Guppy Pond!

S

sundevil_brian

AC Members
Jun 30, 2007
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So here is the idea,
Get 5-10 fancy male guppies (best looking i find locally) and a bunch of feeder/wild female guppies and throw them in a pond for the summer (Live in AZ so the summer is loooooonnnnnnngggggg)
occasionally cull the dullest males and some females (feed to friends turtles or sell for store cred if i can) to keep the population in check and when some start to die from the cold, pull out the best looking males and females and keep them inside for the winter.
then repeat the process again with those fish next summer

Goals:
-breed nice looking healthy guppies but letting mother nature do a lot of the work
-Make guppies more resistant to cold (maybe even get a year round pond guppy? but that would take a lot of winters i would assume if it is possible)

Pond:
plan to pick up a kiddie pool as the pond so it can be taken down when not in use, plus they are cheap
kiddie pool will be the flexible plastic kind (don't know how to better describe it) not the hard plastic ones with fish pics on the bottom.
 
are you going to have a contingency plan in case the pool develops a leak (likely)?

what is your filtration setup going to be?

sounds like a fun idea.. just make sure you have everything you need. :)
 
Could work I would make it an in ground pond deeper than a kiddie pool.
lots of java moss or some other floating plant for cover
I don't what kind of birds you have but you will have to protect them form birds.
It is possible to get fancy guppies from all plain feeder guppies as that's how Fancy's came from. That would make your strain stronger. I know a guy in Spokane, Washington that has started a strain that way. It will take longer however.

Great idea as the guppy breed is very week now they are not the hardy fish they one were.
 
Brian, I am going to side with Draal5. The in ground pool makes more sense than the kiddie pool. By being in the ground, it will hold a more constant temperature longer into the colder months. This should help your guppies survive. As you said, you may be able to breed guppies that are cold tolerant but it depends how far outside their current temperature tolerance you go. If you go too far, they all die and you get to start over. If you just push the edges, you may, over time, develop a cold tolerant breed.
 
J double R said:
are you going to have a contingency plan in case the pool develops a leak (likely)?

what is your filtration setup going to be?

sounds like a fun idea.. just make sure you have everything you need. :)
Click to expand...

The contingency plan is to have a 55 gal rubbermaid bin to house fish in if a leak occurs that I catch in time (hopefully no catastrophic failures) and then get another kiddie pool (i think they are only $15-$25) and if there is a catastrophic failure... change tactics and get a 150-300 gal rubbermaid stocktank and use that.

I am hoping to keep it as low budget as possible. So that is why I am not going with the stocktank to begin with plus a stocktank will be hard to store in the winter (what is the point of a pond with nothing in it :huh:)

As for the filter, I'm going to go with 300 gal/hr pump plumbed to a 15 gal rubbermaid bin filled with either lava rock or pot scrubbers. The pump will be pre-filtered and the whole filter will just sit inside the pond so i wont have to worry about the plumbing. Also I was going to stock the pond with various floating plants that will eat up the nitrates and provide a hiding place for the fish.
 
Also to the in-ground pond. I live with the folks (can't beet free rent esp. when your in college) and I've run the pond idea by them at least a half dozen times and it was immediately shot down every time.
 
sundevil_brian said:
So here is the idea,
Get 5-10 fancy male guppies (best looking i find locally) and a bunch of feeder/wild female guppies and throw them in a pond for the summer (Live in AZ so the summer is loooooonnnnnnngggggg)
occasionally cull the dullest males and some females (feed to friends turtles or sell for store cred if i can) to keep the population in check and when some start to die from the cold, pull out the best looking males and females and keep them inside for the winter.
then repeat the process again with those fish next summer

Goals:
-breed nice looking healthy guppies but letting mother nature do a lot of the work
-Make guppies more resistant to cold (maybe even get a year round pond guppy? but that would take a lot of winters i would assume if it is possible a colorful mosquitofish? :D)

Pond:
plan to pick up a kiddie pool as the pond so it can be taken down when not in use, plus they are cheap
kiddie pool will be the flexible plastic kind (don't know how to better describe it) not the hard plastic ones with fish pics on the bottom.
Click to expand...

kiddie pools are not really meant to stay out in the winter all year round, especially with the off chance that there is a freeze-over
 
You'll almost certainly end up with mostly OEM guppys, as the fancy ones can't swim as fast for the purposes of surprise sexing the females.

Still, it could be a very interesting experiment.
 
An interesting experiment is basically all I'm going for. If I do get anything interesting like a fancy cold resistant guppy that will be great but if I just end up with a bunch of oem guppies i'm sure it would still be fun.

plus my friends could get plenty of feeders for free (even thought the cost for feeders is minimal)
 
Alright you've got my interest.

If your going to do it you might as well get off on the right foot. Now first off the wild populations of guppy have a much greater genetic variation than what is currently in aquariums. Even feeder guppy's have very little genetic variation in them. So your going to have to improve the genetic variation in you initial population. There has been some research done that shows that some strains of guppies can tolerate cold temperatures (55F) and other die quickly. I just read the abstract because I'm not paying $25 for the 1990 article from research done in Japan. Since I have no idea what strains have the tolerance and what don't, the key is diversity. Go to as many stores and buy as many different looking female fancy guppies as you can. The more you can find the better.

Next see if you can get feeder guppies from several different sources (males only). Again the more differences in their appearence the better.

Put the female fancies and the male feeders in your pond together when the water in the pool is at least 75F. Then let the fun begin (a little mood music won't hurt).

After 3-4 months when you have a ton of babies in your "pond", remove the original males and females. If you pick up some fancy males and have a spare tank available you can keep the fancy females that you like best inside. Then let nature take its course for the next few months. Hopefully you get at least 1 more generation before the water starts to cool down. At this point you will probably have a pond filled with all sort of mostly ugly fish.

Now when the weather starts to cool and the average temperature in the pond starts to drop carefully monitor the pond. Remove all of the fish that have died so you don't get an ammonia spike. Once you have lost 90-95% of the population bring all of the females inside and hold in a separate tank from the fancy's. Leave all the males in the pond. If any of the males survive the winter Eureka!! You've got your cold tolerance source.

Now during the second year let the females that survived the cooler water and a few fancy females into the pond with the male that survived. If no males survived the winter just toss in a few different types of fancy males into it.

Then let nature take it's course over the summer and allow the die-off to happen again in the winter. Repeat with taking in the 5-10% of the female survivors to overwinter and allow the males to take the harsh weather. Repeat this for 2 or 3 more years and you might have some very good looking hardy guppies.
 
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