1. Morphological characteristics of guppy
This kind of fish has a slender figure, a flat back and a beautiful tail. There are great differences between male and female fish in size and color. The male fish is thin and thin, with a body length of 4 ~ 5 cm. Dorsal fin is long and sharp, caudal fin is wide and long, accounting for more than half of the total length, and caudal stalk is longer than caudal stalk. According to the shape of its tail fin, it can be divided into early tail, lower sword tail, double sword tail, piano tail, needle tail, round tail, flag tail, fan tail, triangular tail, truncated tail and pointed tail. Its body, dorsal fin and caudal fin are rich in colors, mainly including red, blue, black, yellow, green, tiger skin and variegated colors. Some male fish have small blue-black spots on their tails, like peacock's tail feathers, hence the name. Female fish is stout: the body length can reach about 7 cm, the body color is dim, fleshy and slightly transparent, and the color of dorsal fin and caudal fin is far less than that of male fish.
Peacock fish is the most common and favorite fish in tropical fish. It is small and exquisite, lively and active. The male fish is about 3 cm long, and the tail stalk and tail fin account for about 2/3 of its length. The female fish can reach 6 cm in length, and the tail stalk and tail fin account for more than 1/2 of the whole body. Male fish are rich in colors, including red, orange, green, cyan, blue and purple, and the key colors are light red, light green, light yellow, red, purple and Kong Quelan. There are blue-red spots on the tail fin and abdomen, surrounded by light-colored rings, which are like peacock tail feathers, hence the name. The dorsal fin is short and high, and the caudal fin is wide and long, with various shapes, such as piano tail, round tail, upper sword tail, lower sword tail, fork tail, square tail, torch tail, tooth tail and big tail.
The body color of female fish is much worse than that of male fish, and most of them are single silver gray. Although there are some patterns on the tail fin, it is not as bright as the male fish. The female fish has shorter fins than the male fish, but its body length is about twice that of the male fish.
Peacock fish is very prolific. After long-term cross cultivation, many varieties of colors have been produced.
Second, the breeding of guppy.
Peacock is an oviparous fish. Strong reproductive ability and early sexual maturity. After feeding for 3-4 months, the young fish can enter the mature stage and reproduce. The time of sexual maturity is closely related to water temperature and feeding conditions.
When guppies breed, they should choose a larger aquarium and keep the water temperature at 26 degrees Celsius. The pH is PH6.8-7.4, and a variety of aquatic plants are needed at the same time, and then fish are prevented from entering according to the ratio of 1 male and female. After the fish is in estrus, the abdomen of the female fish gradually expands and black fetal spots appear; At this time, the male fish is not short of chasing the female fish, and the connector of the male fish is inserted into the reproductive hole of the female fish to discharge sperm for in-vivo fertilization. When the female fish's fetal spots become bigger and darker and her anus protrudes, she can be fished into another aquarium to give birth.
The female fish should be taken out immediately after giving birth to avoid eating the larvae by mistake. Or a funnel-shaped partition wall is surrounded by plastic sheets and squeezed into the water, and the female fish giving birth is put into the funnel, so that the female fish falls into the water outside the funnel from the cavity under the funnel after giving birth, and the female fish can't eat the larvae.
Peacock fish spawn once a month, depending on the size of the female fish, each time it can produce 10-80 larvae, and the annual spawning amount is quite large, so it is called "one million fish". When breeding, it should be noted that fish should not be kept in the same nest for more than three generations, so as to avoid species degradation caused by continuous inbreeding, making the offspring fish smaller and shorter. It is best to introduce the same species of fish for purposeful distant hybridization to prevent subspecies from degenerating and achieve the purpose of improving species. But the life span of guppies is very short, generally only 2-3 years.
Third, the habit of guppy.
Peacock fish is gentle, can be mixed with other tropical fish, and is usually lively and active. When the female fish is frightened, it is easy to jump.
Fourth, the water temperature.
