With each fancy guppy pair, you will receive a male and a female. These will be mainly young "teenage" fish that are out of the fry stage and starting to "color up". Many of the females may come to you already bred and pregnant with fry. The fish you receive may be of any color or combination of colors and are not of a specific "guppy variety." We will send you healthy fish. We do not knowingly sell sick fish, though it is possible for the stress of the shipping process to cause a healthy fish to become ill, thus we recommend customers to quarantine new fish for a minimum of 2 weeks to observe them for any signs of illness or parasites. All our fish are routinely treated for internal parasites 4-6 times per year as a precaution to ensure good health.

Guppies are a live-bearing "toothcarp" species and give live birth to their young approximately every 30 days or so. Females are larger than the males, sometimes growing up to 2 1/2 inches in length. The female tends to be plainer in color, has a rounder abdomen and her anal fin is triangular in shape. Males display much more color and/or pattern than females (grow between .75" and 1.5" depending on type), have a thinner body shape and their anal fin is stick-shaped and is used for mating females. If you have a male guppy and a female guppy, soon you will have many guppies in your fish tank.

*We highly recommend a planted tank of 10 gallons or more with live plants for standard size guppies. Live plants use the nitrates produced in the Nitrogen Cycle from your fish's waste as fertilizer to grow, so using live plants will make your aquarium a more complete ecosystem. If you want to learn more about the Nitrogen Cycle, Cory at the Aquarium Co-op YouTube Channel has a great video that illustrates how it works.

(** If you don't want guppy babies, order males only, please. Our fish are kept and bred as a colony and adolescent female fish are usually bred by tankmates as soon as they are fertile.)