Fancy guppies are guppies that are selectively bred to produce unique color strains. These show-quality fish are more colorful and attractive than their wild counterparts. Although their nutrition requirements resemble wild guppies, the food options available to them are different. So, what do fancy guppies eat?
Fancy guppies eat both animal and plant-based food items. A rich and varied diet of both store-bought and fresh foods will help them thrive. You can feed fancy guppies commercial flake food and pellets regularly and occasionally treat them to live or frozen food like bloodworms and brine shrimp.
Let’s talk about this in more detail now.
Feeding Behavior Of Fancy Guppies
Guppies are incredibly easy to care for. Even the fancy varieties adjust to most tank conditions and are suitable for beginners.
Fancy guppies are generally not very fussy when it comes to food. They will nibble on anything edible in their surroundings.
Guppies are omnivores, which means they eat both plants and animals.
In their natural habitat, these fish eat aquatic plants, algae, small insects, insect larva, invertebrates, and plankton.
They thrive on a rich and varied diet.
Since fancy guppies are bred in captivity, they depend on their owners for nutrition.
You can plan most of their meals around commercially available fish food.
Fancy guppies thrive on good-quality store-bought fish flakes and pellets.
You can also add some variety to their diet to improve their health.
Supplementary live food and vegetable-based foods will enrich their nutritional intake.
Recommended Further Reading:
- What Do Baby Guppies Eat? (7 Healthy Foods They Should Eat)
- Do Guppies Lay Eggs Or Give Live Birth? (Explained Simply)
- Why Do Guppies Chase Each Other? (8 Prominent Reasons)
The Ideal Diet For Fancy Guppies
Although fancy guppies will eat anything edible, you should not feed them random stuff.
The quality and quantity of food will determine their health and overall well-being.
Since guppies are very small fish, they need very little food.
However, they appear to be constantly hungry. So, owners tend to feed them extra.
Unfortunately, overfeeding is detrimental to their health.
Instead, stick to a regular feeding schedule and offer just the correct quantity of food once or twice a day.
Good quality flake food will help your fancy guppies attain all the nutrients they need for good health.
Since guppies are omnivores, they need protein-rich food.
Therefore, avoid feeding them fish food that is designed for herbivorous fish since it will lack protein.
Choose high-quality fish food and avoid fish flakes and pellets that contain fillers.
You can look at the list of ingredients to identify the amount of protein in the product.
For example, poor-quality fish food will have wheat or soy as the primary ingredients.
While commercially available flakes and pellets will help guppies meet their nutritional requirements, they will also benefit from supplements and live foods.
Best Supplementary Foods For Fancy Guppies
Apart from fish flakes, it will be helpful to include supplementary food for your fancy guppies.
Foods that are rich in vitamins and minerals like iron and calcium will enhance their health.
Veggie pellets are a good choice since they have Vitamins B, C, D, and E and various minerals.
Now, fancy guppies are highly prized for their beautiful tail colors.
To enhance their lovely colors and help them appear more vibrant, you can include spirulina tablets in the diet.
Apart from natural supplements, your guppies will also benefit from consuming live foods and vegetables.
Freeze-dried shrimp, blood worms, daphnia, and frozen tubifex worms are good choices.
Since fancy guppies have small mouths, don’t give them these foods directly.
Instead, cut them into small pieces before feeding them to the fish.
However, when serving live foods to fancy guppies, you should be very careful about hygiene.
Live foods can carry parasites that make the fish ill.
Apart from live and freeze-dried foods, you can also treat your fancy guppies to vegetables and fruits.
They enjoy carrots, cucumber, peas, kale, spinach, and other green vegetables.
Avoid feeding grains or bread. Your guppy will have trouble digesting such food.
Additionally, these foods don’t improve their health.
Baby guppies need more proteins and fats than adult guppies.
Foods like egg yolk and beef heart help baby guppies grow faster and bigger.
When serving these items, make sure to finely chop or crush them up.
Feed small amounts at a time since these foods are not easy to digest.
Avoid feeding large quantities of such fatty foods to adult guppies since they don’t need too much protein or fat at their age.
Related Further Reading:
- Why Do Guppies Blow Bubbles? (6 Easy Ways To Stop Them)
- Do Guppies Eat Bloodworms? (Live, Frozen, Or Freeze-Dried?)
- Why Do Guppies Breed So Much? (6 Primary Reasons)
- Do Guppy Fins Grow Back? (How To Help In Regrowth?)
Do Fancy Guppies Eat Algae?
Wild guppies eat a lot of algae. Since it is readily available, baby guppies constantly snack on it.
However, eating algae doesn’t provide too many nutritional benefits to these fish.
Fancy guppies will enjoy snacking on algae if they have access to it.
Although the fish are not active algae eaters, they will nibble on any algae in their surroundings.
Eating algae is neither harmful nor significantly beneficial for fancy guppies.
Since too many algae can deprive a tank of essential vitamins and oxygen, we don’t recommend creating supportive conditions for algae growth in your tank.
You can give your fancy guppies algae wafers if you prefer.
Although they don’t offer many nutritional benefits, your fish will enjoy the taste.
It will satisfy their hunger and doesn’t cause any harm to their health.
Will Fancy Guppies Eat Shrimp?
Shrimp is one of the favorite foods for fancy guppies.
In their natural habitats, guppies will devour any shrimp or shrimp babies that they can find.
These tiny animals are a good source of protein for guppies.
Most guppy owners feed brine shrimp or ghost shrimp to their fancy guppies.
It offers good nutritional benefits for fancy guppy fry and helps them grow faster and bigger.
You can feed adult fancy guppies with shrimp as an occasional treat.
They don’t need too much protein, and constant access to shrimp is not too great for their health.
Now, if you like to have pet shrimp, avoid keeping them in the same tank as your fancy guppies.
The guppies will chase and attack the shrimp and cause them a lot of stress.
Interesting Further Reading:
- Why Do Guppies Change Color? (5 Reasons + What To Do?)
- Why Do Guppies Lay At The Bottom? (3 Reasons + What To Do)
- Do Guppies Contain Thiaminase? (What Fish Has It?)
- Why Do Guppies Hide? + How To Stop Guppies From Hiding?
Do Fancy Guppies Eat Their Babies?
Like wild guppies, fancy guppies are not great parents.
Not only do they not take care of their young, but they also devour them if they get a chance.
These animals are notorious for eating anything that fits their mouths, including guppy fry.
When guppy babies are born, they are very tiny. Hence, they will fit into the mouths of adult guppies.
Should guppy fry come too close, there is every chance that the adults will eat them.
Since guppies breed profusely, this could be nature’s way of keeping their population under check.
Guppy fry will have a better chance of survival if your tank has plants that offer hiding spaces.
Once the guppy babies grow too big for the adults to swallow, they will no longer be interested in eating them.
However, if you wish to keep your fancy guppy fry safe, separate the mother guppy before she gives birth.
You can move her to a separate tank when she is about to give birth.
If this is not possible, you can use a tank divider to keep the newborns away from the rest of the fish in the tank.
Even when you do so, the mother may herself eat some of the young ones soon after they are born.
