What are the solutions for guppy dystocia?
The guppy is a very beautiful ornamental fish, with a tail like a fan and quite a variety of colors, looking very graceful as it floats in the water. Nowadays many fish-keeping enthusiasts raise a few ornamental fish. If you run into guppy dystocia, how should you solve it?
1. What are the solutions for guppy dystocia?
Before and during labor, if the mother guppy experiences a sudden change in environment, impact or stimulation, fright and so on, it is very likely to cause miscarriage, premature birth, dystocia, poor constitution of the fry, deformities, stillbirth, and the mother fish having a sunken belly and a collapsed back after birth, until she becomes weak, develops an infection and falls ill, or even dies. The mother fish's labor time is not fixed; some finish giving birth in half an hour, while others can drag on for several days. But if dystocia occurs, it may cause the death of the mother fish. So how do you tell whether a guppy has dystocia?
The way to judge dystocia is to observe the mother fish's vent. If the tail or head of a fry is sticking out halfway there for more than half an hour, it may be dystocia. That fry is usually already dead, stuck at the mother fish's vent, preventing the mother fish from giving birth smoothly.
These are basically the causes of guppy dystocia. Now let's look at how to carry out artificial induction of labor:
1. Put in a heater rod to slowly raise the water temperature, then remove the heater rod and let it cool naturally. Repeat several times to achieve the effect.
2. Put the mother fish that is about to give birth into completely new water. A gentle water-acclimation process can effectively urge the mother fish to give birth. This can also prevent the mother fish from getting sick and provide good environmental conditions for the fry about to be born.
3. You can perform surgery on the guppy, cutting open her belly and extracting the little guppies. When they first come out, you will find they are wrapped in egg membranes; once the egg membranes are broken open, the little guppies can hop about lively. Of course, this is done only when there is no other choice; in this situation, the mother fish's survival rate is relatively low.
Actually, the best way to deal with guppy dystocia is to do good prevention work after understanding the causes. During the pre-birth period, you can increase the water flow to help the guppy move around more, and the oxygen must be sufficient. As for feeding, you can give water fleas, brine shrimp and bloodworms. When nutrition keeps up and the mother fish's constitution is good, dystocia problems rarely occur.
In the guppy breeding process, dystocia should be fairly common. I believe many experienced keepers have encountered the phenomenon of guppies dying from dystocia. Actually, as long as the temperature, water quality and tank separation for guppy breeding are handled well, the probability of dystocia will be greatly reduced.
2. Postpartum care for guppies
1. Once you find that the mother guppy has finished giving birth, immediately scoop out the mother fish to prevent her from eating the fry. It is best to isolate the mother guppy and keep her alone for a few days to replenish nutrition, and after she recovers, put her back into the original tank.
2. Newborn guppies are best kept in water from the original tank. Try not to change the water in the first week, keep the water temperature at 25~26 degrees, the water quality good and the oxygen sufficient. When water needs to be changed, each time slowly change only a little of the sun-dried water at the same temperature, and normally pay attention to promptly cleaning up dirt and residue to avoid sudden changes in water temperature and quality. On the first day after the fry are born, there is no need to feed them; 24 hours after birth, start them on brine shrimp larvae as the first food; from 1~4 months after birth, let the fry eat their fill; after 5 months, appropriately reduce feeding, feeding once in the morning and once in the evening each day, with the standard being that they finish most of it within 5 minutes.