The acceptable water temperature range of guppy is 65438 08℃ to 34℃. If it is lower than 18℃, it is likely to cause loss of appetite, mental paralysis, water mold infection and so on. Therefore, it is necessary to decide whether to use the heater according to personal circumstances.
In summer, the room temperature is often higher than 30℃, and the weather is hot, so the owner is usually too lazy to change the water, so the concentration of feed residue, excrement and nitrous acid in the water will rise rapidly, threatening the survival of guppy. Moreover, the high temperature is accompanied by the rapid metabolism of guppies, which leads to a large loss of calcium in the body. So big old fish tend to bend their spine. The greater the curvature, the easier it is to oppress the internal organs and threaten the survival of guppies. The solution to this problem is to lower the temperature. There are many ways to reduce the temperature. The easiest way is to turn on the air conditioner at home, but the disadvantage is to pay more electricity bills. Another method is more economical but more difficult, and that is "changing water frequently". If you can change the water every day, it can be reduced by several degrees, and the peacock can grow rapidly and the fish is healthy, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone.
Verb (abbreviation for verb) ph value
The most suitable PH value for guppy is between PH 6.5 and PH 7.5. The pH value in water has a great influence on guppy, and the pH value is logarithmic, so the water with PH5 is 10 times that of PH6 and 100 times that of PH7, so it is only a small gap of "1" for human beings. I'm afraid guppy has already.
In addition, it should be noted that if the frequency of water change is low, with the passage of time, due to various factors, the water quality has already turned acidic. At this time, if the water is suddenly changed in large quantities, it will inevitably have a considerable impact on guppy.
Six, hardness
Guppy likes hard water, and its hardness is about 10 ~ 15 degrees. Nevertheless, the moderator personally thinks that the hardness of water will not have much influence on guppies. Take two countries with a long history of raising peacocks as examples: Germany and Japan, where the water is hard and the water quality in Japan is soft. These two completely different conditions can raise peacocks. This is also one of the reasons why many people often say that guppy is easy to raise.
Seven, nitrite concentration
The concentration of nitrite also has a considerable impact on the survival of guppy. Although peacock adapts to nitrite concentration far more than other fish species (according to the data, the nitrite concentration that peacock fish can tolerate is about 100 times that of colorful fairy), once the nitrite concentration is too high, it will always be a kind of harm to peacock, especially the aquarium is a completely closed water body, and the density of fish we raise is usually too high. Therefore, once ignored, guppy may suddenly die in a short time. As owners, fish friends can't ignore the importance of this problem. There are many reagents for detecting nitrite concentration in the market, which can easily measure the approximate value.
To solve the problem of high nitrite concentration, the fastest way is to replace it with chlorine-removed fresh water immediately. However, if the concentration of nitrite is too high for a long time, it is necessary to consider whether the filtration effect is too poor or the feeding density of fish is too high.
Eight, guppy feed
1, artificial feed
At present, there are quite a few kinds of artificial feed on the market, which can be roughly divided into three types: one is flaky feed; Second, pellet feed; Third, frozen feed. These feeds are the easiest to obtain and feed. In addition, there is a feed specially developed for guppy, which should be the choice of most guppy owners as a staple food, with quite complete nutrients.
2. Live bait
The use of live bait has always been a sham, because the nutritional value of live bait is far better than that of artificially treated feed, but it is also accompanied by safety problems. As a host, you must not be careless, otherwise the sequelae will make you feel that it is better to feed directly!
The safest live bait at present should be shrimp (nauplii)! It doesn't take too long to prepare, and it doesn't need too many formalities. But feed them as soon as possible after hatching, because the most nutritious thing for nauplii is that when they hatch with yolk sac, if the yolk has been absorbed by nauplii for too long, the nutritional value will be slightly discounted. If netizens have the habit of incubating prawns to feed peacocks, if there are many hatched prawns, they can be frozen and used for feeding next time, as long as they are thawed.
