Guppies are one of the easiest and hardiest fish to take care of. This makes them one of most popular fish in the aquarium hobby. In this care guide you will learn everything you need to know about keeping guppies in an aquarium. We will start with the amount of guppies you can keep in your aquarium, what is required to be in your aquarium, where the water parameters should ideally be at, feeding, behavior and compatibility with other fish and diseases and treatment.
If you are a new aquarist or thinking about getting some guppies, we would first advice you to get your tap water tested. You can do this by buying some water test strips, or bringing some water to your local fish store (LFS). This way, you will know if the basic water coming from your tap is sufficient, of you will need to get into more advanced methods of fish-keeping by changing your water parameters.
Number of guppies in a tank
As a simple, average, rule, you would be able to keep 1 guppy per 1.5 gallons of water. Keep in mind though, that this is not equal to the size of your aquarium. As substrate, ornaments and other things in your aquarium will decrease the actual amount of water you will have inside the aquarium.
5 gallon tank (20 liters)
A 5 gallon tank is the smallest possible tank you can use to keep any guppies. For this aquarium size, we recommend three guppies maximum. But as guppies are known reproduce really fast, you will probably run out of space before you know it. Therefore we think a 10 or 20 gallon tank would be better.
10 gallon tank (45 liters)
A 10 gallon tank would be good for approximately 5 to 10 guppies. The range also depends on the filter you will be using and if you will add any living plants. If you would add some fast growing plants to your aquarium, they can significantly help in the filtration and make your water stay healthy for your fish. When going with 10 guppies, you will also need to do more frequent water changes.
20 gallon tank (90 liters)
You would be able to keep a good amount of guppies in a 20 gallon tank. When combining life plants with a good filtration system that overfilters your aquarium, you would be able to keep 15 to 20 guppies in your tank. If you would add a fast growing moss, like flame moss, to your aquarium, young guppy fry will also have a nice place to hide from the adult fish.
In this case, we would advice you to start out with a lower number of guppies, for example 6, with two males and four females. This way you will be able to enjoy seeing new life appear in your aquarium and baby fish growing into adults without immediately having to bring your new guppy fry to friends and family of the LFS.
Bigger tanks
With fish-keeping a bigger tank is always better, especially for beginner aquarists. This is because the water parameters in the tank will fluctuate a lot less when you are doing your water changes and the overall ecosystem will remain more stable. As with the 20 gallon tank, we would advice you to start out with a smaller group of guppies than the tank can handle, to enjoy seeing new life appear in your aquarium.
To get an idea of the amount of guppies you can keep, take the size of the tank you are planning to go with, remove the average height of the substrate you plan to put in the bottom of the tank and calculate the remaining volume by multiplying the width, height and depth of the aquarium.
Tank setup
In the wild, guppies live in greatly diverse habitats. This also gives you a lot of options on how to setup your tank. We will take a deeper look at this going from bottom to top.
Substrate
On the bottom of the tank we find the substrate. Although you can go with a “bare bottom”, meaning no substrate on the bottom, we would advice to provide your guppies with a type of substrate that doesn’t have any sharp edges. This way, your beloved guppies will not damage their bodies or long fins on the substrate. The substrate in your tank will also provide an area for beneficial bacteria to live in, and these you definitely want in your aquatic ecosystem
Plants, rocks, driftwood and ornaments
Plants, rocks, driftwood and ornaments are what generally, besides the fish of course, define the look of your aquarium.
Plants
Guppies do prefer to have some amount of live plants in their aquarium. Live plants will have a number of benefits for your aquarium, as they will use the nitrates in your aquarium for new growth. If you do not know what these are, read up on the nitrate cycle. It’s an important part of fishkeeping. They will also provide hiding places for young guppies or if your fish doesn’t want to socialize with the others and rest for a bit.
Rocks
Rocks are not necessary for guppies, but you could use them to build a cool cave hideout or create a certain look in your aquarium.
Driftwood
Driftwood also isn’t necessary for a happy and healthy guppy life. But feel free to use it in your guppy aquarium if you want to use it to create a certain look and feel.
Ornaments
Ornaments are never required for any fish in an aquarium, but they can add to giving your aquarium a certain theme or style. You could, for example add an ornament that allows for bubbles to come out. Besides adding a nice esthetic touch to your aquarium, the air bubbles will also increase the oxygen in your water.
