Guppy fish are some of the most popular aquarium fish, thanks to their small, colorful body and easy-to-care-for nature. Do you have a guppy fish in your aquarium? If so, you may be wondering what to feed it. After getting an aquarium fish in the tank, the first instinct is to consider and list all the things you can drop in the tank for guppies to eat. But what do guppies eat? So, what is a guppy fish fry diet?
Guppies are omnivorous fish, which means they will eat both plants and animals. The guppy fish diet consists of live and frozen bloodworms, tubifex worms, brine shrimps, daphnia, etc., pellets, and flakes. In addition, these fish eat spirulina tablets, algae wafers, vegetables, and fruits. In the wild, guppies eat algae, small insects, and crustaceans, so their diet also stays similar in captivity.
We will discuss the diet of guppy fish in the wild and captivity and also provide tips on feeding your guppies and what happens if you don’t feed them.
So, keep reading for more information!
Guppy Fish Diet In The Wild: What Do Guppies Eat?
Guppies are native to South and North-East America and inhabit slow-moving waters such as ponds, marshes, and streams.
Guppies are opportunistic feeders, and their diet in the wild consists of small aquatic invertebrates such as mosquito larvae, crustaceans, worms, and insects. They also feed on plant matter, including algae.
So The Means Guppy Fish Are Omnivorous, Right?
Yes, Guppies are omnivorous fish, which means they will eat plant and animal matter. Guppies often feed on small insects, larvae, and other tiny aquatic creatures in the wild. They will also nibble on algae and other plants.
In the aquarium, you can provide your guppies with various foods. They will accept most commercial fish foods, including pellets, flakes, and tablets.
In addition, you can supplement their diet with live food, vegetables, fruits, and algae. It is important to offer your guppies various foods to ensure they get all the nutrients they need.
Guppy Fish Diet In The Aquarium: What To Feed Guppies?
In the aquarium, you can provide your guppies with a similar diet to what they would eat in the wild. In addition, you can supplement their diet with frozen or freeze-dried foods like bloodworms, tubifex worms, and brine shrimp.
Vegetables such as zucchini, cucumber, and spinach are also a good addition to their diet and can be offered a few times a week. Guppy also eats or nibbles the live plants present in the tank when they get hungry or bored.
These tropical guppies also enjoy eating algae, so if you have some growing in your aquarium, they will likely nibble on it from time to time.
Commercial food for guppies is also widely available and can be used as the mainstay of their diet. Pellets and flakes are both good choices, and spirulina tablets and wafers can be offered as a treat.
Guppy fish will even eat their babies when no food is available in the tank, as these fish devour anything that fits in their mouths.
Homemade Food For Guppies
You can also make your food for guppies. This is a great way to ensure that they get the nutrients they need and that you know exactly what is in their food. There are a few recipes online that you can try or come up with your own.
Live Food
Live food is one of the best things you can feed your guppies. This includes things like brine shrimp, daphnia, bloodworms, etc.
Mosquito larvae are excellent choices; you can offer them to your guppies regularly. Guppies love live food; it is a great way to ensure they get the necessary nutrients.
You can culture daphnia, which contains a high amount of carbohydrates, fat, vitamin A and D, and proteins.
You can do it at home with the help of 6 to 8 hours of light and the availability of its food, such as yeast, algae, and bacteria.
But, trust me, the smell can get too pungent for you to handle. Or, just choose vinegar eels that are easy to culture but hard to harvest more.
However, it too has the strong smell of vinegar even though it is a good source of fat and protein if you are okay with all the smells. Remember to refrain from overfeeding these to your fish and drop them off only once weekly.
Alternatively, switch to micro worms that are easier to harvest or go with brine shrimps and culture them at home. But it is necessary to rotate every diet daily and not overfeed one thing to guppies.
Vegetables
You can supplement your guppy’s diet with finely chopped vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, and zucchini.
And you can either feed them raw vegetables or blanch them first, but make sure to chop them up into small pieces so they can easily eat them.
Some other great options for guppies include carrots, peas, and cucumber. But remember to deseed all these vegetables that contain seed, and it is better to blanch each of them to make it softer for guppies to nibble.
Fruits
You can also feed your guppies fruits. Again, you can either feed them raw or blanch them first. Some great fruit options for guppies include apples, bananas, and melons.
