April 2007: Three mature guppies. 37 immature baby guppies.Â
3 + 37 = 250
Have you ever wondered how Walmart started? I can tell you all about it. Sam Walton obviously had guppies of mixed sexes in one tank early in his life. Soon Sam had two tanks to deal with the overpopulation crisis. Then ten tanks. Then he had to start Walmart to sell all the guppies. Wisely, his stores now house their guppies in two tanks and separate the fish by gender.Â
You’d think we would have caught on to this. But no. We bought three cute little guppies…. two years ago. The crowd control problem was worse than the thirteen colonies before westward expansion…. manifest destiny… all that good stuff. I emailed friends offering free pets for their children…. twenty per bag. I was saving them $2.49 PER FISH! That’s $49.80, for those who don’t have a calculator handy (like I do.) What a nice friend I am! Only two takers.
Solution #2 came in the disguise of Vacation Bible School at our church. They unknowingly aided in my guppy distribution by asking me to teach crafts. I was given a “decorating” budget for the arts and crafts room… heh heh heh. AND the theme was Under the Sea!!! Perfect. I decorated with 6″ glass bowls complete with rocks, water and 5-7 guppies. Then I gave them away every day as long as the kid had parental approval. I got rid of more than 75 fish that week…. but that was over 8 months ago. We are back up to over 100 guppies in our 10 gallon tank.Â
I tell you all of this because I can’t sell them on eBay or Craig’s List. Please help! Free guppies! Leave your contact info in the comment box below and I’ll have them delivered to your front door.
Tags: fish tank, guppies, guppy, overpopulation, sam walton, VBS, walmart
My Sister's Jar 
April 2, 2008 at 5:36 am |
Okay, I think we have a problem here at the Crosby house. I would say yearly with an over population of guppy inhabitants. There needs to be some intervention here, maybe professional help by Dr. Phil, or even better, maybe re-education of the birds and the bees talk, just maybe? LOL!
You crack me up! I know there are certain things that I can count on and one is the yearly spawning of guppies at the Crosby home. Ya’ll just make me smile!
June 9, 2008 at 7:20 pm |
Hi, I’d like about 6 or 7 female guppies. I don’t mind if they’re pregnant or not. I’ve actually got the opposite problem, my guppies aren’t breeding!!! However, I’d prefer if I could get them for free or at a cheap price since I’m saving up for some sponge filter in my female bettas’ tanks. I have a few questions before I accept any guppies though.
Are they disease free?
How much is shipping?
Are the guppies heavily inbred? Because it kind of sounds like it from your post, (no offense) how you started with 3, then two years later you had 250 of them.
June 9, 2008 at 8:53 pm |
Renee, This is actually a homeschool fish tank gone wild. We don’t sell them. Yes, you are correct, they are heavily inbred. I’m sure most of them are retarded. This week is VBS at church and my favorite guppy time of the year…. I give them all away. I gave away about 25 this morning. Sorry to disappoint you. I wouldn’t have a clue how to ship guppies from AZ…. they’d be cooked before they left the post office.
August 16, 2008 at 6:13 am |
Update: July 2008… I bought another special “population control” fish at Petco. Now I have only five guppies….. and no babies that live longer than a couple of minutes. It’s the circle of life right in my family room. Makes me want to sing a Lion King song….. The Ciiiiiiiiiiiiir-cle-le-le….
August 26, 2009 at 3:52 am |
hi i am very intrested but you wouldnt be able to ship to australia would you? plz get back to me via email ASAP
Cheers, Zac.
August 26, 2009 at 4:32 pm |
Um… Zac… the blog post was over a year ago and I don’t ship fish anywhere. But thanks for reading!
May 27, 2010 at 7:34 pm |
Do you still have free guppies?
May 27, 2010 at 7:40 pm |
Oh, goodness, I just read the other comments…oops. I actually live in Minnesota, and read you don’t ship them, I’m sorry!
March 12, 2011 at 9:55 pm |
[…] Remember back a year or two ago (and the previous four years before that) when we kept having guppy population explosions in our family fish tank? If not go here: https://mysistersjar.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/overpopulation-a-worldwide-issue/ […]
July 16, 2011 at 3:14 pm |
i would but iv got the same problem but iv got about 300 and 3 tanks. 1 20 gallon, 1 30 gallon and 1 5 gallon. im trying to fined a way of geting into the market with them. uv given me some idea’s now so thank you for the inseraton.
August 5, 2011 at 12:01 pm |
i would love up to 20 mixed sexes and breeds
February 5, 2012 at 3:08 pm |
Do you have any Guppies to get rid of. I have 4 of them now and one picos. they havent started to reproduce yet o I have some room for others..
March 3, 2012 at 8:28 am |
i have 3 males 3females and 3 babies i would like to have some.
August 24, 2012 at 3:58 am |
Give me about 10 both secessionists
September 26, 2012 at 4:40 pm |
My adress is ShadowCrona@yahoo.com
Email me, I am willing to take many guppies. I specifically want more males than females. ^ ^
Thanks so much,
~Crona
September 26, 2012 at 4:45 pm |
I can take a few males and females. Email me @ ShadowCrona@yahoo.com if you still want to get rid of some. ^ ^
December 23, 2012 at 8:16 am |
Thanks a lot for publishing Overpopulation: A Worldwide Issue « My
Sister’s Jar, I was searching for anything comparable and was grateful to find the advice as a result of this blog post.
October 4, 2013 at 12:01 pm |
We could use some guppies! Our tank got sick and they all died : (
We are starting over soon…