defend themselves and hide, I want to give these guppies about 3-4 weeks, so that means a total of three months before they go into the community tank.

Some may ask if the breeding process is easy. It’s not easy, nor is it difficult. But it does require one to spend money especially on fry food, live plants and another tank to take care of the fry’s. Another tank separate for breeding and depending how many types of strains you want to breed, it takes quite a bit of investment.

And most importantly, making sure the water parameters are good.

Some will go all out with plants which the guppies can thrive and grow and from YouTube videos, like a favorite of mine, Dexter’s World, he’s able to breed a lot of them in his own outdoor tanks and have a plentiful amount for his store.