What can be achieved by breeding guppies?

[Daven]

A broad question, I know. Let me explain why I'm interested quick... I've spent the last year sinking deeper and deeper into fishkeeping from small community to my adored mbuna cichlid tank. But I haven't had any fish breed for me yet aside from the guppies I started with. Although soon I hope to see my young mbuna reach breeding age! I would love to see some fry from them, but because I have some species that will crossbreed, I wouldn't want to let them leave my tanks.

I love the colours of the male guppies and like to keep a few single males of different colours in my peaceful ones. But I removed the females to allow room for schools since they never stop breeding lol. The wide variety of colours and shapes out there make me wonder if I could kind of customize my own guppy strain to my own tastes. So I am making this thread to learn a bit of what's possible and whats not when it comes to breeding guppies, and decide wether or not to try my hand at breeding them myself casually.

So how does it work? Say i have two example strains, say one with orange leopard print patterning and one with a solid blue tail... Would breeding these two together eventually make a blue coloured leopard pattern, or instead turn out to be some blue and some orange leopard? Is it more or less about trying to change tail shapes?


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[Andy Sager]

The Guppy line has come a long way from it's humble wild beginnings and it's all from SELECTIVELY breeding the fish to get what you want ( ie color or shape) out of them. Be aware however, it can take years to create your own strains as many of the fish available today have such a large amount of genetic "soup" in them that would have to be dealt with. You can go to sites from the International Guppy Association and other Guppy Breeder sites to see what's more specifically involved. You might want to research the creation of the "Pingu Pink" Guppy. This was eventually an all pink fish but it started out as a fish with just 1 or 2 pink scales. It also took over 10 years and over 6,000 crosses to get it exactly where the breeder wanted it.

As for your other fish not breeding, there is a big difference between keeping fish and breeding fish. Many things( more for some than others) need to align to successfully breed fish while the rules are not as stringent for keeping the fish happy and healthy. Make sure you know what you are getting in to before you start trying to breed. This way you will know what to expect and be prepared for it.

Hope this helps.

 

[Daven]

Thanks for the tips! I am pretty thorough when it comes to Maintaining my tanks, so i don't think it's water conditions. I've never let things get above 20ppm nitrates and aim to keep it around 10ppm, never miss a water change, etc. For my cichlid tank, the species with females to breed are just now getting to the size to start breeding. So I'm excited, but as stated before I don't want to risk the chance of hybrid genes being spread around so I won't be giving away/selling them. And I'm just now going back to peaceful community fish again and before I never kept enough cover like plants for the young to survive.

Anyways. I know it takes time and I know I won't make anything Internet-shattering. But I am interested in actually trying to raise fry and was interested in what I could aim for when selecting my first guppies. My girlfriends tank had a few fry slip through the cracks before we removed the females, and it was interesting to see what the designs turned out to be since it was a mixture of strains in that tank. Tank will simply be a bare bottom tank eventually with plants to provide cover for the fry. My original idea was to breed my favourite male guppy with a similar coloured female and try to make a reliable strain of that kind so I could produce more of it (fish store doesn't get females with them). But if I can aim to create "my own" pattern based on what I see around here, it would be a cool addition to my hobby


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[Andy Sager]

As for what to look for, the answer is simple: " What you like. " But I would be very selective as to the fish you start with. Box store varieties are going to be a real soup of genes whereas if you go to a breeder, you can get fish that already breed true. ( I did that just last night and brought home 2 strains of pure breds so I know what to expect. ) So it all depends on how much work you really want to do in creating your line.

Good luck.

 

[Daven]

I don't know of any guppy breeders around me. But it isn't a real big place around here to begin with. Or at least anyone that posts where I see about it. I'm not too worried about the perfect guppy, more so to see what can be changed a bit and what comes from what. I read into that pingu guppy and it's kind of cool how two strains can create say 25% of the male, 25% like the female, and then the rest a combination in between. Based on examples from that article. So based on the bit I read, colour design can be changed from crossing two different kinds and then repeatedly breeding your most ideal guppies together properly. So even if I went to remake the male guppy I'd like more of, I could breed back in the fry that turn out to be similar to the male back into the line and eventually achieve a relatively reliably breeding group. The thing that worries me is the apparent need for multiple tanks to do this, but on the other hand I could at least keep it small time and easy maintenance still by having two bare bottomed tanks if needed (I have a 25 gallon and a 10 gallon on hand and space in the basement where I workout to place them without annoying my other half

This sounds reasonably viable to plan for? Again, I'm not looking to become a breeder in the sense of going for profit. More so something different to continuously work towards and see what comes of it. I like to build things, and it gets expensive to keep setting up tanks until they get full and I can't build any farther lol


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[henningc]

Back in the day I breed guppys for the show circuit. You will need to follow the directioss above but must have 10-15 10gal tanks to seperate fry and age females before the males get at them.

