Guppy Albino gene

[Smoked]

I think this is the right section to post this idk. Anyway currently I don't have any albino guppies. The question is what is the possibility of the gene showing up on its own. I know both parents have to carry the gene and all that and the ratio if you breed it back to the parent and everything. But how often does it just show up on its own. If I do nothing and just let the community tank breed how many fry will I go through before the albino gene shows it face.

 

[Goldfish loach boy]

It all depends on the gene pool, if the parents are carriers, infected, or non carriers, that's what it all depends on

 

[Smoked]

Ok but let's say that one or both of the parents some ware down the line has a albino gene in it but they are not breed for that trait. Over time will they lose that gene or will it stay imbedded in them.

 

[Smoked]

So no other answers? Someone has to have more info. There has to be someone that knows. The first albino guppy was not found in the wild it was born in a tank. What where the conditions to make it happen. What is the random possibility it can just poop up. I know parents have to carry the gene whatever I know that stuff that's not what I'm asking. I don't need to know how each generation works I got all that. No book answer please. So much copy and past to give answers. I want to know what is the possibility of it showing up on its own with no visible albino gene. And what is the possibility of a random mutation of it?

 

[Aibg]

If you just wait and hope for it to show at random you might just spend your entire life doing so. Albinism is a recessive gene so the odds of it just showing up at random are very slim- my best advice would be to make your guppies adapt and set the conditions for them to turn albino on their own

Which brings me to the next part is it really worth it for you? Not only will it take a ridiculously amount of time and investment if doing it for personal means rather than profit but even if doing for profit it will take time and a lot of it.

So if your still interested let me know ill look up the information I read it once some where but don't remember it exactly I was looking to breed my own pure breed and researching about turning guppies into a saltwater fish permanently

If you want to go out looking for the information your self look up research papers on the Trinidad rivers ( guppies origins ) their adaptations , why are they so diverse in colorations, and just about anything you can find guppy experiments thats how they got the albinos

But to my personal advice 8 years of work was a personal turn off so I would just recommend hunting one down n buying it to then breeding it its worth it as oppose to waiting for one to randomly show

 

[Smoked]

Thank you for the info if you find anything out I would like to know. I have been doing some research myself but its not exactly a strait forward answer. But i will continue with it. This is not for profit or anything my guppies and endlers are not worth any grate amount of money other then what I paid for them. They are for me only I love the hobby I find it interesting to get new colors and patterns. Or in the albino case lake of color.

 

[Aibg]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090602133551.htm http://guppyplace.tripod.com/Breeding.html http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress...sts-again-see-natural-selection-in-real-time/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/sex/guppy/low_bandwidth.html
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0072921641/120060/evolution_in_action20.pdf

These are the sites I came across when I first researched this topic if your thinking of doing your own experiment reading them might give you a few ideas and tips on the different variables that could affect your results.

As for the albino conditions I couldn't find the site again but I do remember they kept their tanks covered so the the fish could live in complete darkness they only gave them dim lighting 1-3 hours a day so naturally the guppies adapted n lost their colorations ( which makes sense because most albino creatures that are found in the wild live in places with little to no access to sunlight ) however I also know for a fact that most of these creatures are nearly blind so they need to adapt a new way to find their food ( in other words keep a close eye on feeding time make sure they can see and or find their food so they don't starve

As for the breeding techniques (their on the second link this is the part that also discouraged me a bit) albinos are a weak breed more prone to diseases and frequently sterile and or sorter life span so choosing to line breed, inbreed, or outcrossing could make or break your experiment ( personally I didn't have the space nor money to go thru with it) seeing how in order to achieve complete adaptation it takes around 16 - 23 generations on guppies or an average of 8 years

 

[Aibg]

I really do think guppies are an amazing fish but trying to make your own strain? Takes full devotion I my self wanted to breed my own albinos a while back and or a saltwater guppies I came a cross a few people that had transferred them to salt completely some even had a batch of fry or two but then dropped off the message boards never to be heard off ever again

I know freshwater and salt water fish urinary and salt retention and all that is way different and just because a guppy can tolerate high salts or even be transferred to ocean level salt it doesn't mean its happy ( probably why most if the experiments specimens died or the people stopped posting updates ) but if a guppy really can adapt they way it does then it shouldn't just be physical it could also be internally too it made me wonder what if instead to converting a single guppy into full salt you convert over a longer period of time over various generations each generation being more adapted to the salt than the last one Who knows if done correctly you may even have your self a real saltwater guppy in a few years - and that would be amazing!

 

[Aibg]

As for me now my my dreams of experimenting with guppy evolution have been put on hold at least till I am ready for the commitment that it will take

personally I now find joy in making my own guppy population better I let my guppies breed freely only intervening on special occasions ( a female guppy who's batch I want to ensure survive for x reason or culling deformed fry)

what I do is I keep a journal with all the phenotype genes I like and what percentage of my overall population has them for example a long blue tail and when most of the population has it I then chose to keep about 6 or so of the fish in this case male and as many females that are related or have other good traits then I get rid of the rest ( sell them )

then for moths I restock my fish tank with a new characteristic Lets say i want to have a "jumbo size" guppy. I add just enough to rebalance the male female ratio

sure when doing this I do occasionally ( most of the time ) loose my initial traits ( the blue tails ) but I take personal joy in knowing that the over populations still has the genes from the original traits and do occasionally show it and it keeps them from inbreeding too much which leads to a mess of new problems or reverting to wild-like guppies.