There is also a kind of water flea, which can reproduce with green water. It should be noted that water fleas just collected from the wild should not be directly fed to fish, because water fleas are the intermediate hosts of camel nematodes, and once they are parasitized by camel nematodes, it cannot be solved in a few words! Moreover, the Daphnia collected in the wild may have a high bacterial content in the wild water. If it rashly enters the fish tank, it may infect the little baby in the greenhouse-guppies. Also, pay attention to what kind of Daphnia you get. If it belongs to cyclops, it is not suitable because of its hard shell.
In addition, the longest-lived bait used in some aquariums is earthworm, which has very high nutritional value. If you put some in a fish tank, it can live for a long time, so that your peacock can eat it all the time, so the peacock fish will grow quite fast, and it can also be used as drug bait. The medicine will be fed to earthworms first, and then to guppies, and the effect is quite good. In this way, earthworm should be the most perfect feed, but because the source of earthworm is collected from the wild, although some aquariums will disinfect it first, no one can guarantee that earthworm will not carry parasitic eggs, so users have to pay attention.
Nine, guppy breeding methods
Since the birth of the little guppy, friends who love fish must be busy preparing all kinds of delicious food. Little guppy can swim and eat soon after birth. If it is found that the mother peacock is about to give birth, it can begin to prepare for hatching the bumper shrimp. When the fish is born, there will be a rich first meal, but remember to pay attention to the amount of feeding. If you can't finish feeding too much, it will pollute the water quality and cause the opposite result. If you don't have shrimp eggs on hand, or have no hatching experience, you can also take the flaky feed of adult fish and grind the flaky feed into crumbs for small fish to eat. It should be noted that the amount of bait should not be too much, so as not to pollute the water quality because small fish can't finish eating. Another kind is to use boiled egg yolk, wrap it in a net, and shake it slightly in the water, not too much. Because it is too nutritious, the pollution of residual bait will be even more terrible. If necessary, be prepared to change the water immediately after feeding.
Usually, you can try to feed the peacock with high-protein food before the gender separation, but after the male and female fish can be raised separately, it is best not to let the male fish eat too much high-protein food, so as to avoid the waist of the male fish becoming too thick, and the female fish need not worry. You can try to feed the female fish to make it more round, but if the feeding amount increases, you should adjust the frequency of changing water relatively to avoid the rapid deterioration of water quality, causing diseases and hurting guppies. Usually, mature guppy will be happy to eat all kinds of feed, but it is best not to use the same feed often, and you can change some tastes occasionally, mainly to prevent problems caused by unbalanced nutrition.
X. temperature control system
The temperature range that guppy can tolerate is quite wide, about 18 degrees to 30 degrees, so there is no need for a temperature control system. However, if it is really hot in summer, it is best to keep the place where guppy is raised well ventilated, otherwise the temperature is too high, which will easily lead to the metabolism of guppy too fast. For mature peacocks, the acceleration of metabolism will easily lead to the accelerated loss of calcium in the body. If there is postpartum disorder, that is to say, the spine may bend, so it is best not to let the temperature be higher than 30 degrees. As for winter, the growth rate of peacock is slowed down because of the drop of water temperature, but the growth rate of peacock fish can be controlled, and its life will not be exhausted prematurely because of long-term heating.
Keeping guppies at a constant temperature has some sequelae, such as being very sensitive to changes in water temperature. As long as there is power failure or heater failure, it will cause no small problem.
XI。 Bottom sand
The bottom sand commonly used to raise peacocks should be regarded as the silica sand commonly used in aquatic plant tanks. In fact, guppies are very adaptable, and usually there is no problem as long as neutral bottom sand is used. Some people like to raise peacocks with coral sand, because coral sand can make the water quality hard and alkaline, and create an environment that peacocks like, but we should also be careful not to let the PH value be too high, otherwise it will be counterproductive; If you want to grow some aquatic plants together, you must consider whether you can accept this water quality. As far as the moderators are concerned, they keep guppies in bare tanks just to breed peacocks. It is convenient to change water and remove deposited feces without laying bottom sand. However, it is more suitable for friends who have a little experience in fish farming, so it is better to change water to take care of them, otherwise the peacock will not live happily.