Should have gone with platies!?

[Big Vine]

I've now officially lost two guppies, and I'm strongly debating as to whether or not I should replace them all with platies (which seem hardier, and which I have successfuly bred in the past).

There is now 1 male and 3 females left. If I lose any more, I will probably put the remainders in with the crays and pick up some platies to replace them.

Here's the latest casualty.
It sucks, because I really liked this female and was hoping she would provide some nice offspring. I'm not sure what happened...perhaps she died from a 'pregnancy gone bad.' I got home from being away over Thanksgiving for 4 days, and she was nowhere to be found.

This was my first guppy loss.
It's too bad---she had such nice blue coloring.
She was getting skinnier, swimming with tail drooping, and hiding a lot. In the interests of keeping my other fish healthy, I decided to move her in with one of the crays. She was promptly eaten.

Big Vine

 

[MissFishy]

Aww, they are both pretty girls. I never have any luck keeping guppies alive for the long term. The last two I had...one died a couple days after giving birth to 30 fry, and the other must have died from birthing complications...looked like she was about to drop fry, but just never did and died. My platies are happy as clams though...go figure. Just had my first platy fry born!

 

[Big Vine]

I have read that guppies---not unlike a lot of other aquarium-trade fish (especially the livebearers), I suppose---are overbred/inbred for certain traits. I'm sure this partly accounts for the higher mortality rate...They are simply weaker fish.

I have had lots of luck with platies in the past, so I think I'll go with them here pretty soon.

And by the way, I commented about your platy fry announcement in the Breeding section of the forum, MissFishy.

Big Vine

 

[Fuzz16]

i got a bunch of guppies from my neighbor and the only one i have left is a a male who i got when he was all big eyed and i accidently squished him...so its like a miracle he lived. hes a happy spoiled critter with my discus too