How Long Do Guppies Live? Curious Lifespan Facts Revealed For Kids!

Guppies are members of the Poecilia reticulata family, they mostly reside in freshwaters and are aquarium fish species.

As they originate in the tropical pools of the Caribbean and South America, they are now in a variety of colors in captive-bred. An adult-sized guppy fish's life expectancy is about two to three years.

There are certain water parameters to be followed like temperature, pH, and salinity. They can live in a water temperature that is between 72-82 F (22.2-27.7 C) as they prefer to stay in warm waters. The only available guppy fish that lives in cold water is the Zebra danio.

There are male and female guppy fish. Guppies have a longer lifespan as compared to other fish species.

Mostly the female guppies in their life like to socialize with fish from their own breed or any other variety and prefer to stay in groups rather than being alone, as compared to the male guppies.

They prefer a male guppy fish which is colorful to be their mate, but more importantly, bolder male guppies are preferred by female guppies. After reading about the water parameters in which guppies live longer, do check guppy facts and how long do glofish live?

How long do pet store guppies live?

Guppy fish life is affected by the habitat of these species. The guppies live about one to three years in captivity, which is not a long time.

Bringing a guppy fish home is a tough job because it's hard to store since they are already grown up. Most guppies die in aquariums due to poor water quality. The tap water contains chlorine.

Such tap water is extremely deadly to guppies, the lack of oxygen can also be a reason for its death. If the water conditions are perfect, some guppies live longer until the time when they are five years old.

There are also many stress factors to be considered for a guppy.

Factors causing stress are bad mates for the guppies in your tank, poor water conditions, overcrowding of the fish tank, no proper place to hide or maintain privacy, too much light, and no proper ratio of female to male.

The only thing is to ensure that the tank we place our guppy in is neat and clean so that the guppies can live longer.

Also, many factors shorten the lifespan of a guppy.

Firstly, genetics decides the lifespan of a guppy, which means if their parents had a longer lifespan, then it is likely that the child whether males or females also will maintain a longer life expectancy. Secondly, another factor to consider is pregnancy, especially when it happens a lot many times.

Also, guppies tend to get pregnant a lot more than other animals which affects the guppies' lifespan.

Thirdly, is the poor tank conditions, if the tank is overly stocked, dirty, or is not big enough, then there is a high chance that guppies may die.

Finally, the factor to consider is stress, because the poor tank conditions along with the wrong mates in the tank give a lot of stress to guppies. The water parameter includes the tank mates and water conditions.

If the guppies are in a tank with very aggressive tank mates, or if suddenly the environment changes, in turn changing the tank mates, it causes a shortening of life expectancy of the guppies.

Use a tank that is big enough to hold all of the guppies, to maintain their health and happiness. If we keep a shoal of guppies along with plants, the minimum tank size should hold up to 5 gal (19 l) of water.

Usage of filters and heaters is necessary, without these the lifespan of guppies may drastically reduce, as the water temperature may drop and the temperature becomes cold in just one day. Also while keeping a filter, we should consider the number of water changes needed to be performed.

Feeding them high-quality food and plants, we should also make sure that the diet is varied enough.

We should stay away from low-quality food. Low-quality food has unpleasant fillers that may make our guppies fall sick.

Why do guppies die so easily?

Often the problem with guppies is that they die easily in aquariums. There are many reasons as to why guppies die.

Firstly, poor quality of water. While feeding the fish, we actually pollute the water tank. Also, the guppies pollute water as they produce waste, and as time passes this results in very high scale pollution, and becoming intoxicated results in guppies’ death.

Secondly, if it is a non-cycled tank, if we don’t cycle the aquarium, the guppies die so easily. Before adding dashes to the aquarium, it is important to cycle the tank first.

This cycling process usually takes up to one to two weeks, it starts by setting up the tank and adding water into the tank. Next is adding de-chlorinator, and adding nitrifying bacteria. Finally, we should wait for one to two weeks for beneficial bacteria to colonize the tank.

Thirdly, we should raise the ammonia level. The optimum level of ammonia in the fish tank is zero ppm, which means there should not be any ammonia present in the aquarium.

There can be many reasons for ammonia to be caused, like uneaten fish food that decomposes and eventually turns into ammonia. Dead fish if not removed from the tank will decompose and turn into ammonia. The dry filler and dirty substrate are also reasons for the formation of ammonia.

To ensure guppies do not die so easily, we have to put them in a big tank of water which has at least 20 gal (75 l) of water and that can support up to 10-20 guppies because a guppy doesn't like to be kept alone, as this may stress it and reduce lifespan.

How long do guppies live without a filter in your tank?

Did you know that guppies are an effective predator of mosquito larvae? Once in Brazil, the guppies were used by the country’s health authorities to slow down the spread of the Zika virus because they could eat mosquito larvae.

So how long do guppies live? And how long do they live without a filter in your tank?

One thing to consider while setting up a guppy tank is to check if it is set up with or without a filter. The fish consume oxygen and at the lower level of the aquarium.

In the absence of a filter, the fish are under a lot of stress and can barely survive for two days. Although, guppies are able to survive without a filter but provided that the right conditions of the water are maintained.

The interesting thing to notice in baby guppies is when they change their color, that is when they become mature, between one to six weeks. Also, when guppies are stressed, they change their color to white.

To differentiate the sex of a guppy, we can tell within three weeks, when the male guppies start their formation of color. The females are relatively less colorful.

The color of a guppy depends on various parameters like genes, diet, nitrates, and metabolism. A male guppy is fully colorful by the age of 8-10 weeks.

To take care of a guppy that is kept in a bowl, we need to follow a few steps for its maintenance, such as: filling the fishbowl with water to the widest part of the bowl so that more oxygen could be dissolved into water and carbon dioxide can be back to the air.

Changing half of the water every day with dechlorinated water and getting a fishbowl filtration system are also required.

The next method is to only feed fish as much as can be completely consumed within a minute. Finally, avoid placing the fishbowl in such a place where the temperature can change drastically.

How do you know when guppies are dying?

So how long can guppies live without food? Guppies can live without food for up to two weeks.

If the guppy fish appears to be sleeping upside-down, it means it is already dead or approaching death. Also if the fish remains motionless and floating upside-down, it means it already died and that it needs to be removed from the tank.

To confirm that a guppy is dead and not sleeping, we can perform a major water change or administer medication. Guppy fish exhibiting the behavior of resting in the daytime is not normal and we should monitor its health status.

As guppies are meant to live as long as for only about a year and a half, they also die due to age factors.

If the guppies get more skinny, that can also be a measure to consider that they may die.

There are some instances that a dead guppy can give birth to a new one, this can happen especially when the death of a guppy occurs just before giving birth. But if they die before the birth of a new one, then its fry will also die along with the parent.

Some guppies genetically are predisposed to death during pregnancy, but if we maintain the water quality and control general tank conditions, then we can prevent things like this from happening.

One thing noticeable about guppies is that they eat the dead guppy! Guppies do eat the dead guppies and other dead fishes, and it is eventually possible that guppies, male or female, can also kill other guppies inside the tank.

Guppies possess the cannibalism streak - they will immediately feast on their former friend. As the dead body will rot quite quickly, it will contaminate the water.

So it is important to remove it as soon as possible and to check the ammonia levels.

Also, guppies can bite each other, because they have a tendency to bully and bite each other and their tank mates. They can also turn to be territorial, but in the initial stages, guppies do not show cannibalistic behavior.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for how long do guppies live then why not take a look at chameleon habitat, or how long do guinea pigs live?