Orange guppies are one of the most popular guppy fish types. They are widely available and easy to acquire. They cost around $1-$5, depending on where you buy them.
They are beautiful and they are the focus point of any aquarium. When I look at a guppy fish tank, my eyes always stop on one of the orange male guppies.
In this article, you can learn about orange guppy fish care, breeding, feeding and water requirements.
The Origin of Orange Guppies
You can’t find orange guppies in this form and color in the wild. Orange guppies are man-made strain. These guppies have been breed over many years in aquariums with selective breeding.
You can learn more about selective guppy breeding in this guide.
In short, guppy breeders carefully selected male and female guppies that had orange pigments on their body and scales and they used them to produce offspring. After many generations they ended up with a guppy strain that had prominent orange colors.
How to Breed Orange Guppies?
If you want to start from scratch and breed your own orange guppy strain, it might take you years to get the results you want.
However, if you want to breed orange guppies in your aquarium for fun, you can start with just a few adult guppies.
Get a pair of orange guppies and put them together in a fish tank of at least 10 gallon in size. To reduce stress on the female guppy, I would recommend a 1:3 male to female ratio.
The gestation period of orange guppies are around 28 days. So in about one month after putting together your male and female guppies, they will produce babies. Depending on the age of the female guppy, she will give birth to about 10-50 fry.
Guppies will eat their fry if they can catch them. In order to save as many fry as possible, use live plants such as guppy grass or java moss in your aquarium. These plants will give enough hiding space for the orange guppy babies to stay safe.
If you want to keep a clean line of orange guppy genetics, you might only want to breed orange males with orange females.
Feeding Orange Guppy Fish
Just like other guppy strains, orange guppies will consume the same food.
You can feed them commercial food such as tropical flakes, veggie pellets, spirulina, frozen food, freeze-dried food or you can prepare your own guppy fish food. Check the linked guide for more details.
You can also feed your orange guppies live food such as blood worms, micro worms, brine shrimp, daphnia and vinegar eels. Live food will speed up their growth and will accentuate their colors. However, keeping a healthy live food culture is not easy. Take this in consideration, when thinking of breeding life food for your guppies.
Male and Female Orange Guppies
As mentioned before, I recommend 1 male to 3 females ratio in any guppy aquarium. While male guppies are always very active breeders, they will chase the females around all day. Having 3 females to chase, will give each individual female the time to rest.
You can also separate the male from the females if you think he stresses them out too much. Though, you should not keep one guppy alone, because they are very social fish and they will die alone.
Male orange guppies are available in many body patterns. There are guppies that have full orange body, while others have orange color on their tails, fins or in some parts of the body. Female orange guppies on the other hand, have orange pigments only on their tail fin, which sometimes stretches to their back side.
Orange Guppy Fish Size
Orange guppies are medium size. As with other guppy strains, the orange guppy males are smaller than the females.
The adult orange guppy males are about 1.5-3.5 cm (0.6-1.4 in) long, while the females are 3-6 cm (1.2-2.4 in) long.
Orange Guppy Water Parameters
Guppies are very adaptive fish and they can support a wide range of water parameters. Here are the ideal water parameters for orange guppies:
- Best Water temperature: 72-82 °F (22-28 °C )
- Best Water pH: 6.8-7.8
- Ideal Water Hardness (dGH): 8-12
- 0 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrites, maximum 10 ppm nitrates
With these water conditions and a good diet, you can keep, breed and raise healthy and beautiful orange guppies.
Minimum Tank Size for Orange Guppies
The minimum tank size I recommend for orange guppies is 10 gallons. In a 10 gallon aquarium you can keep up to 10 guppies. However, if you want to breed them, you should consider adding fewer guppies, because your tank can quickly be overcrowded.
Orange Guppy Lifespan
Just like in case of most guppies, the lifespan of orange guppies is around 2 years. If they are kept in really good water conditions, they might live longer.
Tank Mates for Orange Guppies
If you are planning setting up community fish tank with orange guppies, you can do it easily. There are many fish that are compatible with orange guppies: other guppies, livebearers such as mollies, platies, swordtails, tetras, corydoras, bristlenose pleco, gourami, angelfish, discus fish and more.
You should avoid aggressive tank mates such as barbs, Oscar fish, flowerhorn or African cichlids.
Orange Guppy Fish Pictures
Conclusion
I hope that this article gave you some good tips on how to care for orange guppies. If you have any question about orange guppy fish or guppies in general, please leave a comment below.
If you want to learn about other guppy strains, please take a look to my other articles.
There is one male guppy which is transparent and looks like an endler’s
Can this happen when breeding guppies
This is absolutely normal when breeding guppies. In fact, guppy breeders use these genetic “mutations” to create new guppy strains. If you have a male and female transparent guppy, you could try to breed. Their offspring might also be transparent as well. Can you eventually send me a picture of your transparent guppy via the contact form? I would like to see such a rarity.