Guppy Fish Aquarium Tank Setup And Caring

The satisfaction we get in caring our pets especially for guppies is inexpressible. It’s really easy to take care of guppy fish in aquarium tank, but initially you need to work on it until  you set a natural environment suitable for your new pets like guppies.

MAINTAINING THE TANK

Guppies are the most beautiful and colourful freshwater fish on the entire aquatic world. They are inexpensive due to their size and also easy to take care. But you should be patient and need to put some effort in caring and maintaining them safely.

• Get a container or a fish bowl of at least ten gallons to set up a school of guppies and connect a filter heater and air pump to it.
• Fill the water with chessil or gravel and decorate the bed of the box with pebbles and Aquatic plants.
• Do not dump too many plants or flower vases and make the space smaller, though the guppies are very tiny, they need large space to live happily.
• Before schooling your guppies create an aquatic atmosphere which should be healthy and seem natural.
• In order to keep your guppies happy, healthier and strong sufficient fresh water needs to be supplied.
• Do not dump more than five guppies in a tank of ten gallons and overload the tank. The more fish you add the more you need to change the water and clean the tank.
• The size of guppies differ from each other, male guppies are typically 1.5-3.5cm long which is 0.6-1.4 inches, while female guppies are 3-6cm long, which is 1.2-2.4 inches. Therefore five fish can form a happy and healthy school in ten gallons of water, approximately, 40 litres of water can be filled in the tank.

WATER CONDITION

Almost all the taps water we use has some amount of chlorine in it. But guppies survive healthily in purified, filtered and distilled water which doesn’t have chlorine content in it.

It is very important to de-chlorinate the tank water.

METHODS OF DE-CHLORINATING THE WATER

You can follow the following methods to remove chlorine from water.

• First of all you should let the chlorine evaporate from the water by keeping the lid of a tank open and sit for at least a week.
• You can also buy a chlorine testing kit which is available in the nearby super market or aquatic store.
• De-chlorinate the water in tank or the water you add into the tank in future by following the instructions given on the kit.
• The power of hydrogen measuring less than 7 is said to be acidic and solutions with a ph level greater than 7 are basic or alkaline, so keeping this in mind try to maintain the ph level between 6.8 to 7.8, in order to keep your fish healthy and strong it’s important to keep the ph level balanced.
• Make a habit of measuring the ph level of water regularly using a litmus paper ph metre regularly and adjust as per the requirement.
• To stabilize the ph level of water decrease the ph by using an acid buffer or increase it by using an alkaline buffer. Purchase the alkaline and acid buffers from the nearby super market or aquarium store.

TEMPERATURE

• To monitor the temperature of the tank, thermometer should be kept in the tank.
• The temperature should be between 75 and 80 degree Fahrenheit.
• Do not keep the aquarium in sunlight rather use an artificial light such as heater, according to the size of your aquarium.
• Avoid overheating your aquarium, if by mistake the water gets over heated, remove some capacity of the warm water so that the temperature decreases slowly

FILTERING THE TANK

• While you purchase an aquarium make sure that it is equipped with a filtration system. Prefer sponge filters as they do not such up small guppies or fry.
• Whenever you clean your tank you need to check the filter media. If you find filter media appears brownish in color then change it immediately.

• In order to keep your tank healthy and hygienic, prefer the best media available in the market.
• You can also use ceramic media which is good for behooveful bacteria and help the tank to keep strong and hygienic for guppies.
• You can also use a new technique of changing the water with the help of aquarium water changer. This would be the easiest method of changing water in an aquarium. Buy the best water changer available in the market.
• Whenever you clean an aquarium make sure that you clean the surface of the aquarium which consists of chessil and rocks. It is very important to clean the bottom part of your aquarium as everything goes and sinks to the bottom of it.
• You can also buy a gravel vaccum available in any aquatic store and which is one of the common method of cleaning the surface of an aquarium. This vaccum removes more than 80% of the waste present on the gravel.
• Whenever you clean the tank make sure that you are not removing all the bacteria at once, so replace only half of your media at one time to retain the good bacteria in it.

The good bacteria which are present in the media of the filter play an important role in cleaning out the toxic substances excreted by fish which are harmful and poisonous and gets dissolve and contaminate their own water.

Therefore the mechanical system of the filter will not remove these harmful substances. Only beneficial bacteria can transform these highly poisonous substances into much lesser poisonous substances. Before starting an aquarium with a school of fish you need to set it up and do the cycling process wherein you need to train the good bacteria by feeding them with fish food once in three days but make sure that there isn’t single fish in an aquarium. So that the behooveful bacteria are ready to do their work at once the fish are put in an aquarium.

EMBELLISHING THE TANK

• Add plants and decorations to your tank and if you are planning on breeding guppies you need thick supply of plants for the fry (younger guppies) so that they can hide in these bushy plants, which make you easier while you need to shuffle the babies in another tank, otherwise do not overfill the tank with too many plants.
• Embellish your tank with live aquatic plants, colourful gravel, rocks and ornaments made of glass, granite, slate and pebbles. Do not dump all these ornaments in the centre, better keep them aside and make the aquarium spacious for your guppies to move about. The more you decorate your tank in a creative way with live aquarium plants the more it looks beautiful. Live plants require more care as they are helpful in nitrogen cycle.

FEEDING OF GUPPIES

• When you have taken the responsibility of taming and caring these tiny beautiful creatures called guppies, you also need to learn about the food habits of your beloved guppies and what they like to be fed more and also make sure that the food you provide is a right food or not. The wrong food may cause health issues and may be bad for your guppy growth.
• There are various types of food with different brands for your guppies available in the market. Some brands of food are full of fillers and some are ‘main stream foods’ which are very harmful for your guppies. You need to be very selective and detective in buying guppies food. You can also give your guppies traditional flakes too.
• Do not over feed your guppies with large amount of food. The size of the stomach of a guppy is just the size of their eyes. Over feeding may also block their intestines.
• Feed your guppies with little amount of food 2-4 times in a day.
• Hence guppy is a tropical fish, look out for the tropical food such as, Omega or Tetra colour Tropical flakes. If you don’t get tropical food you can opt for live and freeze dried food such as, brine shrimp, dried blood worms, earthworm flakes, white worms and daphnia.
• Feeding live food more may cause diseases, it is advisable to feed freeze dried food though they aren’t nutritious but protect your guppies from harmful diseases.
• If you want to avoid high protein food, you can balance protein with veggies like lettuce, peas and cucumber.
• Do not keep excess of food in the aquarium remove the extra food if any after feeding.
• If the temperature of the water is very low then the metabolism of your guppies will also slow down.
• The metabolic rate of your guppies depends upon the temperature of the water, as the temperature increase the metabolic of rates of guppies do increase.
• It is advisable to keep your guppies in warmer water for their better growth.

NECESSITY OF LIGHT

• Like we humans guppies also need both light and darkness. Guppies need maximum darkness of about 8 hours. Too much darkness or less than this may distort their growth.
• In order to replicate their natural habitat avoid natural source of light and prefer artificial light with timer, if in case the sun doesn’t rise even for a single day may affect the natural habitat of guppies.
• Fix a light over the tank and set it on a timer or buy a ‘plug in timer’ for your light, so that it can turn on and off regularly at the same time.

If you try to on and off manually everyday you may tend to forget it and that causes irregularity in their daily habitat. Overlook for the health of your guppies in all the ways by providing them with proper light, food, water and temperature so that they flourish and grow healthily.