 

[Daven]

That's a good point. Could you see a decent way to do it with the two tanks and eventually achieve my goal strain as males and females like my current male? Maybe move the males and females to their own tank after fry start to show sexes, then removing all but the next trio (or do two groups of trios in either tank again until fry are a decent size to split yet again into either tank) and repeating the process? Like have a male tank and a female tank until they grow to a good size for colour to show, and keeping only the ones that would feed the next batch and repeating to try and get even better the next round.

I know there we better ways to go about it, but I can't really turn the basement into a dedicated guppy farm persay lol


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[brennae]

IFGA is the International Fancy Guppy Association, you might join if you are really interested. They have articles and forums for members and the show standards are in the website.

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[sinibotia]

That's a good point. Could you see a decent way to do it with the two tanks and eventually achieve my goal strain as males and females like my current male? Maybe move the males and females to their own tank after fry start to show sexes, then removing all but the next trio (or do two groups of trios in either tank again until fry are a decent size to split yet again into either tank) and repeating the process? Like have a male tank and a female tank until they grow to a good size for colour to show, and keeping only the ones that would feed the next batch and repeating to try and get even better the next round.

I know there we better ways to go about it, but I can't really turn the basement into a dedicated guppy farm persay lol

I think with 1 or 2 tanks you can still have fun with it. I had a hodgepodge of store guppies in my 10 gallon tank that I just let go and see what came up. Nothing especially interesting, but it was enjoyable

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I think the only proper way to do it is to basically turn your basement into a guppy farm. People who know better than I have suggest 5 tanks per strain minimum.

 

[brennae]

I think the only proper way to do it is to basically turn your basement into a guppy farm. People who know better than I have suggest 5 tanks per strain minimum.

All my reading of the show standards and the IFGA sites and stuff backs all this up. That's why I don't try to breed show quality. I don't want 10+ tanks of the same strain. There's also a lot of culling involved and how you personally feel about doing that must be taken into account. Some of the more well known guppy breeders get $50 and more for a just a pair or trio USD. It's really quite an investment imo but if you like genetics and being technical and can cull like mad then it would be worthwhile. Just depends on your goals.

Brenna

 

[Daven]

Ok I thought I could just aim to keep the nicer ones that come from a batch and remove the not so great ones to hopefully eventually end up with a better outcome then the first fish. Maybe I'll just forget about aiming to change them and just go with a guppy tank to breed one kind


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[Tjd2006]

I recently started a whole fish room in my garage and am starting with just 15 tanks on a rack. I really only want two lines of guppies and spent quite a bit on just those two strains. Half of them I imported from Thailand even. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with "culls". Honestly, any fry from what I have now should be sellable on aquabid as these are already lines that have been worked on extensively.


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[Andy Sager]

I recently started a whole fish room in my garage and am starting with just 15 tanks on a rack. I really only want two lines of guppies and spent quite a bit on just those two strains. Half of them I imported from Thailand even. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with "culls". Honestly, any fry from what I have now should be sellable on aquabid as these are already lines that have been worked on extensively.


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Keep in mind that "culls" come in many forms. Some are colors not wanted, shapes that are not wanted and some are just disfigured. Case in point, I had 2 females, sisters, who 1 produced a huge litter of good figured fry while the other produced a small litter but all the fish were bent and Z shaped spines. You wouldn't know that they came from the same bloodline. So you should get a "cull consumer" in line if you are going to be breeding fish. Not all fish produced are salable fish.

 

[livefishguy124]

if you want to get into selective breeding the best fish to do are guppys and bettas, you could definitely try to get that patterning, breed them and pick the best ones and breed those, just look for good females, you really need big healthy females, and the female gives half the color, so they are equally important though you cannot see the colors and tail shape as easily.