#guppies

I Removed My Guppies… Everything Changed (Planted Aquarium Update)

What happens when you remove the main predator from a planted aquarium? That's exactly what I'm finding out after taking the guppies out of one of my tanks and giving them to a friend for his breeding project.

Within just a couple of weeks, the ecosystem has already started changing in some really interesting ways. The biggest difference has been the sudden explosion in the flatworm population. Although they look similar to planaria at first glance, I believe they're harmless flatworms because their heads have a different shape. It seems very likely that the guppies had been quietly controlling their numbers without me ever noticing.

I've also seen a huge increase in what I believe are freshwater copepods, although I'm not completely certain of the identification. Whatever they are, their population has grown dramatically since the guppies were removed, suggesting they were another natural food source that the fish had been keeping in check.

Freshwater limpets are still present too, although I haven't noticed any significant change in their numbers just yet. It'll be interesting to keep watching over the coming weeks to see if they also respond to the absence of the guppies.

The Neocaridina shrimp continue to thrive as usual. Despite keeping guppies with them for years, I've never actually witnessed the guppies eating either adult shrimp or shrimplets. Even so, I'm curious to see whether the shrimp population grows more quickly now that one potential predator has been removed from the aquarium.

Of course, ecosystems are always changing, and this experiment probably won't stay this way for long. I've recently introduced medaka ricefish fry into the tank and, as they grow, they'll almost certainly begin feeding on some of these tiny invertebrates. That should shift the balance of the aquarium once again and create an entirely new food web.

It's a great reminder that every species in an aquarium influences the ecosystem, even in ways we don't always notice. Sometimes removing just one fish can trigger a chain reaction that affects countless other organisms living in the tank.

I breed guppies and I think they are just so pretty. ☺️

Here are some pics of the actually guppies.

(ID:

Image one:An illustration of some guppies swimming past a stylized cartoon version of OP

Image two: A photo of one of the male guppies it is yellowish orange with yellow and white accents as well as dark spots along its body

okay, a beam of natural sunlight simply cant be beat when it comes to lighting up my pretty boys

also, 2 boys have been coloring up recently but too fast to get good pics of:

that is to say we had one very suddenly die that went from what we assumed was just normal "settling in hanging out at the top because it feels safe" behavior to within minutes floating and falling upside down and then doing an awful death spiral... and right after getting home from taking it back to the store so we could get a replacement, a second one that had been hanging out a little bit at the top but still seemed to swim perfectly fine had what i can only describe as a catastrophic internal shutdown where it went blind, its gills and mouth got stuck open, and it lost all sense of whether it was moving or not or if it was right side up or upside down, then did a similar sink for a while and then frantically swim cycle until it passed...