# Guppy Genetics Questions.



## hubbahubbahehe (Mar 29, 2004)

Greetings, I 'm getting into breeding fancy guppies and was wondering if there's anyone out there that knows their guppy genetics real well from experience. 

For example,

---if a half-black blue male guppy breeds with a sunfire yellow female guppy, what do the fry look like? 

----If a female is exposed to two males with just them in the tank, would the female drop fry that are a mix of both males or is it the first male that "hits" her that fathers all the fry..


I have so many more questions that websurfing could not satisfy, and this forum has always helped me greatly, so i wanted to give it a shot. Thank you all for your time.


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## wicked_good_guppies (Mar 19, 2004)

"---if a half-black blue male guppy breeds with a sunfire yellow female guppy, what do the fry look like?"

Most males will resmeble the coloration of their father and most females will look similar to their mother...when it comes to dominant colors like you are talking about. There will be hybrids but no one could tell you with certainty what they would look like and most if not all of the fry will be inferior to the parents.
To improve a blue strain like you have you should use a blue female. Blues improve better with their own color.Likewise with the sunfire.

"----If a female is exposed to two males with just them in the tank, would the female drop fry that are a mix of both males or is it the first male that "hits" her that fathers all the fry."
The first sperm packet that is distributed is the one used...  but what will really make your head spin is that if that male guppy dies the female can keep his essence in her and still have a couple batches fathered by the deceased well after...ya know... [-X

PM me if you have any other questions or if you really have the itch pick up Stan Shubel's Proper Care of Guppies It is best book out there IMHO.[/quote]


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## hubbahubbahehe (Mar 29, 2004)

Ryan, Thanks much for responding. That is terrific information. 

If it's alright with you, I'd like to ask more questions on this thread and not pm; that way others can read and learn if they are interested. 


I'd like to hear more about your past experiences and what your setup was like... do you have a website journal by any chance?

Cheers!

Hubs

PS I tried to buy the book on amazon.com, but it's out of print..


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## wicked_good_guppies (Mar 19, 2004)

First of all feel free to ask away. 
I have always kept my guppies in planted tanks, most breeders and people who try to develope show quality fish will raise them in bare tanks, but I like the way the compliment and interact with a planted aquarium.
As for past experiances I have had a lot of fun and frustration with guppies as you will I am sure. :lol: 
Recently my guppies came down with a wicked disease that wiped them all out. More often then not I have had problems with over population then under. They breed fast and get pregnant even faster. No journal sorry.


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## hubbahubbahehe (Mar 29, 2004)

Hi ok I've got a question.  I just recently bought two strains of gupppies...one is the pastel blue/white half black and the other is the yellow snakeskin. I was thinking of crossing them to get a pastel blue snakeskin...is that possible? if so, how should i go about doing this? right now i put a female blue in the tank with the yellow snakeskins so the yellow male can fertilize the blue.


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## wicked_good_guppies (Mar 19, 2004)

The combo will most likely create h/b AOC (any other color) with spots in the tail. :? H/b is dominate over snakeskin but f you bred the male snakeskin with the sunfire guppies you talked of earlier then you could have some spiffy looking bi-color (sunfire) snakeskins. Just an idea.


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## hubbahubbahehe (Mar 29, 2004)

this is great stuff, Ryan! Keep it comin! :wink: (i really wish i could get a hold of the book, though, so i don't bother you half as much )

ok here's my dilemma:

I have two tanks that can hold fancy guppies (too bad I can't have 9 tanks to do a breeding program). 

I have (1) 40 gallon and (1) 30 gallon with a divider in the middle so basically it's 2 15 gallons but the divider has holes that are big enough for fry to go through. 

I have (2) pairs of green moscow... (3) pairs of half-black blue....(2) pairs of flamingo pink guppies (pastel pink all throughout body) .... (3) pairs of snakeskin yellows and (2) pairs of multis. how should i house them in order to create good combinations in their fry and avoid the "mutt" look... i realize it's a stretch to do this with only 2 tanks..

i was thinking of putting the moscows, blues, and pinks together in the 40 gallon cuz they have similar patterns of solid color throughout and put the snakeskins and the multis together since their tails have the similar pattern of black spots all over. i appreciate any corrections in my error of thinking.


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## wicked_good_guppies (Mar 19, 2004)

I like the way you split them, and they should produce some very nice hybrids...but the big question is where are you going to house the fry. :lol: Cause you are going to need 100 tanks with all the fry that many guppies are going to have. I think in your situation it might be best to let the fry try and hide instead of net breeders or a seperate grow-out tank because if you try to raise all the fry from that many gups you are going to have to cull more than you're probably willing to do.


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## hubbahubbahehe (Mar 29, 2004)

Ryan, you are right. I'm not going to be using the net breeders . These are planted tanks and so the fry are left to fend for themselves. I believe that a good amount will survive thanks to the plants.

I can never bring myself to cull any fish (it feels too much like playing God for me to do that), so i was planning on giving them away locally and just keeping 4 or 5 adult pairs of each strain of fish in order to keep the colony going.

by the way, i found stan schubel's website for those who are interested

http://guppiesbystanshubel.netfirms.com/

i noticed he has just rows and rows and shelves and shelves of 10 gallon tanks. How does he filter all these suckers?


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## wicked_good_guppies (Mar 19, 2004)

He has one big air compressor in his fish room and a single corner filter in every tank. The only problem I can see in the letting thm fend for themselves route is that you won't be able to feed bbs very well to the fry and they might be a little small when the grow up as a whole. I have a bunch of floating watersprite in my tanks as the fry prefer that to java or any other type of moss. Last night a saw a little fry being born it was my first time seeing an actual birth. 8-[ It was very cool.


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## hubbahubbahehe (Mar 29, 2004)

oh that's awesome! congrats! yea, I remember the first and only time i saw fry birth was around 6 months ago...i didn't know that they shoot out up to 3 fry at a time! and they were already fast enough to swim away from hungry adults!


unfortunately yes brine shrimp will be hard to feed to them. right now, I have been shooting it their direction with a turkey baster.


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## wicked_good_guppies (Mar 19, 2004)

Just had a birth last night and now a bunch of fry are all over my moss tank 8).


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## hubbahubbahehe (Mar 29, 2004)

Congratulations, Ryan!!!! What colors are they?


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## wicked_good_guppies (Mar 19, 2004)

Multis w/ double-swords, but I think I'm done with double swords for a while I want more color. 8)


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