Most breeders, including myself, use bare bottom tanks with box filters. This helps to let you know how dirty the tank is, and the filter will help with keeping the water areatied and clean. I use a 5 gallon tank when I first recieve my trio of guppies to put them in. I leave the male with my females for about 2-3 weeks, that way I will be sure they mated, then I move him to another tank and seperate the females into their own 5 gallon tank covered in plants (but no rock!). This will be where they drop the fry.

I use the method of Linebreeding, like I stated above. What I do, is I use one of my best males, and two of my best females and label my two females as either my A line or my B line. Then I continue down the lines using the brother to sister method, until about the 5th or 6th generation, then I cross the two together. My best A male to my best B female, and visa-versa then I start the whole process over again using different letters.

Aproximatly 28 days after their first mating, the females should drop young. After she is finished giving birth, I remove her immediatly, for, of course, she will eat the young.

I first start my culling the very day the babies are born; any fry with misshaped bodies or backs, any that are too dark in color are quickly removed. This goes on day after day, until I have the very best of my guppy strain.

When the fry are first born, I feed them crushed up dried brine shrimp, for they are very hungry little guys. After that, I try to feed them around every 2-4 hours, but of course, that is almost immpossible to keep up, but I feed them as soon as I can. I feed my fry the following:

freezed dried brine shrimp
freezed dried Tubifex worms
crushed up flake
a powered formula made just for baby guppies
dried blood worms

Another great food is live brine shrimp. I also sometimes fix up little "specialties" made fresh from scrapes for my baby gups. You should only feed your guppies very often the first month of the fry's life, for this is when they put their energy into growing, and the food will help them to grow more. After the first month you can slow down to about 4-5 feedings a day.

Water changes should be made every 2-3 days. This will provide the guppies always with the freshest of water, and they will live to be healthier. Also, you should clean out the bottom of the tank when you see lots of excess food on it. Your filter should be changed about every month, to keep the water pure and clean.

I don't really know by experence if lighting helps your guppies to grow, but I have heard it does. I provide my fry with about 5 hours, like the adults, of light per day. It would still be a good idea to have a hood with a lighting fixture.

You can start sexing your fry at about 2 weeks of age. I, myself, get rid of all the lower quality females and males, then I pick out my breeders for the next lot and sell the rest of my gups. I don't sex mine until about 1-2 months, but it would probably be a good idea to sex them as early as possible.

I hope this information has helped you to get started in breeding these wonderful animals. But just remember to be patient, and also remember to get a good strain from a good breeder, if you start off wrong, you could just end up wasting your time and producing worse and worse fish, but, if you start out right, you will be glad you got into the hobby of breeding and you will be greatly rewarded with beautiful fish.