by David Walburger

A friend of mine raised pure bred guppies while we were in college. When I learned what he did, I asked him why spend your time with those tiny nondescript mongrel fish? He proceeded to introduce me to an amazing hobby that I think few know about. Guppies are The Dogs of the fish world due to the impressive amount of varieties, 65 distinct classes. I found that the guppy breeding hobby even has its own International Society. I felt like I was in a Twilight Zone or X-Files episode. When first seeing the amount of fish that my friend raised in his attic, I thought, maybe this guy really is insane.

My friend’s attic looked like a full-fledged pet store, having over 100 tanks (he now has 300+) with a dozen distinct and amazing varieties: Blues, Greens, Yellows, Reds, Purples, Albinos, Snake-skinned, Metallics, Veil-tailed, Delta-tailed, Sword-tailed...

I said to him, These are not Guppies - these are not the small patchy colored fish that I’ve seen the pet stores. When I asked my friend about the difference, I was told that the pet stores often get fish raised in rice fields or in big concrete tanks in China or Malaysia or are the failed experiments of local breeders. By now I was thoroughly impressed. I thought to myself that if he can do it, I could---how hard could it be?

Then began the nightmare...

I knew nothing about raising fish. So I picked up a used fish tank at the local fish store for 20 bucks. It had an undergravel filter with gravel, a heater, and a power-head. I also picked up a small end-table for a stand and like a true novice knowing nothing about chemical and biological filters, threw in fish and water and waited for them to grow. I was fortunate that the chlorinated water didn’t kill the fish and there must have been enough live bacteria still in the gravel for the Nitrate cycle to be controlled enough.

My first problem that I ran into was my fish wouldn’t reproduce---it’s not too impressive to be a fish breeder and not be able to get any babies---so I tested for Nitrate and Ammonia levels; they were fine. I didn’t know what else to do, so I did some research and found that guppies like hard water. I went out and bought a water hardness kit and tested the water. I first thought that I was using the kit wrong because every time that I tested my water, it came out zero---nothing. The kit tests both Carbonate and General Hardness. So I had discovered I had very soft water and it would be the last time I would be annoyed with it.

About this time my attention was drawn to a more critical problem---the pH of the water in the tank was dropping rapidly. No one had told me that you needed to clean an undergravel filter. By the time I discovered where the problem was coming from, it had been six months since the gravel had been cleaned and the pH had dropped to about 6.0. What saved the tank was there was almost 4 inches of small gravel with a powerhead for circulation.

To compound the problem of not cleaning the gravel bed, I had been feeding the guppies a very high protein diet. Serious guppy hobbyists feed their fish a very high protein diet and frequently, up to six times a day. It is not uncommon for a guppy breeder to feed flake food three times a day, live baby brine shrimp (BBS) a couple times a day, and other high proteins foods like worms, flies, and beef heart pastes, a couple times a week.

All this food going in the tank was a real problem for my undergravel filter and poses a serious problem for guppy breeders trying to keep clean water for their guppies. Most serious breeders change their water often, some up to every day. I think what saved my fish was that even though I didn’t know to clean my gravel, I was told to change my water twice a week.

By this time, I had acquired basic aquaria skills learned through trial and error. I turned my attention on my soft water problem. I made a lot of phone calls and found that my water came from a local body of water and not from a well. I had two reasons to fix my soft water problem. The first was that my guppies wanted hard water to be happy and happy fish breed better. The second was that my water had no buffering capacity.

I ended up using a commercial water hardener to raise the hardness to 10-15 degrees total hardness (dH). It worked very well without altering the pH, but it was very expensive.

I experimented with several methods of increasing the carbonate hardness to control the dive in pH due to the high amount of food that I fed. Most commercial buffers are phosphate based and do not contribute to overall carbonate hardness. Non-phosphate based buffers that I tried were rapidly degraded by the bacteria in the tank and back came my problem with the low pH again. I eliminated the use of coral or other natural substrates that are supposed to dissolve in your water. The problem that I saw (after investigating and quizzing a friend that used coral), was that the hardness and buffering capacity were not high enough and varied with the age of the substrate and pH. I decreased the amount of food that I fed, but even then my water was so soft I would experience ~0.5 pH shift from one water change to another of my bi-weekly changes.

I ended up using normal baking soda (Sodium Bicarbonate) to increase the carbonate hardness of my water from ~0 to 3-4 degrees of carbonate hardness (dKH). I found that 3-4 degrees dKH worked with the feeding level, so well that I reduced my water changes to once a week! The problem that I found with using baking soda was that the pH would creep up on me until my water was about pH 8. This was not good. After trying a couple different sources to pH down my water, I discovered that products that used bivalent acids (e.g. sulfuric acid, H₂SO₄) would hold the pH much better than monovalent acids (e.g. hydrochloric acid, HCl).

