Common name: Rasbora ; there are many rasbora species, but harlequin rasbora is the most popular in tropical fish aquariums.
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The food for guppies can be live, dried or frozen. The best food is live food, of course, but guppies gladly accept frozen or dried food too. However, if you want to maximize the growth rate and boost the immunity of your guppies, you should provide them with live once in a while.

Feeding guppies
(notice how happy they are – this is how they should be – if they aren’t happy to see you, you overfeed them)
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Guppy females in my community tank

This is a community guppy tank (please excuse the platty :)

The size of the guppy tank

The tank for the guppies must be chosen based on the number of fish you want to keep. It is recommended to have 1 guppy per gallon of water. For beginners and people that don’t really want to breed show quality guppies but just enjoy their variety and have fun, up to 4 guppies per gallon can be kept, but make sure the aeration and filtration of the water are very good. Also water changes more often are necessary, at least once a week.
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What’s a guppy?

Guppies are are some of the smallest aquarium tropical fish and one of the most interesting because of the infinite variety of colors and fin shapes it can display.

The guppies are livebearers. They born tiny fries and don’t lay eggs like most of the other fish species. The tiny fries look like the parents since their first day of life (body shape) but get colors later in life (in about 6 weeks). A mature guppy won’t grow larger than 3-5 centimeters. The female is slightly larger than the male, and she doesn’t have very impressing colors. The males are the main attraction in this species, and the guppy enthusiasts obtained hundreds of combinations of colors, patterns and fin shapes through selective breeding.

The females produce about 50-100 fries once a month. The guppies are hardy fish and breed like crazy. This is why many tropical fish lovers started this hobby with guppies and the guppy got his name as the “million fish” or the “beginner’s fish”. The guppy community is very large and there are Guppy shows and competitions on a regular basis, where you can see some wonderful guppies that you’ll fall in love with.

There are always new varieties that appear – think about it: wouldn’t it be cool if you would create your own guppy color? Start guppy breeding today!

I simply hate those tiny plastic boxes with a grill where pregnant females are put to deliver their fries. They produce a lot of stress. Here’s a picture with my “natural” nursery, floating aquarium plants, where fries hide and survive very well. You can see many platy and guppy fry below:

I’ll start this blog with my main fish tank, a Juwel Rio 240 liters. Notice the plug timer down left? It turns on the light at 11 a.m. and turns it off when I go to sleep at 12 p.m. I love the Juwel aquarium because it is elegant and the filter it came with is silent. I sleep in the same room and I can’t hear it!

For now, I have livebearers in it: mollies, xipho, platy and of course my love – guppies. I intend to move them in other tanks and redesign this aquarium, with more plants and different fish, maybe tiger barbs which are very cool.

Each aquarium has a biological cycle (usually named Nitrogen cycle) that depends entirely on the life hosted in the aquarium. The beneficial bacterial colonies that form in every aquarium are extremely important for the quality of the water and every break in the balance of this bacteria “shield” will bring a decline in the water quality and health problems for the fish and even deaths. Most if not all beginners in this hobby purchase their first aquarium and fill it with fish, almost always killing them, simply because they didn’t know anything about this important natural nitrogen cycle. I killed hundreds of fish before I learnt about this process. If you are reading this before getting your first aquarium, well… congratulations! You are a wise person and will enjoy your aquarium right from the start if you are patient and wait for the aquarium cycling to be complete.

I would offer a free brochure about this vital process in every pet shop or marketplace with every purchase of fish or aquariums.
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So, you are an absolute beginner in this hobby and you want to setup your first aquarium at home. Here are the simple clear steps that will guide you in the aquarium installation process.

STEP 1: BASIC INVENTORY BEFORE GETTING STARTED

MANDATORY: Make sure you have all these items before starting to setup your aquarium:

• aquarium (doooh!) : most if not all the beginners tend to get a small aquarium thinking that it is enough but let me tell you that the bigger it is, the better. There are a few reasons for getting a larger aquarium, one of them being the fact that you will always want to get more fish and plants, after you start to enjoy the hobby; a small aquarium isn’t suitable for fish and overcrowding fish is the first trigger for various diseases and even death. Another reason to get a bigger aquarium is that the large aquariums are more stable when we talk about water chemistry and temperature (they vary slower than in small aquariums – the slower they vary, the better for the fish and their health). Generally, don’t start with an aquarium smaller than 100 liters (remember that the gravel, filter, ornaments and the fact that the tank must not be filled 100% with water already reduce the volume of water available for your fish).

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Common name: Tiger barb, Barbus Tetrazona, Sumatra barb, Sumatranus
Scientific name: Puntius tetrazona
Family: Cyprinidae
In nature: Sumatra, Indonesia
Mature fish size: 7 cm / 3 inches
Social: active, not recommended to join fish with long fins such as guppies, gouramis, angelfish, and betta splendens since they nip fins
Swimming in the aquarium:all levels
Feeding: eats most foods, dried or live
Breeding: oviparous – female lays eggs that start development after they are fertilised externally by the male
Water temperature: 20-26 C / 68-79 F (but can do well without a heater)
Water pH: 6.5
Water hardness: 5-10 dGH
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