Everyone is curious about why guppies eat their own babies while the other animals are protective of their young ones. You can help the babies grow well and stay protected from other fish that are disturbing them.

How to Stop Guppies from Eating Their Babies?

You can easily stop guppy fish from eating their babies by keeping both of them separate from each other. You can keep the babies in a separate tank with slightly warmer temperatures and some toys to play with. By giving them the right amount of nutritious food, you can help them grow well. The decorations should have smooth corners so that they may not hurt your pet. Furthermore, you should also keep the babies away from the fighter fish. 

Actually, it a strange kind of protective behavior of fish to eat their own babies so that no other fish can harm them or kill them. 

They feel sorry seeing their babies worried because of others and getting hurt. But you can help them getting relief from this stress and tension.

Doing this will also relieve the parent fish that their kids are in safe hands, although laterally, they do not recognize their babies so much. 

How to Stop Guppies from Eating Their Babies?

After doing entire detailed research, we have come to some solutions for protecting fish babies from being eaten by their own parents. Here we go for a step-by-step procedure.

Step 1: Prepare a Separate Aquarium

When you see your guppy fish giving birth to its offspring, the first thing that you should do is to get ready for preparing a new aquarium. You can use these test strips (Amazon) to check the pH of water.

Set up the aquarium with pure water which has no hardness in it because baby fish are supposed to live in it. Besides this, keep a heater for keeping the water temperature slightly warm because babies need slightly warm water for living, right from their birth. 

Furthermore, if you want a school training kit or toys; you can go for it but it is not so necessary for them. The tank which you set up for the little guests should have enough lighting and some hiding places in it. 

The pH and water parameters should be regularly checked in that aquarium. You should not use any big filter in this kind of aquarium because baby fish can get stuck in it. Still, you can use the sponge filter for them which is completely safe.

Step 2: Use Net to Put the Babies In new Tank 

Now, it’s time to put the babies in the tank which you have set for them. Never use your hands to hold the baby fish as they are so tiny and get hurt easily. 

You should use a small net and catch the fish babies in it and put them in a new tank soon after their hatching or live birth. 

Make sure that the babies do not get afraid of fishnet coming towards them. You must put them gently in their new place.

Now, fry is separate from their parent guppies and there is no danger to them to be eaten by any big fish. 

Do not worry about separating the young fish from their mother because the mother eats them and their good lies in getting apart from them.

Step 3: Feed the Baby Fish Nutritious Food

During their first few days, they should be fed with few drops of infusoria with the help of a dropper. 

After that feed your fish the fish food and flakes. Then, you can start other feeds like worms, plant leaves, boiled peas, etc. Many people use automatic aquarium fish feeder in their fish tank.

A living organism is what it eats on a daily basis so these feeds will help guppy babies to grow well. You should also try to keep the guppies entertained.

Step 4: Keep the Guppy Babies Safe

When the fish babies are separated from the adult fish, they are already safe and sound. Yet you should also adopt some of the precautionary measures to keep them safe. 

Like you should make all of the corners of ornaments, tank decorations, and rocks smooth so that fish body might not get hurt while swimming around these objects. 

By performing all of the steps, you can stop guppies from eating their babies. It is a great pleasure seeing the new small fish swimming in the tank.

Step 5: Use a Breeding Box 

If you can not set up a separate aquarium for the baby guppy then you can use a breeder box. It is a plastic box that can be used inside the aquarium. 

Buy a breeder box for fry and put it in the already set aquarium. The water flow will keep going but there will be no way for big fish to enter inside and harm the little ones. 

Step 6: Place Lots of Plants 

Another best thing that you can do to stop guppies from eating their babies is to keep different plants in your aquarium. The babies will hide in those plants and big fish will not be able to eat them. 

Do Male Guppies Eat their Babies? 

So many people ask this question from us that either only female fish eat her babies or the male and female both. 

Only there are a few of the male species which undergo cannibalism otherwise all of the male fish do not eat their own species. 

The reason can be extreme hunger and mostly wild fish eat their own fry. Otherwise, the male guppies do not eat their fry.

Why Do Female Fish Eat their Babies?

The female guppies who eat their babies are disturbed psychologically. Actually, they feel very hungry and depressed during their labor.

At the time of labor, the fish brain does not release the hunger controlling chemical and they feel hunger really bad and eat their own newborns. Female guppy turns black when they are ill.

They are not emotionally connected with the newborns at that difficult time. They are only feeling pain and giving birth to babies. 

That’s why it is commonly seen among the fish that they eat their own babies as soon as they give new life to them. There are just a few baby fish left behind.

They are not eating before they are going to deliver the babies. Most of the fish have this behavior of quitting food for three to four hours and then if there is no food in front of them, they try to taste their offspring. 

While those fish that lay eggs, eat their eggs too or take care of them until the newborn fish comes out. 

Do all Guppies Eat their Babies?

No, not every time. You can also prevent the guppy from eating their babies by giving them the food immediately after they are done with their delivery. 

The fish only eat their babies when they are very hungry after becoming a mother. They have no emotional connection with their little fry. 

Can Guppy Fry Survive With Adults?

No, they can’t. There is always a danger that fish will eat them when they feel hunger. 

The guppy parents do not take care of their baby and they can easily get harmed. Nature has beautifully created a way for babies to survival separately and you can give them separation when they are in your home aquarium. 

Just feed them right, and they will grow well. Fry do recognize their parents and try to follow their swimming but parents do not recognize them so much.  

Do Guppies Give Birth at Night?

You might have seen the guppy fish giving birth at night while some even birth during the day.

There is no connection between birth with day and night. Actually, every fish including guppies give birth only when they are ready.

But they try to hide themselves while delivering babies. They mostly choose the plants and the corner of the tank as a hiding spot. 

How Long is Guppy Fish Pregnant?

The gestational time of the guppy fish is about 21 to 26 days or 21 to 30 days on average depending on the fish’s health. 

This process also depends upon the temperature of aquarium water along with the cleanliness.

Any infection can cause complications and death of your pet fish after delivery. So make sure that your fish is healthy and eats well during its pregnancy time.

How to Know If My Guppy Is Pregnant?

Some people say that they are confused that either their guppy if is just fat of pregnant. So, let me tell you that how can you identify a pregnant fish. 

If your fish is having babies in her belly then a dark spot appears below their tail and backside of the stomach. 

This spot is called the gravid spot and it keeps on getting darker in color as the pregnancy progresses. 

In the end days of their pregnancy when they are near to deliver babies, then the spot becomes complete black and guppy fish starts looking bloated and puffy.

How Do Guppies Give Birth?

Guppies release lots of fry from their anus side. If they are stressed then the delivery process continues for hours with pauses. 

Sometimes all of the babies come out at one time and their number is about 2 to 200. They give live birth and have no eggs.

Sometimes in stressful conditions, baby fish are born dead. It is good to release all babies in a specific period and there should not any long pauses. 

All of the water parameters should be set so that fish have no other worries except for the delivery. A hiding spot must be there so that they can give birth conveniently. 

Conclusion 

If you want to keep the cute little guests in your aquarium alive, then it is a must to make them apart from their parents. 

Help them grow well and take care of the little ones like a good owner. Fish do recognize human faces and especially those who feed them daily. 

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