I do get some unexpected and cool looking fish sometimes even a " jumbo long blue tail" and that's great when it happens- key is when you go out looking for new fish to buy, stick to one characteristic or that they at least somewhat look alike if you go out and buy little yellow ones long blue ones spotted reds half body blacks and throw them all in at once ( then theirs not much point to it ) you have no control over the populations phenotypes which is kinda what we want to do here to feel a little bit scientific

It's worked for me so far to kinda feed my inner breeder not to mention when I look thru my journal and see how much I've changed my fish over the last couple of years it's awesome specially when you realize that they are still all related to my original group

I've been doing some guppy hunting lately its time to add a new characteristic to the mix and I really do like the spots and snake skins so ill think ill add a those this time to kinda break up my solid black body red tails I currently have

 

[Toad]

That's funny, I do pretty much the same thing and I also have a lot of black bodies, red tails, which wasn't close to what I started with at all lol.

 

[Aibg]

That's funny, I do pretty much the same thing and I also have a lot of black bodies, red tails, which wasn't close to what I started with at all lol.

How do your females look? Mine oddly enough are half black with yellow tails and black spots on them and maybe a little red shading but its mostly yellow

 

[Smoked]

Thanks for the info. This is my current plan. The 8 year thing don't bother me. That's how good strain are developed and that's how all the well know people in the hobby got noticed. The other day I bought 12 pre hit females all mostly clear/see through slight yellow tint on some tails aka plain. 1 was a half black 1 gray with yellow tail with black out line and one tequila sunrise. One of the plain females dropped the same night I got her got 20 fry from the drop. This male in the pic and female are from my previous purchase. They where from my community tank but all die except those 2 from dropsy. The male is a deep dark purple almost black the white on his tail was damaged when I got him. The female from what I know appears to be a red tux with slight half black. Once she drops and the half black female drops I will use the females from that bunch to mate with the lone male I currently have. I want to improve on his line. And idk maybe the males from the fry will be worth keeping as well. I also managed to pic up some endlers that the strain is not set yet but that's another thing. These are not high dollar guppies. They where from LFS but none the less I like them. I didn't want a 50-100 buck pair or trio that was already set. I wanted to do the work myself. And the albino strain is something I have always wanted to produce. On my own. So I will do what I can an hope it shows its face some day. Basically I don't want to buy the good guppy I want to breed it. Buying expensive fish then breeding them and selling and breeding etc is not my goal. I'm in it for the hobby and to see what I can produce on my own.

 

[Smoked]

And on the wild guppy note I think it would be very interesting to get some actual wild guppies and do some selective breeding. I mean the colors we have today came from them after all so I was thinking maybe something was missed overlooked or forgotten. I know it took decades to produce the fancy guppy of today but if some one would start over again and redevelop the strains of today them people could have a good out cross of completely unrelated strains. Idk wow there is so much to this hobby hard to keep up with it all.

 

[Smoked]

The first and second web sites I have seen an read the last 2 I am currently reading now.

 

[Aibg]

No problem
And I wish you the best of luck

I also understand completely what you mean it's not about the destination but the journey

so I take it that you will be line breeding?

Btw that is a really good looking male and choosing paler females is a good idea and most likely a good head start for your albinism however the combination of your male with those females might not be a good idea being that colorless females give birth to some of the most colorful males (then again what male isn't) just personally I would try to stay as far away from the black pigment as possible

And yes I completely agree guppies are a jewel if you ever have a chance watch "NOVA: dogs decoded " I know it's a little bit out if topic with fish but yeah the principle is the same how selective breeding for one thing gave all these extra other things its a really cool documentary I recommend you to watch it if you ever have the chance and to redo the whole guppy thing Wow that would be something

it might just give you entirely new guppies the possibilities are endless and still so very reachable and incredible when you realize that this can all be achieved in your life time and not millions and millions of years

 

[Smoked]

Yea the paler females I get from this batch will be for breeding his color and pattern and improving on it. The red tux and half black I'm just curious to see what I get might get some I the most ugly guppies know to man or some of the best. Who knows with those kind of colors it might give a throw back to a wild guppy color. Idk have to wait to see. And I didn't think about that maybe the lack of color already in a guppy is the way to go for albino. Think about it the less color their is the less possibility for color to show up their won't be all those fancy genes fighting for their place. If no dominate color gene is present and just plane genes maybe their is more of a chance for the albino to show up and not be blocked out???

 

[Aibg]

Mmmmm not quite I mean its a little confusing but albinism isn't a coloration it's the lack if the black pigmentation which in cells is the base for other colors - so when you think about it like that its a little easier to understand how for example two royal peacocks with all their color give birth to an albino ( red eye white feather ) peacock because its a mutation of one of the DNA strand in a chromosome not forming the popper way -.- in other words it's completely random ( bunch of BS ) if you ask me cuz basically what it means just cuz you have little color you are as close to having the albino gene as a dark colorful fish

Reason why I said to stay away from black colors was because if you set up your tank in that dark almost lightless ambiance in hopes that natural selection will help your guppies breed in a way that may set the right conditions and gene combinations that may help "provoke" the albino gene mutation but its still at genetics randomness and natural selection

 

[Smoked]

I see what you are saying now. Maybe the question shouldn't be what are the chances of an albino mutation. But what is the chance of a random mutation itself. I wonder how many nice mutations where thrown away because the strain did not breed true. Ill have to do some more research.

I have also found another site with a lot of information.
http://www.emeraldking-aquatics.com/Homepage

 

[Aibg]

Yeah I mean genetics man... ?

We all have different mutations sorta natures way if trying out new things why is that two siblings with same parents sometime look so different? Random mutations different parents genes combinations and my favorite skipped generation genes

The random mutations are always happening thing is they are usually a little more subtle than lack if pigment but with a little work you can exaggerate bring out just about any characteristic

Ps that website-- wow that really cool I really do want to make my own now try out all those combinations and experiments ( some day salt water guppy)