Endler Guppy: Care, Lifespan, Feeding, Algae Eating, Size, …

Small but mighty! The Endler Guppy (Poecilia wingei) is one of the smallest members of the guppy family, but its blaze of color attracts everyone’s attention in the aquarium. The adaptable and robust ornamental fish is also perfect for beginners in the aquarium hobby. You can find out why this is so and what else you need to know about the correct keeping and care of the Endler Guppy in our guide.

Endler Guppy versus Common Guppy

Contents hide

1 Endler Guppy versus Common Guppy

2 Characteristics

3 Origin and natural habitat

4 How do you recognize an Endler Guppy?

5 What size should my aquarium be?

6 How do I set up my aquarium for the Endler Guppy?

7 What else should you watch out for when keeping it in the aquarium?

8 How do I properly feed Endler Guppies?

9 How does the Endler Guppy behave in the aquarium?

9.1 How many young does an Endler Guppy have?

9.2 When is the gender recognizable?

10 Where can I buy Endler Guppies?

10.1 Related posts:

The Endler Guppy (Poecilia wingei) is a small, pretty ornamental fish from the family of the viviparous tooth carps (Poeciliidae). As you must have guessed correctly, the Endler Guppy is closely related to the common guppy (Poecilia reticulata). The latter is one of the most popular aquarium fish worldwide and is available in many cultivated forms.

However, the Endler Guppy is a species of its own and differs in body structure and color from the common guppies. This special species was discovered in 1975 in Venezuela by the evolutionary biologist and later namesake Professor John A. Endler.

Characteristics

Aquarium size: from 60 liters
Keeping: a group of around ten fish
Water temperature: 20 to 26 degrees Celsius
pH value: 6 – 8.5
Total hardness: 5 – 25 ° dGH
Swimming zone: middle to upper water region
Ground: sand or gravel
Furniture: roots and stones
Plants: dense planting
Food: omnivores, flake food, live food
Socialization: B. armored catfish, cichlids, shrimp
Body length: females up to four centimeters, males two centimeters
Life expectancy: up to two years
Special features: viviparous
Behavior: very peaceful, sociable
Difficulty level: suitable for beginners

Origin and natural habitat

The Endler Guppy is native to Venezuela in the northern state of Sucre. Here it occurs exclusively in two geographically separate areas: In the Laguna de Los Patos, near Cumaná, as well as in the Campona lagoon, near Cariaco, and in the surrounding waters. Its natural habitat mainly occurs near the banks of calm flowing waters with the soft, swampy ground.

How do you recognize an Endler Guppy?

Just like its famous brother, the Endler Guppy is a small, slender ornamental fish with an elongated physique. With a height of two to four centimeters, it is an extremely small type of guppy.

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In addition, the Endler Guppy stands out due to the spectacular and extremely variable coloring of the males. Their body color is particularly intense and radiant: it ranges from orange-red, through blue, green to black, and is marked with many brightly colored spots and bands.

Another typical feature of this ornamental fish is a bright green spot on the tail’s lower base with an orange band in front of it. However, this can vary depending on the cultivated form. Another characteristic of the Endler Guppy is a black band that runs vertically across the middle of the body.

The scales of the Endler guppy females, on the other hand, are solid gray with a metallic sheen.

The color shades of male guppies are sometimes clearly different. Here an orange-red and a bluish-orange specimen together with a female.

What size should my aquarium be?

Whether species, community, or shrimp tanks – different types of aquariums are suitable for Endler Guppies. Would you like to admire your pretty ornamental fish in a species tank, for example? An aquarium with a capacity of at least 60 liters is then sufficient for a group of around ten fish.

If, on the other hand, you want to keep Endler Guppies in a community tank with other ornamental fish species, then the aquarium should be correspondingly larger. For example, guppies harmonize with armored catfish, little onesCichlids, Bärblingen, swordtails, emperor characins, or even prawns.

