Are you a pet lover? However, your lifestyle (your work especially), doesn’t allow you to have enough time to really care for one. Worry not, because we have the perfect pet just for you, the adorable guppies!

According to the Center for Disease Control, owning a pet has a lot of health benefits. Studies prove that it can aid in managing loneliness and depression. The bond that the master and pet share can decrease stress, improve fitness, and bring happiness to the owners

So while some of us are not suited to have pets in our lives because of our busy careers and hurried lifestyles, it is still nice to go home and have a quiet company after a long day’s work. The best solution to that is to have an aquarium pet - and guppies make the perfect aquarium pet for you! In the meantime, you can learn about how to care for guppies from here.

6 Reasons Why Guppies Are The Perfect Pets

Here are some of the reasons why guppies make the perfect pets:

1. They’re Adorable

Hands down, guppies are one of the most beautiful tropical fishes or aquarium pets you will ever own. They come in an assortment of fin shapes, colours, sizes, and patterns.

The colours range from sky blue, albino, marbles, and even vibrant red. Even their tails have names like the flag, veil, pin, lyre, and many more.

Interestingly, it is the male guppies that have colourful bodies, the females, on the other hand, have predominantly grey bodies but have colourful tails to flaunt. 

Some of the more popular guppy varieties include the multi guppy, which consists of at least three distinct colours in their tails and dorsal fins. The snakeskin guppy, whose colouration resembles the patterns of the snake, and the blue guppy, which boasts of different hues of blue.

Photo courtesy of Peter Olsson

2. They’re Space Saving

Unlike other aquarium pets, Guppies don’t need a big aquarium.

Guppies are just small fishes. They grow to just around 1.5 inches in size, so you don’t need to have a huge aquarium for them.

To serve as your guide, a 5-gallon aquarium or tank is enough for 3-4 guppies. If you add a hang-on-back filer to your aquarium, you can add more guppies. You might likewise need filtration and heaters, as well as aquarium decors such as plants and areas where the guppies can hide.

A small aquarium set-up is ideal for beginners as well as for children and it also looks good in bedrooms. You can check out our Mini Desktop Fishtank from our store.

3. They’re Low Maintenance

Just like the more famous goldfish, guppies are relatively effortless to keep alive. As long as they have the correct set-up such as the right filtration and heater, they are very easy to maintain.

Like all fishes, guppies naturally need pristine water parameters, proper food, and regular aquarium cleaning and maintenance. You can learn about 5 easy to implements steps for cleaning a fish tank.

Suggested: How to clean a fish tank? 

The water temperature ideal for guppies is 72-78 ℉, Nitrates of under 10ppm, and water pH level of around 6.8 - 7.8 acidity.

Here are some maintenance tips to keep your Guppies alive for a long time:

• You should change at least 10-30% of the water every week. You can add water with a de-chlorinator for better results.
• Clean the water filter once or twice / month
• Wash and clean the glasses once a month
• Feed the fish  once or twice a day

4. They’re Very Easy To Breed

Unlike most fishes that lay eggs, guppies are mammals. They give birth to live successors. They don’t need specific water parameters to breed and mate.

Even though guppies, in general, don’t have a long lifespan, just put the male and female guppy together in a tank and they will multiply. In fact, the female can give birth to 30 - 40 fry every month.

An adult female guppy will reproduce fry every month until they grow to until 1 and a half to 2 years old, after which they would become infertile and live the remainder of their lives swimming around.

The only thing you need to be aware of when it comes to breeding guppies is that they are livebearers. They eat their young for unknown reasons. So you need to separate the young guppies in a breeding box for the little ones to survive.

Photo courtesy of Trung Nguyen 

5. They’re Very Active

Having a tank full of guppies is always a sight to watch. Watching them will never be boring, with all those different colours and hues, patterns, and tail shapes.

I’ve known some people who can sit and watch their guppies swim for hours on end without getting bored a bit. 

Feeding them is another spectacle to witness. Once they taste the food in the water, they will start swimming like crazy in an attempt to catch all of the food.

The only time that guppies are inactive is during night time when they are asleep. So you can consider it a cause of concern when you see a guppy at the bottom of the aquarium in the daytime, it is probably down with some illness.

Photo courtesy of Heryant Mantrifarm

6. They’re Peaceful and Can Live For Years

Unlike the predator fish like Arowana or the Siamese fighting fish, the guppies are not an aggressive fish. They will never attack each other or other fish in the aquarium.

You can put them together with the other non-aggressive fish such as mollies, oscar, neon tetras, and others. 

The only downside with guppies is that they eat their fry, which can be prevented by using a breeding box, or putting plants and decors in the tank to hide the fry.

Given the right water parameters and healthy nutrition, guppies can live for up to 3-5 years. But studies reveal that putting the male and female together in a tank puts a lot of stress on them which shortens their lifespan.

Photo courtesy of Ut Luy 

Bottom Line: Guppies Are The Perfect Pet For You!

I can cite more reasons why the guppies are the perfect pets, but to be honest, it’s difficult to sum it all up. With all their attributes and their cuteness, they are the types of fish you will never get bored of.

Suggested: -Guppy care Guide Step by Step

So if you’re looking for a pet that would suit your busy lifestyle and are painless to keep, taking care of a guppy could rank as one of your top choices. If you decide to take up the aquarium hobby and is unsure of how to start, you can visit microaquaticshop.com.au for us to guide you better.