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Art Colony: Guppies
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
› by victoria
I got 4 guppies on tuesday. 3 males and one female. Originally I intended to pick out only this vivid yellow delta guppy, but I ended up getting one with a blood-red tail and his little friend who got caught in the net as well. The female was the last one the store had left, so I got her as well.
This is a twelve-gallon ECLIPSE system tank that they are abiding in, along with eight baby neon tetras. The tank has been running for about 5 weeks now and seems to have gotten into balance (*new aquariums have a problem with nitrogen/ammonia buildup, since the beneficial bacteria haven't had the chance to grow in numbers).
I try to make sure they get a balanced diet of freeze-dried bloodworms, tropical treat frozen food and tetramin. Apparently, however, the bigger red male guppy isn't doing so well. I am hoping that they are not sick. A few google searches revealed that fancy guppies are prone to mysterious maladies that can kill them randomly, even more so than most fish (thanks a lot for not mentioning that small detail, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AQUARIUM FISHES).
Hopefully they will survive. I intend to get 2 more female guppies to try and equalize out the ratio a bit. Since guppies are poeciliids (live-bearers), the males spend about 80% of their time chasing the female.
My first pet--the one that started it all--was a feeder guppy. I still remember bringing it home from Blue Ribbon pets, the store that used to be on Oakland Ave. where Sergei's Hair Salon is now. I was listening to the "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" record (my early childhood soundtrack was exclusively vinyl--when my parents bought an AIWA sound system and a sony Walkman, that was a big deal for me) and watching the little guppy swim around enthusiastically. Of course there were a few "Amelie"-esque instances where the guppy leapt out of the bowl, but we caught them most of the time.
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