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Can you determine Guppy Purity?


FlamyHeavens

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So I've (finally) started up a tropical aquarium and my first additions were (of course) a trio of male guppies.

After reading alot of topics on the purity and the weaking retail strains of guppies I wanted to know if there was a way to determine the purity of a guppiy's strain.

I'm only asking this since (I feel like a bad pet owner) but 2 of the guppies I bought died after 2 days. A smaller metallic guppy was found dead on the second morning and the next morning another guppy died. I'm into my first week of keeping the guppies and the final survivor is doing fine (He's flipping out on his own reflection in such a large tank [10L] ). I tried checking everything that coudl've gone wrong but I couldn't find anything that might've lead to their deaths.

Hence the reason why I want to see if there was a way to determine purity of strains since the only reason i can think about is that the guppiesI got were from a bad strain.

Also on another note:

- Is it fine to keep a "male only" guppy tank? I've noticed the last surviving guppy was bullying the other two quite alot before their deaths and they refused to eat anything when i Fed them. They just hung around the top of the tank waving their fins around.

- And does anybody know any good places to get some good guppies in Sydney?

Answers and Response are reaaaaaaly appreaciated! :D

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Let's see:

- Currently reusing all the equipment I used in the Goldfish aquarium (Just switching over to tropical community :D )

- So gravel from my old aquarium

- The same tank from my goldfish aquarium

- Same Ehiem 2211 External Canister Filter with established bio-filter media (The tank with goldfish has been set up since the past 3 months or so, had 5 goldfish before hand)

- Added more gravel with the goldfish gravel, Natural Pieces (? company name) Aquarium gravel. "Aquarium Safe". Wahed before adding to od gravel.

- 200 Watt Jaegar Heater.

- Live plants to help contain the ammonia, Hydrophilia (I think*), Hair Grass and Green Cabomba

- Fed the fish Sera Tropical Fish Flake food for Ornamental Fish.

- As for the PH I haven't tested (@.@), let the tank run for a week before adding fish. Placed a bit (A flake or two) of fish food to feed the bacteria. The PH my guess may be a bit akaline (slighty) But I don't think it is enough to kill a guppy. I'm going to get it tested next few days hopefully at the LFS

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It's low pH that kills guppies I find. I've had several guppy losses when the pH dropped so I know about the bad fish keeper feeling. pH can drop over time for several reasons, the main reasons are:

- your tap water might have low buffering capacity ie low general hardness

- rising ammonia levels.

Get test kits for pH and ammonia. They're the basics and will really help figure out what's going on. You just want to make sure the nitrogen cycle has completed. General hardness of your tap water you can get tested at the LFS it won't fluctuate that much.

I find guppies much less tolerant of low water quality than bettas. You need to give them a 10-15% water change every week without fail.

Once you're sure the water quality is perfect then I guess it could very well be that there's something wrong with that strain. I don't know how you would identify this just looking at a tankful of guppies at an LFS without knowing the source and how inbred they are.

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