Fancy Guppy, Regular Guppy, what is the difference?

small fry

Hi. I have never kept guppies before. I am considering putting guppies in my empty (with snails) 5g tank.

The tank is still cycleing (for the next couple weeks) and I need 1 Guppy to speed up the cycle. My lfs only has fancy guppies, not normal. Are fancy's likely to survive the cycle (with water changes)? Are they as hardy or almost as hardy as the regular guppies? I can't imagine a fish being so beautiful, and still be as hardy as guppies (oh wait...bettas).

Is there any differences in hardiness or any other areas?

Thanks!

Marginatus

In theory no, there should be very little difference but some lines are quite sensitive these days, purely because the way they've been bred in near sterile conditions.

If you can get one of the short tailed varieties they tend to be a bit hardier.

Failing that try fishless cycling, there's various methods of doing it.

small fry

"Failing that"? What do you mean?

I don't know what kind of fishless cycle to do. I have snails (ramshorn and MTS), I guess feeding them would help cycle the tank?

Marginatus

Sorry, that was badly worded, I just mean that if you don't want to use fancy Guppies to cycle the tank then just use the fishless method, I actually prefer it, it's cheap, you're not risking any Fish and it works just as well. You can just add some organic material and as it rots it will create ammonia to start the process...Fish food works well. Just make sure the parameters are good before adding Fish, you'll obviously need a test kit.

You can also buy ammonia in bottles from some chemists and do it that way. Google 'fishless cycling', it'll give you a more detailed explanation.

small fry

My only problem is my snails. Can't just let something rot with snails in the tank. Don't want them to die.

Marginatus

You're going to have to create ammonia somehow, whether that's with Fish waste or with another method it's all the same. You're right about feeding the snails though, that will create a certain amount of ammonia and you may not need to use anything else...I don't know how big they are or how much ammonia they produce, I don't know much about snails.

small fry

I might get a Guppy ahead of time for the cycle. I will moniter the ammonia very closely once it is added.

Is that Ok?