Habitat - Indoor :: Sustained feeder population in tank

[devilduck]

I remember reading a few posts where the OP had a self sustaining population of feeder fish/shrimp/snails etc in the same tank as their turtle. Can you share how you accomplished this?

I'd like to avoid buying feeders from the lfs and chain store that are of dubious health and I don't want to add to another tank to my already cramped basement I'm a complete n00b with breeding fish.

[HunterOfMadrigal]

What I did was get about 1-3 male guppies of any kind, and about 2-3 female guppies per male, they breed quickly but it may be best to keep them in a separate tank until you have quite a few little ones swimming around, then you can introduce them to the tank. With my turtle, he had always been around fish so he only eats the slow ones, or if I hand feed them to him.

[slider_keeper]

I accomplished this by added about 15 guppies, 3 females to every male. I had grass, plants and a bunch of hiding places. I got the fastest largest guppies I could find. Then I decided to build the Basking log. When I went searching for driftwood at my local lakes. I grabed a main piece that had a hollow end to it. This has become the birth spot for the guppies. I have three generations guppies in there now and the color morphs, I have never seen in the stores. I notice about 15 is the consistant number of my population right now but when I move him to his big tank, then there will be more room for them all and I expect to see a increase in population due to this. I will say, I was buying guppies to help self sustain the population at least three times before they went off on their own. It took one breed to have a female push out 10 fry, after that I have not bought a single guppy. I last bought guppies atleast 2 yrs. ago. I want to say it was more like 3 yrs ago.

[meltedspork]

I have a ton of guppies in my turtle tank, but not by choice... they just keep multiplying and Toby is no longer interested in eating them. So I feed them to my African clawed frogs instead. I have a pretty much unending supply of guppies. 120 gallon tank, sand, lots of fake plants for hiding, and an uninterested turtle = perfect feeder fish breeding ground.

[slider_keeper]

Space is a big factor and hiding places is huge too in the success of fish in a turtle tank!

[Rubicon]

All I can say is be careful! I did this and ended up with TONS of little guppies. Unfortunately when I did my last cleaning the population dropped quite a bit. I will say that the extra fish whatever helped get my plants going really good too!

[devilduck]

The next time petsmart / petco has a sale , I'm going to pick up a dozen guppies. My plan is to either section off a portion of Fred's tank or use an old 20L I have laying around to get a starter population going. I'm just confused on all the varieties of guppies / live-bearing fish out there. Most of the ones I've seen are the fancy variety that don't look like they can outrun the turtle.

Can you post a picture of the ones you had success with?

[slider_keeper]

I will take a pic for you today. Mind you tho, these are 3rd gen guppies from varieties I pick at the store so it would be hard pressed to stay anyone else has my color morphs. I started out with dwarf and fancy guppies, and they have survived.

[slider_keeper]

Here is pics of the guppy population in Toku's tank. The big basking log you see has a hollow opening on the left side that gives safe heaven for the female gravid guppies and the fry. Sorry my camera is pretty old and takes crappy pics.


In this first pic you can see a female with two color morphs and a dwarf Cobalt chasing her. Notice how much smaller the Cobalt is compared to the rest of the guppies. Basically you will see a female with a group of males around her. No one is joking when they say these guys breed like no tomoorow!


In this pic you will see more color morphs and what I like to call a sunfire and another female. The sunfire is another color that formed off of different breeding colors. In the Back right you can see the other dwarf Cobalt.

In the next two pics you will see two close ups of the color morphs. They came from dwarf Cobalts, and several different fancy colors, all mixed to make these colors and patterns.





In this pic you will notice the guppies are fairly comfortable around Toku and will frequently swim next to and around him.


This last pic is another group chasing a female. THEY ALWAYS BREED!!!!!

[devilduck]

Thanks for the pictures! Those guppies look almost too nice to be feeders

[slider_keeper]

Yeah they really aren't much of feeders to be honest. Toku only goes for the weak, so all you see in the tank is the best of the best. Kinda like a super guppy population of the best fish. This tank has it's own survival of the fittest ecosystem. They live their average life then get old, weaker and well, you know the story.

[MEandYouPhoto]

I decided to start a feeder tank as well. I am going with Rosy Red Minnows in a 20 gallon long tank I had and will be just adding them as treats to the main tank. I went to Petsmart and got a dozen of the Rosy Red Minnows and put them in the 20 gallon along with a couple of larger Goldfish. That was last night... Woke up this morning and discovered that half of them were now missing. It turns out the two larger Goldfish ATE half of my stock..... So I will be replenishing the stock and getting rid of the Goldfish. They started out as feeder fish for the turtle but he never ate them and they became too big. So now they are a nuisance and had to be moved out from the large tank to a smaller tank because they were eating all of the turtles food.

I am tempted to freeze the little buggers and be done with it but I think I am going to see if I can rehome them first. I live close to an elementary school, a middle school and a high school. SOMEONE has to want these fish! lol

On a side note.... when doing a feeder fish tank I am guessing overstocking is going to happen. So whats the best way to keep the tank stocked and to keep enough filtration and aeration to keep the stock alive and healthy. Any suggestions or feedback on setting up a tank and how to make it low maintenance?

[slider_keeper]

Sorry for the late reply. The best way is to have over filteration for a over stocked tank, kinda like a turtle tank. You can use the out take flow to cause a current in the tank to allow for adequate flow. Bare tanks seem to work best for this kind of setup as well.