But does the fruit you can choose consist of seeds in them? If it does, you will have to remove the seeds before feeding them to your guppies. The reason is that the seeds are actually hard to swallow and poisonous to fish if they consume them.
If you choose to feed your guppies cooked fruits, make sure you don’t add any spices or salt. These are harmful to your guppy fish and will invite problems and issues in the tank.
When feeding your guppies fruits, make sure to give them in moderation. Just like with vegetables, too much fruit can cause problems with the digestive system. A good rule of thumb is to offer them fruits no more than once or twice a week.
Algae
Another great food option for guppy fish is algae. Algae is a great source of nutrients for fish and can be found in most aquariums. You can also purchase algae tablets or flakes from your local pet store.
Algae is a very important part of the guppy fish diet in the wild. Guppies graze on algae all day long to get the nutrients they need.
They also provide them with shelter and hiding places from predators. You can provide your guppies with algae in the aquarium by growing live plants or adding algae tablets to their diet.
Egg Yolk
You can feed your guppies egg yolk as a protein source packed with nutrients and easy to digest. Guppy fry can also benefit from this food source.
This yolk contains a high amount of fat, so please consider and rethink the amount and number of times you feed it to your adult guppies.
But then again, besides protein, egg yolk also contains vitamin A, C, D, and B-12, sodium, potassium, and minerals like calcium, magnesium, and iron.
Crush the hardboiled egg yolk and make small balls from the yolk paste. Drop them in the water but don’t go overboard as these can pollute the aquarium water easily.
Commercial Food For Guppies
There are many commercial foods available for guppies. The most common are pellets, flakes, and spirulina tablets.
Pellets and flakes are made with all the nutrients guppies need and can be fed as the main diet. Spirulina tablets are a good supplement to their diet and provide extra protein.
Wafers, freeze-dried blood worms, tubifex worms, and brine shrimp are good options to feed your guppies. These foods are high in protein, and you should give these as a treat once in a while.
Pellets
You can never go wrong when you choose pellets as food for your guppies. Those veggie pellets you can get in any pet store are rich in Vitamin B, C, D, and E while supplying calcium and iron to your guppies.
All thanks to their combination of spirulina, plankton, and algae which are quite the common diet of guppies in their natural habitat.
Flakes
Flake food is another common type of food for guppies and is similar to pellets in that they usually contain all the nutrients your guppy needs. To feed your guppy flakes, simply sprinkle a few into the tank and watch as they eat them up!
Spirulina Tablets
Now, coming to the organic matter mimics guppies’ diet in the wild. Spirulina tablets are those small green tablets available in any pet store.
You just need to drop them in the water, and the guppies will have a feast. These tablets are rich in protein and essential nutrients that help the fish grow faster.
Wafers
Another type of food that you can give to your guppy is wafers. There are different types of wafers available in the market. You can choose the one that suits your guppy fish diet best.
Freeze-Dried Blood Worms, Tubifex Worms, And Brine Shrimp
If you want to treat your guppy, you can give them freeze-dried bloodworms, tubifex worms, or brine shrimps.
These are a type of live food that is available in the market. You can either get them from your local pet store or online.
Freeze-dried blood, tubifex worms, and brine shrimps are a great source of protein for your guppy. They are also a good source of iron.
Iron is essential for the production of hemoglobin in the blood. In addition, it helps carry oxygen to the tissues and organs of the body.
The amount of freeze-dried food you should give your guppy depends on the size of the fish. A good rule of thumb is to give them about twice a week.
Of course, you can also give them these daily if you want. But it is best to rotate the type of food you provide them.
Various live, frozen, and freeze-dried foods are available in the market. But the best diet for guppies combines all these food items.
When giving your guppy freeze-dried foods, ensure to soak them in water for a few minutes before giving them to the fish. This will help rehydrate the worms and make them easier for the fish to digest.
If you are unsure how much freeze-dried stuff to give your guppy, you can always ask your local pet store or veterinarian for advice.
How Often To Feed Your Guppies?
It would help if you fed your guppies twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. It is important to stick to this feeding schedule as much as possible so your guppies can get used to it and know when to expect their food.
Overfeeding and underfeeding these guppies can be detrimental to their health, so it is important to find a balance.
You do not want to start this circus in the tank. And, of course, the number of times you need to feed your guppies depends on various factors like age, size, growth rate, gender, number of guppies in the tank, etc.
