Pregnant Guppy

[nicoblue]

This may be a stupid question but if anyone knows the answer I am interested. I have never actually bred guppies before and so some of their quirks are new to me. I have witnessed the sex changes in platy's and swords (even have seen pregnant male platy's which makes me shake my head still but whatever) but what age do guppies reach maturity to breed? I ask because I got two female guppies from an assorted baby tank as maybe 1cm long. I don't even think there were other guppies in theer aside from these two., the rest of teh tank was platy babies.  I put them in my planted tank, whch has a 1 yr old male in there. I have had them for about three weeks now and are 3/4 inch long now. they have always looked as though they are pregnant and now that they are more developped, I know for sure that they are. Now my question is did the male impregnate them when they were a centimeter in size, or were they essentially born pregnant? I know that guppies can store sperm so they can produce without a male around.
Neither answer seems less rediculous than the other, I haven't kept guppies since I was a kid

[adbarbe]

Maybe there fish sperm in your tap water.

[nicoblue]

haha perhaps

Apparenly males reach maturity at 75 days, I cannot find a number regarding females, they just seem so tiny. Chances are that my orange guppy is now a daddy.


Well we all learn something every day...guppies are pretty cool

"A female guppy can store sperm at 15 days old. She isn't usually Gravid or Pregnant until she is 30 days old. Since guppies store sperm for several pregnancies one could say that all female guppies that have had contact with a male once are perpetually pregnant, giving birth cyclically throughout her life until she either runs out of stored sperm or finds another male and renews her supply. Some females guppies can even invoke gynogenisis if there are no males available. Gynogenisis is the process where a female makes clones of herself and gives birth to them as if they were produced sexually. All fry from gynogenisis will be exact copies and will be female."

[Nerine]

Mike agrees that there is fish sperm in the water gross!

I found the same info on the guppies...wild!!!!