Guppies can live in a bucket for about 2 days and more if you provide all the necessary equipment in bucket as if it’s your main tank.
Why do you want to keep a guppy in a bucket?
The question is not whether they can live in a bucket or not but how will they live. Guppies can live in any environment where they will feel safe. If you are ready to provide all the required stuff in a bucket for a healthy habitat, then they can live there as long as their life span allows.
We put fish in a glass fish tank because it looks beautiful in our homes and we can enjoy the visual beauty these beautiful fish provide. Fish keeping is considered a hobby; it’s more of a science because we are dealing with real pets here.
Fish are living beings and must be given respect like many other pets like dogs, cats, horses and reptiles. Fish are extremely delicate and their habitat plays a major role in keeping them happy and healthy so that they can live a normal life even in a confined space of a fish tank.
Whether you keep them in a bucket, jar or a fish tank it makes necessary as owner of the tank to learn the rules of this “hobby”. Let’s have a look at the differences in keeping your fish in bucket, jar, bowl and a fish tank.
Guppy fish in a bowl or jar
Not just guppy but any fish must never be kept in a jar. Many people do this just because it looks good in an interior design setup and occupies less space on a desk.
The real issue with a jar or a glass bowl is, it has a narrow mouth on top and this prevents exchange of beneficial gases in water column. Fish breathe dissolved oxygen in the water and release carbon dioxide. This oxygen primarily enters the water tank from top surface. If you narrow down the mouth of the container in which fish are going to live then there will be less oxygen in the water column resulting in stress in fish.
All and any kind of stress in fish is dangerous and weakens immunity, inviting diseases. You’ll notice some fish gasping for air at the top surface of the jar or bowl because of lack of oxygen.
Guppy in a bucket
Firstly guppy in a bucket is not a good idea because it doesn’t serve the purpose of fish keeping. The time when a guppy must be kept in a bucket is when you are cleaning your fish tank and wane too make large water changes.
Guppy can be kept in a bucket as long as you provide means of beneficial gas exchange and provide food. But it is recommended that not to put them in a bucket for more than 2 days.
When you are cleaning your main tank you can shift guppies to a bucket with the same water of the main tank in it. Also make sure that you use a bucket that is dedicated to cleaning purposes and not any random one that you use in your bathroom for cleaning clothes and other household cleaning purposes. That’s because any other bucket that you use normally will be mostly having detergent or soap residues in the bucket bottom and side walls from inside, which is harmful for most fish.
Soap and detergents will leave a residue on bucket walls from inside and when you add water to it they are likely to float in water and this can be extremely dangerous to fish.
If you don’t want to use fish tank water then make sure you use water that is chlorine free and preserved for at least 24 hours prior to cleaning process. If possible try to maintain temperature of the water same as that of the fish tank.
The only time you can avoid the same fish tank water for guppies that are being transferred to a bucket is when you are performing large water changes because you found a dead guppy in the tank. In case of dead fish, the water becomes extremely toxic and this should not be used again in the tank because it will have high percentages of toxic gases.
Also one of the reason why guppies should not be kept in a bucket for long time is most buckets are round shaped and even the equivalent volume of a bucket as compared to a fish tank of same volume is used the nature of space is highly congested.
For example a fish of 10 gallons water volume and a bucket of 10 gallons volume will definitely have different room situations. The bucket of the same volume will have more congestion than a fish tank because of cylindrical volume.
Only when you have special condition or reasons to shift guppies to bucket you can consider them keeping them for a while and shift them to the main tank as soon as possible.
Situations when it is acceptable to shift guppies to bucket
1) As mentioned earlier you can shift guppies to a bucket when there are large water changes to be made. Such situations rarely arise in a fish tank if you are consistently following cleaning schedules. However sometimes special situations arise such as a dead fish remains in the tank for many weeks unnoticed and this can greatly affect water parameters because the dead body of the fish starts decaying releasing toxic gases all over the tank.
In such cases large water changes (more than 50% volume) can be made and guppies can be shifted to a bucket for safety purposes.
2) Guppies can be shifted to a bucket when you don’t have any other means to keep them like a quarantine tank or a hospital tank. Maintaining a quarantine tank is equally challenging and a necessity if you are serious about fish keeping. When guppies are sick they must be kept in a quarantine tank and treated there so that other fish don;t get any side effected of the possible medications.
However when you are just a beginner and not in a position to invest money and time to do this, a bucket can be a temporary option to shift fish away from main tank.
3) If you already have quarantine tank and is filled with water then while making large water changes it becomes convenient to shift guppies to a bucket till the cleaning is done. This is because the water in the quarantine tank is already “cycled” and you cannot mix your main tank water into this.
The only time when you’ll require fish to remove from your main tank is when you have to replace at least 50% of water. Since large water changes are necessary only when the main tank water is highly toxic which must be first confirmed using a “water testing kit”.
Such toxic water cannot be mixed in a quarantine tank but can be released in a bucket that is specially used while cleaning fish tank.