You know, you need to feed guppy fry more often than adults, right? While you can get away with feeding adult guppies twice a day, your guppy fry will need food every two hours or so as they are just starting to develop.
You can decrease the frequency once they attain the proper growth rate. Also, pregnant guppies are more hungry and need the energy to carry and deliver the babies. So, female guppies need to eat more often than male ones.
How To Feed Your Guppies?
The best way to feed your guppies is by using a small, siphon-operated aquarium vacuum cleaner.
This will help you avoid overfeeding them and ensure that the food goes straight to the guppies and not to the other fish in the aquarium.
If you don’t have a vacuum cleaner, you can use a small turkey baster or eye-dropper to feed them.
But honestly, all these are too much hassle; just drop some food in the guppy tank and be done with it.
Do not feed these fish any more than they can eat in two minutes. If you see uneaten food after that time, remove it from the tank so it does not pollute the water.
What Happens If You Don’t Feed Your Guppies?
What will happen if you don’t eat any food for days? You will eventually die. The same goes for guppy fish. If you don’t feed your guppies, they will slowly starve to death.
This is because guppies cannot store food in their bodies as humans can and need to eat regularly to survive. If these guppy fish are not eating food, then there is something wrong that you need to take care of.
If you don’t feed your guppies, they will first become lethargic and stop swimming around as much. Then, their bodies will start breaking down their tissue to get the nutrients they need.
This can lead to organ damage, various guppy diseases, and eventually death. Therefore, if you see your guppies behaving this way, you must start feeding them immediately.
Guppy Fish Fry Diet: What To Feed Baby Guppies?
Like adult guppies, baby guppies are omnivorous and eat almost anything you give them. However, their small size means they need smaller food items that they can easily digest and process.
Some great food options for baby guppies include:
- Infusoria for newborn baby guppies
- live food such as brine shrimp, daphnia, or micro worms
- freeze-dried blood worms, tubifex worms, or brine shrimp
- vegetables such as zucchini, cucumber, or spinach (chopped into small pieces)
- algae wafers
- commercial pellets or flakes designed for baby fish
As a general rule of thumb, you should feed your baby guppies several times a day (about every two to three hours), giving them only as much food as they can eat in two minutes or less.
It is also important to note that baby guppies need to eat more often than adults. This is because they have small stomachs and high metabolisms, so you must feed them multiple times a day.
Foods To Avoid In Guppy Fish Diet
You cannot simply feed your guppy any food. Some human foods can be toxic to fish. For example, feeding your guppy avocado can kill them. Avocados contain a chemical called persin which is harmful to many animals, including fish.
Other foods to avoid feeding your guppy include:
- Chocolate
- Canned tuna
- Onions
- Garlic
- Tomatoes
- Bread
- Beef
- Chicken
These are just a few examples. It is best to do your research before feeding your guppy anything other than commercial fish food or live food.
How Long Can Guppies Survive Without Food?
Guppies can live for up to two weeks without food, but they will start to lose weight, and their health will deteriorate.
If you plan on going away for more than a week, it is best to find someone to feed your fish or get an automatic feeder.
It is also important to remember that guppies still need clean water even if they are not eating, so make sure to change the water in the guppy tank regularly.
Guppies can survive for a few days without food, but they will start to show malnutrition after that. If you cannot do this, you can purchase an automatic feeder to dispense food regularly.
Overfeeding or guppy fish eating too much can lead to water quality issues, but this is easier to fix than starvation. If you are unsure how much to feed your guppies, ask a veterinarian or experienced aquarist for advice.
Conclusion
In conclusion, guppy fish are omnivorous and will eat a variety of food sources. They mostly consume live food in the wild, such as insects, crustaceans, and worms. However, they will also eat algae and plant matter. In the aquarium, you can provide them with commercial pellets or flakes, live food, or vegetables and fruits. It is important to feed them multiple times a day in small quantities. If you do not feed your guppies, they will eventually die. You should feed baby guppies or fry live food such as microworms or baby brine shrimp.
As long as you provide your guppy fish with a varied and nutritious diet, they will be healthy and thrive in your aquarium!
Do you have any questions about the guppy fish diet or nutrition? Let me know in the comments below!
Good Luck!
Happy Fishkeeping!!!