For those who dreaded chemistry in high school and went skiing instead of going to class in college, mono and bi refer to the number of Hydrogen ions (H+) in a single molecule of acid. I was using HCl (only one H+) rather than phosphoric acid H₂PO₄ (two H+) which was the main ingredient in pH Down a product of Aquaria Pharmaceuticals which you can get at any pet store. (I noticed recently that my pH was a bit off after mixing up my water a few weeks ago - I discovered that they changed from phosphoric to Sulfuric Acid, also bivalent but not quite as good due to the extra buffering ability of the PO₄^2- ion).

All this water adjusting now required that I mix up my water for my guppies separately in another container: hardening, buffering, and pH-ing. I was not too pleased with this route, but it seemed to be for the best direction with the water that I had. In actuality, having soft water is not too bad--- it does give you the opportunity to adjust your water conditions however you want---if you have the patience.

By now my Guppies were starting to reproduce, how be it very slowly. I began to see that I could not realistically raise quality guppies in one tank. Male guppies can breed between one and two months of age. This creates a problem in that you do not want males impregnating your best females in a willy-nilly fashion. Guppy genetics are complex and do not follow classical Medelian fashion. Because of this, one may only have a few show-quality guppies from two show-quality fish - so you need to separate male and female fry.

Many serious guppy breeders use 14 tanks for each line of guppies that they carry. A common line-breeding scheme begins with two females, and from each of their prodigy, the best male and female are selected, and so on for six more generations at which point, the best females are bred back to the first male of the other line and the whole process is begun again in order to keep vigor and avoid removing variability.

At this point, I had multiple clear plastic containers with holes in them hanging on the inside of all four sides of my 20 gallon tank with offspring in all of them. I could see that this was going to get out of hand very quickly. A purchase of a ten gallon tank to hold some of the less desirable fish until they could be sold to a pet store, relieved some of the pressure but I needed more room. I prepared my wife for the question very carefully...

We live in a one bedroom apartment while we are saving for a house and paying off college expenses. For all of you that have lived in a one bedroom apartment, you know that space is a premium and one has to get creative to put multiple of anything in them. My apartment did have a relatively large storage closet that my wife managed to fill with old knickknacks and wedding gifts, but also important things which didn’t have regular use or storage places in the main living area. The storage closet is four feet wide and about 10 ft. long - perfect for multiple 10 gallon tanks.

I prepped myself for all of the objections that I could think of (there were quite a few), and came up with solutions for all of them. It required shuffling of our stuff and some sacrifices on both of our parts.

My wife was not really keen on my fish hobby for a while after one of her wall ornaments began bleeding green dye down the wall. It was a beautiful wreath she had made that had several parts dyed green. It bled because the 20 gallon tank was not completely covered and the condensation of the heated water was making the air very humid - we would turn the heat down at night when went to bed. Interestingly enough, after putting about 6 coats of paint on that wall, you could still see the green dye, oops...

After converting the storage closet to the Guppy Room, I began to see how much work keeping multiple tanks was going to be. So I decided to spend some of my fish time discovering how I could streamline and simplify the time and cost of caring for my fish and finding more time for admiring and selecting breeders.

One of the first things that I tried was to remove the carbon from the box-filters in the smaller tanks - almost all of the guppies eventually stopped having babies. I wanted to test the observation that I had made when my guppies were not reproducing in the beginning. A friend of mine who raises fish has live plants in her tanks and this interested me with the beauty that it contributed. I introduced plants into my 20 gallon tank and went through the process of learning about correct levels of nutrients, minerals, and CO₂ that the plants need. I noticed that the fertility of my guppies increased with the addition of plants to the tank---they started having more and larger drops of fry.

Plants and carbon absorb and adsorb respectively dissolved organics from the water. Dissolved organics mainly in the form of proteins and waste can increase rapidly to the point where it will inhibit reproduction---so I’ve read. My undergravel filter was a great biological filter when kept clean, and it kept the Nitrate cycle under control, but it was not able to deal with dissolved organics---especially with the amount of food that I was feeding. I put the carbon back in the filters and the fertility of the guppies came back (I probably should not have taken the carbon out of all of the tanks at the same time).

Now my problem was the amount of money that I was spending on carbon. I needed to use a lot of carbon with a dozen tanks and change it frequently with the amount of food I fed. I was spending $15-20 per month on carbon alone. I thought why can’t some one use the carbon again? The proteins and carbon-based compounds adsorb (or stick to the surface) to the carbon because it is very similar (hydrophobic interactions). The only difference between the proteins and the carbon is that the proteins have extra Hydrogen and Sulfur and Oxygen atoms. The carbon used to have those same atoms until it was burned, releasing those atoms as water vapor and smoke. Why can’t I do the same and regenerate the surface of the carbon by burning the attached organics into carbon?

I tested in my oven - it works - takes about 3-4 hours and appears to be about as good as fresh carbon - I am still in the process of fine-tuning the process.

I also wanted to get away from buying the commercial water hardener that was very expensive. I was pretty proud of my self for the solution that I came up with - It solved two problems. I was looking for a mechanical dehumidifier at the local home and garden centers hoping to find one that was not too expensive so that I could run my tanks in my fish room without covers. I couldn’t find one anywhere (they are common in the East and South where humidity is big problem). I did find a little chemical dehumidifier that uses pure calcium chloride pellets to pull the water vapor from the air. There is a water container underneath the pellets that catches the water as it drips off of the pellets. This water is saturated calcium chloride---thick as syrup. I now use several in the house and fish room to keep the humidity down - it works very well.

