Guppy Breeding?

[d_virginiana]

I usually avoid any sort of live feeder fish unless it is a last resort due to the parasite risk, but I was wondering... If I bred my own guppies, and treated the first generation with antifungal/antiparasitic fish meds, those would be safe feeders?

I've been looking at getting an African clawed frog, which got me thinking of healthy prey items for it. Then I started thinking it'd be really nice if I had a litter of babies not to have to worry about the icky things that hitch rides on pet store guppies every time one was a finicky eater. This is still a half-formed idea at the moment since I have neither the money nor time to set it up, but I'm thinking I might be able to get it up and running by summer.
What do you guys think? Anyone else tried something like this?

[Steveo]

I tried breeding guppies in a 30 gallon tank. I gave it about 6 months and it was never really productive enough for more than a meal per month. Given the capital costs and required labor, buying a pack of silversides every month was much less expensive. The value of my labor on that tank was well under a dollar per hour.

[i_heart_sneakie_snakes]

I breed my own guppies for my snakes. I have a baby and an adult tank. It is an absolute pain in the butt and I am thinking of stopping once I get my last two guppy eaters onto pinkies. Like Steve said, not cost effective and tons of work.

[joeyjoe9876]

You'd be better off breeding mice if your garters accept them.

[thamneil]

You'll never produce enough to use as a large amount of the diet. I'd recommend just buying what you need. Less hassle and work.

[kimbosaur]

I think she meant that the guppies would be good to have on hand if there was a picky eater, not to use as a steady food source.

You'd probably only need to treat for internal parasites. If you really wanted to, maybe use some methylene blue for fungus as a precaution. To cover all possible external infections would take a lot of meds and could cause more harm than good.

[d_virginiana]

I think she meant that the guppies would be good to have on hand if there was a picky eater, not to use as a steady food source.

You'd probably only need to treat for internal parasites. If you really wanted to, maybe use some methylene blue for fungus as a precaution. To cover all possible external infections would take a lot of meds and could cause more harm than good.

Yeah, I meant as something I could use the young guppies for scrubs that were difficult eaters, and then just let the adults swim around and do their thing when I didn't have a snake litter.

I'm mainly basing this off the fuzzy memories of the fancy guppies I kept as a kid. They reproduced all the time without much maintenance and we ended up just culling most of the babies. But if I do end up breeding Harley this year, I don't want to have to feed petstore guppies. They're known as the kiss of death for fish tanks because most of them are imported and they carry crazy diseases. Plus, for baby garters I'd probably be looking to feed young or subadult guppies anyway, so my adults would stay in the tank to continue adding to the population.

btw, any difference nutritionally between fancy guppies and regulars? Just curious.

[Ruth]

Can you feed mollies or platys? if so they breed fast , faster than guppies and grow bigger so you would have a choice of size from baby to adult. I used to keep them and had to introduce predatory fish to control the numbers. I would imagine disease wise you would be fine after a good quarantine but I don't know.

[Selkielass]

30 gal hex tank of fancy guppies provides color in the like living room and treats for the smaller snakes. Definitely not cost effective, but the guppies are fun to watch.
Fancy guppies get larger, but some strains are pretty delicate. Mine are mutts crossed from several different fancy strains. The least colorful become feeders

[Light of Dae]

Cherry Shrimp eat all sorts of nasty stuff in a fish tank, mainly they eat the parasite eggs when they are released so it ends the cycle. Id get a tank of guppies, Platys and cherry shrimp.