When purchasing breeders, your savings are involved. You need to be properly prepared.

Prior to making your purchases, you need to have a breeding tank prepared to receive your guppies. Most of the good quality guppies which are available from Jim, Frank or myself can be started off under the same conditions since they come from similar water. You need to have a 2 1/2, 5 or 10 gallon bare tank cleaned, sterilized with bleach solution and rinsed and refilled with clean tap water at least 24 hours prior to your purchase. The water should be conditioned with 1 teaspoon of rock salt per 5 gallons of water as a minimum. I also recommend I drop of formaldehyde per gallon and also 1 capsule of Spectrogram or Kanamycin antibiotic as an initial disease preventative during this stressful period for the fish.

Filters should be box and/or sponge corner type. "Chore Girl" brand or type plastic pot scrubbers or livebearer breeding traps can be used as a safe haven for your fry. I personally use clean, disease free Java Moss live plant clumps in my breeding set ups. It helps with cycling the tanks to eliminate poisonous waste.

Float the bag in the tank and open and fold back the top to trap a collar of air to allow the bag to float. Use a turkey baster to remove from I -3 oz. portions of the bag water and throw this water out. Replace with an equal amount of tank water.

Allow the fish to acclimate fur 15 minutes. Repeat this process several times, then gently tip the bag over to allow the fish to escape. Do not feed for several hours, only then a light feeding of brine shrimp.

Resume normal feeding schedule when they have eaten their first meal and are swimming to the front of the tank for food. If the breeders are from good, healthy stock, you should be rewarded with fry in one to two months.