Anyone have experience culling guppy fry?

[d_virginiana]

I ended up with five feeder guppies left over after my attempts to get the baby blacknecks eating. I didn't want to just kill them outright (we live by gladiator rules here; if it survives feeding time or escapes, it lives. Till now that only applied to crickets that made their way to the front door). Anyway, I now have somewhere near fifty guppies.

Just wondering if anyone knew a humane method of culling the excess fry? I'd like to keep my little tank of guppies, just because they're so easy to take care of and handy in case of babies not wanting to eat.

Also, after a few generations, do parasites stop being a concern? Or if I freeze them for an extended period? I'd hate to waste so many fry since I know Turtle and my smaller blackneck would love them f/t, but if there's a parasite risk I wouldn't risk it.

[snakegirl909]

You could just simply freeze them. That is not the humanist way to kill fish, but it may be the easiest in this situation. Often blunt force works really well (quick and painless) but that really wouldn't be possible with fry.

[d_virginiana]

I may try that. Normally my first thought would be to put them to sleep with a lack of oxygen first by using a container with low water/air surface area like I did when I had to euthanize a goldfish once, but these guys are air-gulpers so that wouldn't work.

Ugh, I have no problem with feeding live but when it comes to culling healthy animals just because there are too many of them I get kind of squeamish.

[Mommy2many]

"I didn't want to just kill them outright (we live by gladiator rules here; if it survives feeding time or escapes, it lives. Till now that only applied to crickets that made their way to the front door)."

Me too!

[joeysgreen]

Just feed them live. I wouldn't be worried about parasites at all as these are captive bred animals. Parasites are generally a problem when intermediate hosts are fed; since these guppies have no source of parasites (unless you are keeping them in the cage of a WC gartersnake), they likely have no parasites of concern for your reptiles.