Having a pet is beneficial for your health. A pet can help in many ways such as reducing stress, improve our mood, help is socialize with others, help in emotional development in children and more.
For instance, horses are often used in different children therapies. There are multiple studies that consolidate the fact that horses can benefit autistic children.
If you want to get a pet for your child or for yourself, probably you won’t buy a horse. Maybe a dog? Or a cat? What about an aquarium and fish? But what fish to choose?
I highly recommend keeping guppy fish!
In the following I will show you numerous reasons why guppies are the perfect pet. Let’s dive in!
1. Guppies are Beautiful
Guppies come in a variety of colors, patterns, sizes and fin shapes.
The male guppies are more colorful and their tail fin can have different shapes: flag tail, lyre tail, pin tail, veil tail, double sword tail, round tail, fan tail, bottom sword tail, spear tail, delta tail, top sword tail, spade tail, etc.
There are many types of guppies, which were named after some of their traits. For example the guppies that have huge pectoral fins, are called Dumbo Ear Guppy.
Guppies that have a mosaic pattern on their tails are called the Mosaic Guppy.
The Cobra Guppy has a snake pattern on its body and tail.
Female guppies are mostly grey, only their tail and dorsal fin are colored.
2. Guppies Don’t Need a Huge Aquarium
Guppies are small fish. They can grow up to 1.5 inches in size. They don’t need much space so a small aquarium will be good for couple of guppies.
In a 5 gallons aquarium you can keep 3-4 guppy fish. By adding an internal or hang-on-back filer to your aquarium, you can increase the number of guppies.
3. Guppies Are Inexpensive
Regular guppies that are available in pet stores are cheap. You can purchase guppies for $1-3, depending on your location.
The equipment for keeping guppies is also inexpensive. Starter aquarium kits are available for under $100 on Amazon.
4. Guppies are Low-Maintenance
As mentioned above, a 5 gallons aquarium will be enough for couple of guppies.
While guppies are tropical fish, you might need a heater to keep the water temperature at the level they like (72-82 °F). A heater will consume just a small amount of energy, because it will not run all the time.
Water filters also have a very low consumption although they run all the time.
Artificial light is only required, if you keep live plants in your guppy tank or if you want to see your fish better.
Maintaining a guppy aquarium is easy:
- Change 10-30% of water once a week (add tap water with dechlorinator)
- Clean the filter once or twice a month
- Clean the glass of the aquarium once a month
- Feed the fish every day or every other day
5. Guppies are Easy to Breed
Guppies don’t lay eggs. Just like mammals or humans, they give birth to live successors. Guppies don’t need any special water parameters to mate and breed. Just place a female and male guppy into a fish tank and they will produce fry.
An adult female guppy will give drop fry every 30 days until they become around 1.5-2 years old. At this point they will become infertile and will live the rest of their life swimming around.
6. Guppies are Very Active
You can’t get bored of guppies. An aquarium full with guppy fish is always fun to watch. Although I don’t have much time now, I used to sit in from of my aquariums and watch my guppy fish doing their thing.
Feeding them is also a fun moment. When they taste the food in the water they will start swimming around like crazy to catch all the bits.
Guppy fish are only inactive at night, when lights are turned off. If you see a guppy sitting on a leaf or at the bottom of aquarium during the day, probably is due to some diseases.
7. Guppies Live for Years
If you give them good water parameters, a variety of high quality food, guppy fish can live up to 3-5 years. If you want to learn more about what food to feed your guppies, please check out my other article.
Keeping female and male guppies together can shorten their lifespan. Mating and breeding comes with lots of stress, especially for female guppies.
8. Guppies are Peaceful
Guppies are non-aggressive fish. They will not attack each other or other fish. You can keep guppies together with other non-aggressive fish such as molly, swordtails, neon tetras, platies, etc.
Although, guppies are peaceful, they will eat their fry. If you want to save guppy fry, provide them with enough hiding places such as live plants or decoration.
9. Guppies Can Survive for Weeks without Feeding
Are you a person who likes to travel a lot? I also love travelling, while I keep hundreds of fish.
Guppies can survive for 2-3 weeks without feeding them. So you don’t have to worry leaving them for couple of days. You can go on a longer vacation too. Read my guide on how to prepare your aquarium for vacation to find out more.
10. Guppies are Hardy Fish
As mentioned before, guppy fish can survive for weeks without feeding. Also, they can accept a wide range of water parameters, so you don’t need to spend on water testing kits.
These are the water parameters that are recommended for guppies:
- Water temperature: 72-82 °F (22-28 °C )
- Water pH: 6.8-7.8
- Water hardness (dGH): 8-12
- 0 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrites, maximum 10 ppm nitrates
In most areas tap water will be just fine for keeping guppies.
Conclusion
Do you need any more reasons to get yourself some guppies?
I really hope that this article has helped you to decide whether guppies are a good choice for you or not. If you have any questions please leave a comment. If you want to learn more about guppies, please read my other articles. Start with the How to Care for Guppy Fish.