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How to acclimate guppies ot saltwater?


dasstheboss

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I want ot put maybe liek 10 guppies in my 54 lagoon tank with seahorses and garden eels, what exactly do i have ot do convert them, they will ofcourse add a lot of food supply for the seahorse and create some color and variety.

 

How is it done?.. cant fidn any threads or sites exactly how its done.. also is it cruel to convert them?.. i know they live in saltwater ( can lvie actually) thats why i am trying this, the babies can be eaten by horses and some may survive keepnig the seahorse further fed.

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what do you mean lakshwadeep? i heard they can live in 150% natural sea-water salinity ( i read it .. cant post link tho) thats why i wanted to try it. I will be buying some for my 54 corner tank tomorrow.. about 10.. 3 males and 7 females. Also, what do you think about a snake eel in with seahorses?

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They can stand full saltwater levels just fine. They need to be acclimated to it slowly over time (slower than a molly) and I've heard it's easier with younger fish. I highly doubt the seahorses will eat them.

Edited by Break
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We accidentally did it at the store. We had been treating the spotted puffers (brackish) for something and decided to drop the salinity to like 1.008 if I remember correctly. Anyway the puffers hadn't been eating and to just get somthing in their stomach we dropped in a few smaller guppies. We the puffers didn't eat the guppies and we finally lost that particular fish. We raised the salinity over a couple of days back to 1.012. The guppies are still there and every now and again one can spot a baby before it's gobbled.I don't know if you can push it to 1.023 though. HTH

 

-pinner

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I guess then it should be okay. But, IMO, they aren't very attractive in a saltwater setting.

Edited by lakshwadeep
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Sea horses and eels may not work to well together, please just double check (I believe they are rated a 4 on the link I gave ya; click on the picture you are considering adding to your existing sea horses, so that no lives get lost)

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My LFS throws guppies in their SW tanks to feed some of their larger fish. I was in there the other day and I was like WTF is that? I looked closer and apparently some of their feeders had made it and even given birth and the babies were everywhere, lol. Was in there a couple week later and they were still there.

 

Also at another LFS where I used to live someone threw a black sailfin molly into the eel tank thinking it would be cool to watch it eat but instead he ignored it and I swear I have never seen a more beautiful and large sailfin molly.

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thanks a lot guys, i want the guppies os that the seahorse might eat the baby guppies, the fancy guppy babies wont lvie ot maturity anywyas due it inbreeding and all so what gives, let the seahorses have food.

 

Also, i am almost 99.999% sure the garden eels and safe with shrimp, iverts , pretty much anything that is also peaceful becuase they are extremely shy. As per the snake eel i am not sure . i have seen one in my lfs the other day and it was there with very small fish and it didnt eat it. I still want ot safe though because i dont want my seahorse pair hurt.

 

All in all it should be ok right? .. i am going ot pic kup 10 guppies fro mpetsmart tomorrow.

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terrariumsrock
thanks, going ot get guppies tdy, will post pics as soon as i have some.

 

 

your welcome. make sure you acclimate them to the water by floating the bag in the tank for 5-10 mins before placing in the tank!

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Total SW noob here but what I can tell you is that I have a 55G FW filled with guppies, neons,etc. On a regular basis I take baby guppies out of the big tank and put them in my fiddler crab tank that's hovers around 1.01 sal. The babies acclimate well and once they get big enough to determine sex and quality of color, the 'winners' get transferred back into the big tank. The 'losers' made up of mostly excess males and those too similar to existing members of my gene pool live out their days in with the crabs. The only time I've had problems it when I have tried transferring older adults. They don't make the change as easily and tend to kick it after a couple of months.

 

Hope this helps. BTW there are newer guppy types that can compete with SW fish for color, the males especially.

guppy1pw2.jpg

Even females, long the drab little price we had to pay for all those baby guppies come in a lovely yellow (golden) color morph that rocks.(excuse the blurry pic)

guppy2cd7.jpg

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I don't think that eels, seahorses and guppies is going to make a successful mix. People have advised against and you still want to do it? Have you researched if seahorses will even eat guppy fry?

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seahorses and garden eels are i believe a good mix because the garden eels are shy and will actually get scared of the seahorses. I am pretty sure the seahorses will eat the guppy fry because they eat anything that moves ( at least mine do)

 

Thats why seahorses with the combo won't be a bad idea, the guppies will add color and food. Considering they can live out their lives in sw.. lets see

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Are you prepared to care for the sea horses, and especially the garden eels? They have extremely specific care requirements that are quite time consuming.

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AquariumAddict

Just a note on the SW guppies. I had a brackish tank for a violet goby for a few years and I wanted something else in there for color (I had an 85 gallon tank with only my violet goby who liked to hide) and I spent a fortune on some really pretty guppies, all of which died. Finally I ened up buying some of the cheap (not nearly as colorful) feeder guppies and threw them in. They lived, thrived, reporduced, and I don't think anything would have killed them. Of course that was brackish water, but I definately would recommend trying the feeder guppies instead of the fancy guppies. If nothing else it will make your experiment cheaper.

 

Good luck!

 

Becky

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  • 13 years later...

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