Feeder Guppies.....Alive?

Question

I bought 30 feeder guppies yesterday and stuck them in a carrier tank. I'm keeping them there untill Monday morning. Reason, I'm leaving monday morning for vacation and I didn't want to have someone come upstairs and feed my 3 turtles....So I bought guppies. Well today I cleaned the carrier tank out and...Now 15 are dead! Why are they dieing? All I have in the little tank is pebbles. (glassy looking) Water too, lol. I will still feed the dead ones but I rather they stay alive 2-3days more.......

(I bought them early just incase the store closes and I guess I will have to buy more....they only cost $1 for 10...)

Can they be fed Goldfish flakes..?

Answer 1

in my expirience with my 2 turtle is that guppies will die quicker for different reasons...the water was too cold, ammonia in the water, or they were sick when you bought them.

depending on the size of ur turtle you might be able to feed them small goldfish(they are more "stronger" and "last longer")...goldfish just need water to livein no special attention.  

Answer 2

Maybe the water was too hot?  Were there any external shocks to the tank?  Did you de-chloronate the water?  Tap water is pretty basic, sometimes around 8.5, guppies need water more neutral.

Check these fixes- it's probably one of these issues...

Yes they can be fed goldfish flakes- but not flakes of goldfish, i prefer eating those =)

Answer 3

how big is the tank anyways,it may be overcrowded,you need filtration and some sort of aeration

Answer 4

make sure you have some sort of filtration on the tank. they can should eat the flakes as long ad they are small enough.

Answer 5

Yea, feeder guppies don't live too long. I had that same problem, I found it easier to just buy them 10-15 at a time, but for you thats not an option. And yes, the feeder guppies should eat the flakes, even if the flakes are too big, the guppies will break them up when they try to eat them.  

Answer 6

Well I'm thinking that the tank was to small. Guppies are not always the friendliest. I "breed" or they had babies and you will see a missing tail or 2. But that is probably what happened.

Answer 7

Most feeder fish, including guppies are not very well cared for and so tend to be in poor health and so are sickly and ill and don't live very long.  Generally they are kept in very crowded tanks and are suffering from stress and ammonia poisoning at the store and it doesn't sound like they were kept in very roomy conditions by you, either.  Most likely they died of stress or overcrowding.  It might also have been PH shock or ammonia poisoning.  30 guppies, even feeder guppies should have at least a 30 gallon tank and it doesn't sound like you are keeping them in that much space.  You can expect a lot of deaths pretty quickly when keeping them in such poor conditions.  You might be better off getting about twice as many as you think you need and then putting them straight in with your turtles and letting them pig out.  A few will stay alive past Monday to give your turtles some food next week.