If you want your aquarium to be attractive and beautiful, fancy guppies are your ideal choice. They are available in a wide range of colors like gold, blue, black, green and red. All these colors attract the attention of children and visitors. In fact, if you select a good mix from a bunch of colorful guppies, looking at them is a great and relaxing experience.

Fancy guppies are freshwater fish and love to stay in warm water. If you keep your aquarium temperature between 77 and 83°F, they will be very happy to live there. To make them more comfortable, you can add about 1 tablespoon of salt for every 5 gallons of water.

They do not complain about the food offered to them. Any regular food available at the pet fish store, such as flake food, is fine for them. You can even feed them boiled vegetables. However, if you can afford to feed them live foods like brine shrimp or bloodworms, they will get stronger.

You need to be careful when balancing your aquarium if you plan to keep fancy guppies. You must keep at least two females per male. In fact, if you keep more females for a single male, they are happy!

Many species of fish are compatible with fancy guppies. You can have Cory Catfish, Gouramis, Glassfish, and even African Dwarf Frogs with them. However, you need to do a little research on the internet to find out the compatibility. Pet stores sometimes try to sell mollies with guppies and recommend that they go well together. That is not true. They make such a recommendation because they want to sell their mollies. Remember, if the mollies get bigger they will attack the guppies and there will be continual fighting resulting in injuries to the guppies.

You should also avoid Platies and Swordtails with guppies. They just can’t get along. In fact, the basic criterion for deciding compatibility is the size of the fish. The fish you want to keep with guppies should always be smaller than the guppies. Guppies are not capable of fighting and will be harmed by large fish. In fact, your guppies will always be under stress due to such attacks and they will get sick and may even die in no time.

Fancy guppies won’t live longer anyway. They will live up to three years maximum. They will not be very large in captivity. They only grow up to 2 inches. Females can grow slightly larger, up to 2 ½ inches. If you take good care of them by providing excellent water conditions, regular cleaning, good food, and good friends, they can live up to five years. Some experienced fish keepers have successfully shown that they can grow larger than normal if they are well cared for.

Acclimatizing guppies to your tank is a job that requires a lot of time and patience. If you receive them in bags from the store or from breeders, don’t rush to open the bags and put the fish directly into the aquarium. Instead, keep the bag floating in the aquarium for at least an hour and then slowly add some tank water into the bag. After keeping them in that water for at least half an hour, you can slowly release them into the main tank.

Remember, fish are smaller in size and take time to adapt to the new environment. Therefore, you must be patient before showing them your future residence.