You can find the right aquarium for every living situation in the amazon online shop. For beginners in the aquarium hobby, there are also complete aquarium sets.

How do I set up my aquarium for the Endler Guppy?

Of course, those who love aquarists are particularly proud of the aquarium’s beautiful and species-appropriate setup. The aquarium should have free-swimming areas for your guppies but also have areas that are as densely planted as possible. It is best to use different onesAquarium plants in order to offer the guppies hiding places in all water regions at best – for example, fine-feathered water plants, aquarium mosses, and floating plants.

Colorful and densely planted aquarium: Endler guppies like to have many hiding spots.

Depending on your taste, you can choose the Use commercially available aquarium sand or gravel as the substrate. With a Natural decoration, for example, from roots and stones, complete the overall picture of the facility and offer your aquarium inhabitants additional hiding places.

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What else should you watch out for when keeping it in the aquarium?

With an Endler Guppy, you get an extremely robust, uncomplicated, and adaptable ornamental fish into your aquarium. With little effort, you can create a species-appropriate habitat in which the Poecilia wingei feels comfortable and can live two years and older. This makes the Endler Guppy ideal for beginners.

Even when it comes to water values, the Poecilia wingei is an extremely flexible and adaptable aquarium inhabitant: It needs water temperatures of 20 to 26 degrees Celsius and feels comfortable in soft and hard water a pH value of 6 to 8.5.

In order to give the Endler Guppy the most natural environment possible, you should also ensure that the aquarium is illuminated for around twelve hours a day. This corresponds roughly to the length of the day in the tropics.

How do I properly feed Endler Guppies?

The Endler Guppy is an omnivore. Works best food a predominantly vegetable diet in the form of flake food for live-bearing aquarium fish. You can also give your guppies high protein offer live food, such as mosquito larvae or water fleas.

Tip: If possible, feed your Endler Guppies only with a pinch, but twice a day.

How does the Endler Guppy behave in the aquarium?

Guppies are generally considered to be extremely peaceful and sociable aquarium fish that should be kept in a group of around ten fish. They are diurnal, very happy to swim, and can be observed especially in the middle and upper regions of your aquarium.

At night, the small fish like to seek shelter in the aquarium’s plants, where they also give birth to their young. The guppies especially love floating and floating vegetation, in which they can hide quickly in case of danger.

Guppies are known among aquarists for their courtship behavior, which is extremely worth seeing. You can regularly see the males swimming almost non-stop around the females to woo them in a group of several animals.

Endler guppy males have brightly colored scales but are significantly smaller than the females. They try to impress the females with their blaze of color.

How many young does an Endler Guppy have?

After fertilization, guppy females carry the eggs for about two to three weeks and then give birth to ten to a maximum of 40 young fish. Unlike most fish species, guppies give birth to their offspring alive.

The females are also able to store the males’ sperm. In this way, you can have more offspring at a later point in time. Guppies are, therefore, considered to be very prolific and easy to breed. It is not for nothing that they are nicknamed “Million Fish.”

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Important: In any case, make sure that the offspring do not cause overstocking in your aquarium.

When is the gender recognizable?

After about three months, the Endler guppies reach sexual maturity. From this point on, you can easily distinguish the males and females from one another based on their external characteristics.

In addition to the blaze of color already described, the male animals can be recognized by their gonopodium. This is the anal fin, which has developed into a mating organ. On the other hand, the females are significantly larger and fuller than the male representatives but much simpler in color. The black pregnancy spot on the anus of the females is typical.

Where can I buy Endler Guppies?

Just like the common guppy, the Endler guppy is a popular farmed fish. You can easily buy it from specialist pet shops or choose from a wide range of offspring directly from a breeder. There are color variants such as the Yellow Tiger Endler Guppy or the Lime Green Endler Guppy.

Regardless of which color variant of the Poecilia wingei you ultimately choose, make sure before buying that the fish are healthy and come from a species-appropriate attitude.

We wish you a lot of fun with your new and colorful ornamental fish!