I might get some crap for this one....

[Airborneguy]

So I broke down my guppy breeding/planted tank today for various reasons, and have decided to keep a few of the most colorful guppies and try a little experiment...

I am currently acclimating 4 fancytail guppies to saltwater, and over the course of about 2 weeks I am going to try to get them to survive in complete saltwater before putting them into my 72g Reef.

I know its controversial, but it has been done before, so being the experimenter that I am, I want to give it a shot...

Go ahead, beat me up! I wanna hear opinions! *BOUNCINGS

 

[Fuzz16]

ive seen it done it done wit mollys but even they had a lifespan of a couple months to a couple weeks.

 

[quaddity]

Yeah I wouldn't expect them to last that long although there's a post on another site where the guppies were actually breeding and the babies were alive and growing in the salt tank.

 

[Airborneguy]

Hmm, someone posted that one here right? I think that is the article I read which made me want to try it.

The water they are currently in is very low salinity (I'm not even going to test it for a few days), but they a definitely doing fine so far.

 

[Airborneguy]

Three days now and the salt content is already pretty high, but the fish are doing great. Tomorrow I am going to start testing the salinity and raise it some more. I won't raise it to 1.024 for a few more days. After that, I am going to start doing water changes with water from my reef, then move them into the tank in maybe another week or two.

So far so good.

 

[Cichlid-Man]

Sounds interesting, looking forward to the results.

 

[Fuzz16]

watch them start having weird mutations...like two tail fins and flourescent and see through colors. youll be rich!

 

[Airborneguy]

Well tomorrow I am going to test and then raise the salinity to 1.024, then I am leaving until late wednesday night to do some hunting. If all goes well, I am shooting for saturday to put them in the tank when I do my weekly maintenance.

 

[Airborneguy]

Okay, I know I have been slow on the updates with this one, but today was the day!

I cleaned my glass and did some other routine maintenance, and then put the guppies in to see how they do.

Been about 10 minutes so far and they appear to sticking near the top and sticking together, but otherwise they appear fine.

I'll check on them everyday and post something here. Hopefully I can get a picture or two as the days go on.

 

[brian1973]

Interesting experiment cant wait to hear the rest.

 

[Airborneguy]

So the guppies are definitely sticking to the top of the tank, but not because of breathing problems which I first thought. They are breathing normally. I think they are just scared of the other fish in the tank, although from what I've seen, they are ignoring them.

 

[Airborneguy]

Looks like I may have lost one of my males... of course the one who colored up the best! He didn't come around for feeding time and isn't with the others who are still hanging together, so I think he may have bit it. I'm holding out hope!

Other than that, the are eating, exploring a little more and still not getting harassed from what I can see, so it's going good so far!