I don’t know about you but I love watching an aquarium full of colorful guppies swimming around and loving life? But what do Guppies Eat?
Lets find out!
There is just something so vibrant and attractive about the fancy little fellows that I can’t help but admire them. Do they eat a simple diet and are they expensive to feed is one of the questions a beginner may ask. Well, in this article we will try to explain everything you need to know about guppies feeding habits.
What do guppies eat – Guppies like most community freshwater tropical fish will accept and enjoy dried flaked food but will also need a variety in their diet. As responsible pet fish owners, we have a duty to supply them with a varied and balanced diet. Live foods like brine shrimp and bloodworms are perfect. Frozen foods are becoming more and more popular along with 1mm pellets.
Keeping an aquarium full of healthy guppies, however, isn’t as simple as just putting them into their home and watching them swim. They need us to care for them to ensure they remain fit and healthy and that no problems ensue.
Part of the care that guppies need, but sometimes we as fish keepers overlook, is the provision of a nutritious and balanced diet. Giving guppies the food that they need can and will ensure that they thrive and grow to be healthy. So, how do we make sure of this? ……
Table of Contents
What do Guppies Eat?
Like most species of fish, Guppies need a good staple food that should be fed on a daily basis. Usually, this is in the form of a high standard tropical flake, although some fish keepers choose to use crisps or pellets.
Tropical Flake
Flaked food is the most common form of nutrition found in a fish keepers larder. It is easy to feed, simply sprinkle on the water, and full of ingredients chosen based on your fish’s natural diet such as:
- Fish meal
- Squid meal
- Brewer’s yeast
- Soybean meal
- Vitamins and minerals
Tropical flake is ideal for Guppies but should be crushed up into small enough pieces for them to eat and not contain too many fillers which are simply there to make your fish feel full. These include carbohydrates such as:
- Wheat flour
- Wheat gluten
- Oatmeal
- Potato protein
- Sorbitol
- inositol
Pellet and crisps, as mentioned earlier, are a good alternative to flake as they float longer, dissolve slower, and retain nutrients better than a flake does. However, they are often formulated in sizes that are too big for a fish the size of a Guppy to eat. Take care if you choose to feed your Guppies pellet or crisps that they are small enough for them to swallow.
Supplementary foods for guppy
The best way to describe supplementary food for Guppies would be to say that it is akin to a healthy treat. These foods should be given in moderation, certainly not as a main diet, and chosen with some care. For example, whilst live food gives your Guppies a chance to hunt, it can also carry diseases. Therefore, it is better and less risky to choose a freeze-dried option instead.
Freeze-Dried Foods
Unlike flake, pellet, or crisp which is made up of a variety of ingredients, freeze-dried foods are typically a single specimen of live food that has been dried whole. They contain plenty of nutrition and are full of flavor your Guppies will love. There is also plenty of variety such as:
- Krill
- Plankton
- Bloodworms
- Brine shrimp
Please note that freeze-dried foods should be soaked before feeding to aid your Guppies in digesting them. They will also need crumbling up to make them break into pieces small enough for your Guppies to eat.
Fresh Foods
Many fish including Guppies enjoy a little fresh food in their diet such as fruit and vegetables. It is also, like freeze-dried options, a healthy and nutritious option. Fresh foods you can consider giving to your Guppies include:
- Lettuce
- Peas
- Cucumber
- Melon
- Apple
- grapes
Please be aware that fruit adds sugar into your aquarium’s water which can result in increased algae. Be sure to remove all uneaten fresh food from your aquarium within a few hours.
How often should you feed Guppy Fish?
Small and often is the best way to feed your Guppies. These popular tropical fish love to feed 2-3 times a day. Feed them a variety of foods including flake, dried and live foods and they will thrive in your home aquarium.
GUPPY F.A.Q
- How much food do guppies eat? A small pinch of flake food twice a day and a small amount of live food 2-3 times a week
- What do baby Guppy eat? Baby Guppy eat newly hatched brine shrimp and crumbled flake food.
- Do Guppy eat Bloodworms? Yes, they love fresh bloodworms.
- What’s the best Guppy food? Flake food is the staple food for Guppy fish. Ensure you buy a top quality food like Tetra Flake.
- Do guppies eat their babies? Yes, adult and large guppy will eat their young. Add plants for shelter or separate the young from their parents to prevent being eaten.
Conclusion: What do guppy eat?
A Guppies diet, as we have seen, is not difficult to maintain, they are certainly not picky eaters. They are, however, relatively small, and need food that is sized to accommodate this. To give you an indication of this, Guppies have a tiny mouth and a stomach only the approximate size of their eye.
Read: 5 Things you didn’t know about guppies
Also, and certainly worth mentioning when talking Guppy food, is the fact that they do not need much food to survive and thrive. Overfeeding can be a cause of ill health, in fact, more so than a poor diet. Guppies only need a miniscule pinch of flaked food once or twice a day to, as they say, keep the doctor away!
[author title=”About the Author”]
I have been working in the tropical fish industry for over 30 years now and I’m still learning. Everyday is a school day in this hobby. In my spare time I play golf very badly!