guppy colours

[mr funktastic]

my guppy just had some fry and i was wondering if there is any way of determining colours that the fry will turn out to be. the female had a pale blue body but a very vibrant blue tail, much fancier than a normal female. the male had a dark black/blue body, the tail is red with a blue out line. if you have any idea about the colour turn out let me now or tell me some stories about how your fry turned out based on the colour of the parents. anything will help.

 

[whitetiger_CJ]

boy, i guess it would depend on their family tree. most guppies are not pure bred, they are a mutt so to say, so the colors of their offspring will be impossible to tell. some should turn out as the parents, but there is no guarantee.
hth ~corey

 

[DirgeDevil]

(Female guppies can carry 3 packages of sperm at a time, so if she's new to the tank, the offspring could be from any other fish from the store's tank. but if not...then it's not.)
It's very hard to tell, but once the first baby gets his/her color in, the siblings won't be too different. My fancy guppy mom is clear with a yellow tail, and the father was and orange/yellow one. the fry grew up to be leopard spotted. You'll have fun watching them grow up!!!

 

[Toirtis]

It can be done, and there are a few books that have sections devoted to guppy genetics (like Schubel's bible), but you must know that your bloodlines are pure and you must know that your females have bred only with certain males....so you really need to start out with pure show stock, and get your females when they are still sexually immature.

 

[BillD]

Toirtis makes some good points here. If you don't know what the bloddlines are and how true they bred before you got them, it is very difficult to guesstimate what the crossing of 2 colour types will give you. Stan Shubel has been breeding and perfecting strains for 50 years, and it takes time to produce consistent results. Shubel's guppys will breed true to strain, but if you cross 2 strains it can be a crapshoot. One breeding will undo all the work that went into perfecting the strain. As an aside, Stan Shubel was a speaker at the recent CAOAC convention, and he has some awsome guppys, that command a very high price. It is no wonder that he is considered "the man" when it comes to guppys.

 

[rubysoho]

can't you tell the genetics by the turnout of the offspring? I know that is done with Gerbils and rats when the parents are questionable.

 

[Toirtis]

can't you tell the genetics by the turnout of the offspring? I know that is done with Gerbils and rats when the parents are questionable.

Not entirely, and when you take into account sperm storage and potential multiple fathers of a single litter, it gets a bit complex.