Guppies are one of the easiest fish to keep within the fish keeping hobby and with their bright colors they always prove to be a popular option, especially among beginners.
Due to guppies being notorious for rapidly reproducing many people ask about keeping an all male guppy tank as this prevents breeding and the males tend to have the stronger color patterns.
You are able to keep an all male guppy tank with relative ease but the size of your aquarium tank will usually have to be a minimum of 20 gallons.
Ideally, you will also have a tall tank design rather than a long tank design too as guppies tend to swim in the top, middle, and bottom layers of an aquarium’s water levels.
Some people do prefer to keep a single guppy in a tank and in some setups this can be done if you have a smaller tank, especially something like a sub-five gallon tank but most people want to keep multiple male guppies if possible.
Still, beginners to the fish keeping hobby often make easy to avoid mistakes when trying to keep a male guppy tank so we have added various sections to our article below going over the more common mistakes that we see people make time and time again to help you avoid them.
Are Male Guppies Aggressive To Each Other?
In smaller tanks or tanks where the male guppies are not fed often aggression can become a problem and the male guppies can fight each other.
If you keep your guppies in a medium to large aquarium tank and overfeed them then this drastically reduces the chance of aggression between the fish with minimal effort being required on your part.
Just keep in mind that if you are overfeeding the guppies, you will have to carry out regular tank maintenance and usually have plants in your tank to help maintain steady water parameters.
In most setups, even if you are overfeeding, you should be able to do regular tank maintenance at least once per week to keep the tank clean and a decent gravel vaccum can get the job done within minutes.
Due to the larger tail on guppies, it can be common to have problems with male guppies splitting each other’s tail if they are being aggressive to each other.
We have a dedicated article on how to treat a guppy with a split tail that may be helpful but upgrading to a larger aquarium size, reducing the number of male guppies in your tank, or increasing the amount of food that you give them should be able to reduce the aggression and fighting between the fish.
Can I Keep Only Male Guppies In An Aquarium?
Many people keep an all male guppy tank without issue as a male guppy tank prevents baby guppies being produced and keeps your guppy population in check.
If you wish, you can usually add other species to an all male guppy tank without issue with nerite snails and shrimp being popular options but some people keep other species of fish in there too.
One thing that we would recommend against in an all male guppy tank is adding other types of livebearer fish as male guppies can still be aggressive to other livebearers resulting in problems.
Some people think that adding male guppies in the same tank as other livebearers (including females) will be fine but both guppies and mollies are from the Poecilia genus meaning that they can breed with each other.
This is where the muppy fish hybrid comes from, people breed mollies and guppies together.
Endler’s livebearers are another species from the Poecilia genus that male guppies will be able to breed with too so keep that in mind when thinking of other tank mates to keep in your all male guppy tank if possible.
One thing to note is just because you can keep male guppies in your aquarium with other fish does not mean that you should as a tank full of male guppies that you are overfeeding will require a decent amount of tank maintenance as it is anyway.
How Many Male Guppies Should Be Kept Together In An All-Male Tank?
A standard entry-level all male guppy tank is usually a 20 gallon aquarium tank with a high design rather than a long design with around ten male guppies in it.
From there you can use larger aquarium sizes and stick to the one male guppy per two gallons of water in the tank while ideally sticking to a tall tank design due to guppies doing well in tall tanks but they can still thrive in larger long tanks.
Something like this 20 gallon high aquarium will be an excellent starting point for most people looking to set up an all male guppy tank.
We have seen some excellent setups from people with more experience keeping all male tanks who have larger budgets with some huge tanks being set up and shared on social media though so you really can scale an all male guppy tank right up as needed.
Although not essential, we would highly recommend that you add some sight breaks into an all male guppy tank as they have been proven to be able to reduce the aggression levels between the fish.
Even some fake aquarium plants or fish hides are often enough to get the job done as the break line of sight between the fish and can help keep them all calm while in their aquarium.
What Type Of Tank Should You Use For An All Male Guppy Tank?
The majority of people should be looking to use a tank with a tall design over a tank for a long design when keeping nothing but male guppies in their aquarium.
If you are using a larger long tank that is over 50 gallons then the majority of people will be fine with a long tank too but most people usually have smaller tanks pushing tall tank designs to the front.
This is due to guppies enjoying all three layers of a tank so they tend to do better in a taller tank.
With some other species, it can be common for the fish to try and stick to one of the three layers of water in a tank rather than span the top, middle, and bottom layers.
For example, most species of pleco will strictly stick to the bottom layer in a tank and tend to do better in longer tanks.
Another advantage of higher tank designs for an all male guppy setup is that frustrated guppies can take advantage of any fish hides resting on your substrate layer at the bottom of the tank away from the other guppies that are in the top and middle water layers.
This will usually help to reduce aggression as the frustrate fish who are closer to attacking their tank mates are able to get away from them and calm down.
How Many Male Guppies In A 5 Or 10 Gallon Tank?
We would not recommend that you keep an all male guppy tank in a five or ten gallon aquarium as it is just too small and the chances of aggression between the fish is higher.
If you are a more experienced fish keeper then you can make it work but you can usually only have two or three male guppies in a five gallon tank or four or five male guppies in a ten gallon tank.
The majority of people will be able to spend the additional cash to pick up this 20 gallon high aquarium for just over $100 that will work much better for an all male guppy tank.
Due to the prices of 5 and 10 gallon tanks often being at a premium, you will often find that it really doesn’t cost you much more to go with a larger, more suitable male guppy tank.
If you are on a very strict budget or have limited space available for your aquarium then looking at something like tetras or a different small species of fish can be a better fit for such as small aquarium tank size though.
Ideally, we would usually recommend that you go with something like that if you want multiple fish or just go with a single betta fish in such a small tank rather than trying to keep multiple male guppies.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over keeping an all male guppy tank to an end and we hope that we have been able to help you better understand the pros and cons of keeping a tank with just male guppies in it. With some prior planning, it really is much easier to do than the majority of people initially realise though and it can be a great way for beginners to the fish keeping hobby to build up some initial experience.