Tank lid
A tank lid is strongly advised when keeping guppies. University of Maryland biologist Daphne Soares did a study on jumping guppies. She decided to do this study, after one of her guppies jumped from the aquarium into her iced chai tea. in this study, it was recorded that guppies can jump up to eight times their body length, at astonishing speeds of more than four feet (1.22 meter) per second!
It is suspected that, in nature, guppies do this to take advantage of all the available habitat. This prevents inbreeding and competing for resources with their own kin.
Water parameters
Guppies generally are a hardy fish, this allows them to be in a huge range and variety of water conditions. It is, unfortunately, also a given that many guppies sold in pet stores can be fairly weak. This is due to inbreeding for their colors and shapes and because they are kept in overcrowded conditions. This makes them more susceptible to disease.
To give your guppies a healthy environment and a good chance of survival and recovering from any potential disease, they require a PH of 7 to 8.5. They also like harder water with good amounts of calcium, magnesium and other essential minerals.
The optimal temperature range for guppies is 76 to 78°F, 24.5 to 26.5°C. Within this range, your guppies should live for about 2 to 3 years on average. If you lower the temperature to 72°F, 22°C, your guppies can live up to 3 and half years, or longer. A possible benefit will also be that they may only breed every 6 months, but the fry will take forever to grow up which in turn increases the chance of them becoming a snack for the other adults.
Feeding
Guppies are not picky eaters and will eat just about anything. As they are omnivores, a varied diet will greatly contribute to their overall health and lifespan. It is best to feed your guppies once or twice a day, but not more than they can eat within a single minute.
In case you have baby guppies (guppy fry) you can increase the feeding to 3 or 5 times per day, but in much smaller mounts. Otherwise the tank may have a spike in ammonia which is really bad for your fish.
Guppies van be fed mini pellets, flakes, bloodworms, brine shrimp and daphnia. When feeding your guppies frozen foods, make sure to thaw it before adding it to your aquarium.
Make sure to not overfeed your guppies, we all know they are the cutest little beggars for food, but overfeeding often leads to constipation and other health issues.
Compatibility
Guppies can be kept in a community aquarium or as a single species tank. If you want to add more than just guppies to your tank, there is a wide range of compatible fish. In general all peaceful fish that are of a similar size and thrive in the same conditions will do good.
Some examples of other types of fish that will go well with your guppies are platies, swortails, corydora catfish and loaches. Guppies will also do well with shrimp and snails. I case you want to add shrimp, make sure the baby shrimp will have enough places to hide, so they wont become a snack for the adult guppies. But as the same goes for guppy fry, we could assume you already have this covered in your aquarium.
Endlers can also work well with your guppies, but you should know that endlers and guppies can crossbreed and create hybrids.
If you want to setup a community aquarium, it’s very important to keep the size of the aquarium in mind. With guppies being prolific breeders, the aquarium can become crowded and this can lead to a aggression among the fish.
Disease and treatment
We already touched on this subject a little bit in this care guide while talking about the ideal water parameters for guppies. The best way to prevent disease for guppies, and basically all fish is to keep them in water that has parameters suitable for them, is kept clear by regular water changes and a good and varied diet.
Some disease you might encounter with guppies are ich, fin rot, dropsy and swim bladder disease.
- Ich is a common parasitic infection that can cause white spots on the fish's body and fins. It can be treated with over-the-counter medications or by raising the temperature of the water to around 86°F (30°C) for a few days.
- Fin rot is a bacterial infection that can cause the fins to become frayed and ragged. It can be treated with antibiotics and by maintaining good water quality. This means doing a lot of frequent small water changes up to twice a day.
- Dropsy is a symptom of an underlying illness, and can cause the fish to develop a swollen abdomen and raised scales. It can be difficult to treat, and may require you to isolate the fish in its own tank and the use of antibiotics.
- If your fish is has difficulty swimming it can be Swim Bladder disease. It can be caused by a variety of things, including poor water quality, overfeeding or injury. Treating swim bladder disease can be difficult and may involve changing their diet and staying on top of excellent water quality.
Conclusion
In conclusion, guppies are an ideal fish for the beginning fishkeeper, and with their extremely colorful bodies and interesting behaviour they are even a staple for those most experienced in the hobby.
If you chose to keep them in a planted tank it can become a living piece of art that will impress you and everyone else every time you take a look in your beautiful tank. Finding guppies everywhere, swimming in and out of plants and coming to you like little puppies begging for food when you dare to come close.
All in all, keeping guppies can be a very rewarding and joyful experience.