Fancy Guppies Make Colorful Pets For Your Aquarium

Author: Lee Dobbins

As with many animal species, the male Fancy Guppies are more beautiful than the female Fancy Guppies. Males come in a large variety of bright colors, like red, gold, black, blue and green- while females tend to only have gray or tan colors. These fish look most beautiful in aquariums when you have several of them to swim together.

Fancy Guppies like warmer aquarium waters. You should keep your temperature set between 78 and 82 degrees Fahrenheit, and consider adding a tablespoon of aquarium salt per 5 gallons of water in the tank. Most livebearers Guppies fair better with the salt added.

While Fancy Guppies can survive on just floating flake food and freeze dried bloodworms, they will become stronger and hardier if fed some frozen brine shrimp or Black Worms from time to time.

When you put Fancy Guppies into your aquarium, you'll want to keep twice as many females as male Fancy Guppies. You can add other fish that are compatible, including Small Tetras (Neons), Honey Gourami, Cory Catfish, Glass Fish, African Dwarf Frogs and Ghost Shrimp.

Many stores will try to sell Mollies and Guppies together, but most of the larger Mollies will attack Guppies and are not really compatible in an aquarium together.

You do not want to keep Swordtails and Platies in a tank with Fancy Guppies, either. They just do not get along. Guppies should be placed into aquariums with smaller tank mates.

Fancy Guppies have a short lifespan of about 3 years. The males grow to be about 2", and females will grow a little longer at an average of 2.5" long. Sometimes Fancy Guppies will have a longer lifespan with outstanding aquarium care, and there are even instances where the fish have gotten bigger than their average sizes.

When acclimating your guppies to the fish tank, be sure to float the bag they came in, in your fish tank water for 20 minutes then slowly introduce some of the fish tank water into the bag -little by litte before releasing them into the tank. This will give your new fish the chance to adapt slowly to it's new environment.

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About the Author
Lee Dobbins writes for Fish Tank Guide where you can learn more about maintaining an aquarium as well as see photos of different types of aquarium fish like the fancy guppies