What fish should i keep with my guppies?

Question

so heres my plan.. i have a thirty gallon tank. I want a lot of floating plants at the top of my tank. Then i am going to have a mix of male and female guppies. (yes i am aware of what happens, and im prepared.) What other types of fish can i also put in the tank that wont eat the baby guppies. I also am going to have catfish or bottom feeders of some sort, any reccomendations on that too? im going to have snails too.

then do you reccomend as far as pH levels go and what type of plant chemicals and other stuff to care for the tank.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, any fish that can fit a guppy fry in their mouth will attempt to eat them. If you plant the tank heavily enough, some may be able to hide well enough to survive to a size that they'll grow to adulthood.

Your best bet would be to get similar sized fish - neons, glowlights, rasboras, variatus (sunset platies), white clouds, etc. For catfish, you could try dwarf corydoras species or otocinclus catfish.

As far as tank chemicals, your better off not using too much. Find out what your water company uses to treat your water supply (chlorine or chloramine) and get waht you need to remove it. Look for the words "remove" or "neutralize" if you have either, but especially if you have chloramine - you don't want one that "breaks the chloramine bond" because this releases ammonia (toxic to fish) into your tank. As far as pH, you don't want to mess with this unless the level is extreme - below 6 or above 8.5. Anything in between the fish can live in.

For plants, about all you should need is a little aquatic plant fertilizer - look for one that contains iron as an ingredient. Only use about 1/3 of the dose that's recommended so you don't have algae trouble (algae uses the fertilizer as well!).

Answer 2

if your not planning on moving the females to a breed tank, then i would add nothing but the bottom guys. Everything else will usually take a swip at baby guppies.

You will have a hard enough time getting the fry to live with the other guppies in the tank. They will eat the fry as well. So even though your tank is planted, it will be hard to get alot of fry to make it.

If you move the females into a 10 gallon with live plants and a sponge filter when they are about to give birth, then you can put a huge range of community fish in a 30 gallon with guppies.


edit: You wont need to put chemicals into the tank, your ph will be around 7.0- 7.8 depending on where you live AKA tap water ph.

water chemcials are only temp and wont last long, and personally i wouldnt add chemcials when working with plants.

Along with the floating plants you should include bottom plants like dwarf hair grass, driftwoof with java moss, anacris, etc.. These plants will make your tank look better and add cover.

Again you wont really need to play around with your ph, just add some water conditioner like stress coat to remove chlorine from tap water.

Answer 3

everything is going to eat guppy fry including guppies. if you want to save all of them you really need a separate tank the floating plants are a good idea -- i keep floating water sprite in my bettas. i have gouramis (sunset honey) that eat away the dying water sprite so i don't have to worry about cleaning up after it much.

snails and a lot of plants don't get along. here is a good site for plants --

http://plantgeek.net/

i have a low light/low maintenace planted tank and its a lot easier than high light/high mainenance. if you go the low light route all might want to add is an iron fertilizer. two of them are api's leaf zone and tetra's flora pride.

if you want small fish that will get along really well with the guppies you could go for smaller gouramis -- like the sunset honey gouramis, rasboras, white cloud mountain minnows, any small tetras (like neons and glo-lite -- larger ones like skirted tetras can nip which your guppies won't like).

really the best bet is to start a guppy community and you can make your own strain of guppy if you keep at it long enough. this will involve culling so you might want to think about a culling expert in another tank (thats a big fish that will gladly take care of the less desirable guppies).

Answer 4

Mollies, platys, swordtails, a betta. I would personally stick with those kinds of livebearers, excaept for the betta! Believe me from past experience! For the snails I would suggest getting a couple of mystery snails they are very pretty.

Answer 5

Read up on it!

Answer 6

SHARKS