Since water hardness is due almost wholly to Calcium and Magnesium in the water, I though why not use the saturated calcium chloride water in the dehumidifier to harden my water without buying the expensive water hardener. It works well, I also add magnesium sulfate (Epsom Salts) at 1/8th of the amount of saturated calcium chloride I add. This started me thinking why not try and by more self reliant in taking care of my fish---try to make it less work and less expensive.

So I focused my thinker at the volumes of food that I fed my fish in a hope of streamlining something there. I feed my fish baby brine shrimp (BBS) once a day, flake twice a day, decapsulated brine shrimp eggs once a day, and beef heart paste with vitamins and essential fatty acids a couple times a week.

Most serious fish breeders and owners have attempted to hatch BBS or do so on a regular basis. The process is a messy labor intensive process. I tried to simplify the separation process due to the fact that it takes a lot of time and I buy the 70% hatch eggs which means that 30% of the eggs are not going to hatch no matter what you do and probably more if you conditions are not favorable or your eggs are old. While the shells of the hatched shrimp float to the surface, the unhatched do not and remain floating suspended from the top to the bottom of your container. Its not good to feed your fish unhatched eggs as the shells are indigestible and can cause digestion difficulties. So most people will place a light next to the container and stick a piece of air tubing into the container and spend a long time trying to siphon out the shrimp as they very slowly swim toward the light and try not too many of the eggs or shells.

Out of sheer frustration at the time it took and the total mess it made, I came up with an easy method of separating the shrimp and eggs and shells. You place your container in the refrigerator or in some ice and when the water cools down, the BBS will fall to the bottom as they stop swimming (they are more dense than the water) and the shells rise to the top. If you have good quality eggs, at this point you just pour off the water and shells - TaaDaa... you have your shrimp ready to feed. This also concentrates the shrimp so that you don’t have to screen in a net or coffee-filter (less time and mess!).

If you have my problem with poor eggs or old eggs, there is just a side step to the trick. Triple the amount of salt (salt is cheap) in the water after hatching by dumping some more in and mixing. Cool as before and by tripling the salt you take advantage of the fact that unhatched eggs are less dense than hatched shrimp, at that concentration the unhatched eggs and shells will float the surface and the hatched shrimp will sink---TaaDaa.... Brine shrimp are very resistant to high salt for a short time. If you want to keep the shrimp alive for a while, just dilute back to your starting salt concentration with water - and your done!

The next thing that I tried was to raise my own food rather than buy it all. Most hobbyist have cringed from time to time when looking at the price of fish food---especially at some of the more exotic foods. I tried raising everything from wingless fruit flies (much to the horror of my wife when she found an escapee taking a stroll one day), to vinegar eels, to white worms, to fresh water crustaceans like Daphnia. All of them were more trouble than they were worth or not nutritious enough to worry about.

My thinking was that Mother Nature does an excellent job of taking care of everyone in her food chain ---each level providing food for the other... So through a lot of trial and error (plenty of that) I have a semi-recycling ecosystem in my fish room. The fish waste (mulm) is transferred to a large aerated and highly lighted tank that grows single celled organisms and algae which in turn feeds the most nutritious of the fresh water crustaceans called Moina or Russian Daphnia. It is a fourth of the size of regular Daphnia and its young are small enough for fry to eat. More over, the Moina will live in the water eating bacteria and fungi until they are eaten by the fish. I tried lots of different combination of additives to grow algae (funny eh?) from Miracle Grow to tree fertilizer spikes---and found that regular fish mulm and a good micronutrient with iron works the best--- (I also mix up my own as the store versions are insanely expensive).

I use the green water that I raise for more than just raising food for my guppies, I also use it as a filtration source. Many fish farms and even a number of serious hobbyists are using algae scrubbers as a water purifying mechanism. An algae scrubber consists of a number of macro-algaes in a trough where water is periodically dumped into before returning to the tank. The algae trough is lit with a high intensity light and part of the algae is periodically removed.

I raise my fry in green water for the first month with no additional filtration or aeration. Even with a heavy feeding schedule, the green water absorbs excess nutrients and keep the pH and Nitrate levels in a realistic range.

An additional benefit of raising in green water is that the fry will eat the algaes free floating in the water---their bellies are always round even when they have not been fed all day. As many fish breeders know, proper nutrition and plenty of it when young can make a big difference on the size and health of the fish as it grows to adulthood.

I now raise four different pure lines of guppies. Most people still do a double-take when I tell them that I raise guppies --- Guppies...? What for...? But they sing a different tune when the come over to see them. Guppies can be very impressive fish if good stock is raised correctly.

So that is how I have managed to raise multiple lines of purebred guppies in a one bedroom apartment --- please not for the faint hearted for sure...