how to tell if your gupppy is pregnant

Question
Hi! I have had males and female guppies in the same tank for about 2 weeks. Over the past couple of days I have seen that one of my female guppies has grown huge and has a noticeable gravid spot by her belly. She also has a white bump near where her babies might come out. Is there any way to tell when she might have her fry? Or any other way in knowing if she is accualy pregnant? Thanks, Sarah

Answer
Good afternoon, Sarah (my mom's name)! Thank you for your question.

Since you know about the gravid spot, my guess is that you have some experience or previous knowledge regarding guppies and their livebearing ways. Even so, I would like to recommend a few websites to you:

http://guppyplace.tripod.com/FAQS.html (You'll find Question 2 and Question 3 are your very questions!)

http://aquariumhobbyist.com/guppies/pregnancy.html (You might want to copy and paste the info into a word processing program. It hurts my eyes to read directly from this page. It is short and sweet, however.)

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/guppyreprofaqs.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/guppyreprofaq2.htm
(Both of these pages are in Q&A format. See if you can glean any useful information from the replies posted by the staff. WWM.com is a favorite site of mine. Its founder, Bob Fenner, is one of my personal heroes!)

http://guppyplace.tripod.com/Breeding.html
(More about breeding than anything else.)

If you have some time and you want to browse, check out sites like www.guppies.com (the web master seems to have lots of experience) and www.ifga.org (the Int'l Fancy Guppy Association...the Beginner's Corner is worth checking out).

I apologize that I could not answer your questions myself, but I have no experience with guppies personally. However, as an information specialist, I can say that researching the answer to your question returned an unusually high number of bunk websites...so I am happy to have spared you the trouble of sifting through the good, the bad, and the ugly. :) Do drop me another line if you are so inclined!

Happy to help,
Nicole