Overpopulated Guppy Fries

The Guppy Fries have been with us for a few months now, with them settling down in the Main Tank and Guppy Tank, a majority in the latter.

Since the first batch of fries belonging to Pretty, there were already some of them with some in-born deformities. Some of them had a ‘curved-upwards’ spine, some had bloated stomachs and some had unknown organs/parts sticking out of their bodies. Despite these ailments, we continued to keep them with us, treating them equal with the other fries.

However, it might have come to the time when they would have to say goodbye to these fries, as the bioload on the Guppy Tank is getting quite overloaded. It was until recently that we noticed the wastes produced by the 100+ fries in the tank are increasing substantially, and the gravel is partially covered by them. This is despite my weekly water change which includes siphoning out the debris on the gravel.

Previously this was not as much of a problem since the fries were still quite young, but as they grew up now, the quantity of their wastes also increases.

Therefore it has come to a point whereby we have to perform the selective process to remove some of the unfortunate souls. Sadly in this case, we will have to choose those with the ailments mentioned above. Some of them might have parasites in their bodies, which could cause problem for the other fries in the same tank too.

For example for this fry (offspring of Fei Fei), he has some unknown body parts protruding of his body, and recently we have noticed he has really long poop (basically a few times of his length!), which might mean some intestinal parasite problem with him.

We have not decided what to do with them, but transferring them into some other locations would be the most viable choice. We would not be so cruel as to cull them through say, freezing or flushing them down the toilet, or whatever methods some hobbyists do to end the lives of their unwanted fishes. It’s not viable to give it to people or fish shops, since these deformed fishes would probably be unwanted or land up as feeders (i.e. food for other fishes).

It’s sad to let them go, but sometimes these decisions have to be made to ensure the healthy growth of the other fries.

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