Okay so I started a 75 gallon aquarium with five sapphire blue female guppy and two tequila sunrise The offspring gave me quite a few tiger handlers and I'm having variations in between. Now I would like to selective breed here in the short future with small 10 gallons. What should I know before I get into this and where would I look to meet up with fellow guppy breeders? Also I have five Rosy reds in my aquarium that I'm considering taking out but I don't know I like a hearty breed so the way I see it they'll eat the fry that are and keep the stock to a minimum I mean I am doing selective breeding here anyways I could strengthen the stock? I thought about turning off the heater at night and then in the morning rapidly increasing it to 83° and that night doing a 5 gallon or 10 gallon water change with cool water just to toughen them up thoughts? I also have baby blue mystery snails and I threw one goldenca in there what can I expect as far as offspring now?
Guppy breeding thoughts and advice
- Thread starter Vidmnjva
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Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
What you need to understand is that Guppies are now a mix of so many earlier generations of Guppies that unless you are getting your stock from a breeder that has been selectively breeding for generations, they are not going to have spawns where 100% of the fry will look like the parents. If you want to harden up your stock, you need to use wild blood, not domesticated blood to do that. All using domesticated fish will do is put more weaker genetic material into the gene pool. Wild fish will put more natural genes into the line that can handle more wild conditions than domesticated fish can.
To selectively breed Guppies, you will need 4 tanks per pair you are trying to breed. You need to keep your chosen male and chosen female separated from other fish. Unless you get virgin females, Guppies have the ability to hold sperm for later pregnancies so you need to allow her to shed all those fry if she's been in a tank with other males. The next tank will be for the fry to grow out in. Tank #3 will be for the male fry as they are developing their gonopodium. You do not want them breeding with their Sisters (yet) and you do not want them releasing hormones that will suppress the other males from maturing. Tank #4 will be for the female fry as they are showing their eggs so that they remain virgins. You want to breed with virgins as much as possible.
As for your use of Rosey Reds to keep the population smaller, what you want are fish mature enough that you see the mature colors and finnage to know who to breed next so they will be too big for a rosey red to eat. Better to use a larger cichlid or aquatic turtle for this.
As for your idea of playing with the temperature, it's a bad idea. It will cause stress in the fish which will lead to outbreaks of ICK if not other parasites. Fish like consistency in temperatures, not constant fluctuations. Keeping the temperature in the upper 70s to low 80s should keep the Guppies healthy but the warmer the water, the faster the fish will grow and breed. You are not trying to work in temps the fish CAN live in, you are trying to work with what temperatures the fish will breed best in. Because you are going to be working with a number of tanks if you do more than one dedicated line, it will overall be cheaper to heat or cool the room vs having individual heaters in every tank. I've had hatcheries with over 100 tanks with 100 heaters and hatcheries with 400+ tanks with no heaters and temp controlled the room and the electric bill for the 400+ building was cheaper.
As for the snails, it will be the same with them as with the Guppies. There's no telling what you are going to get because you don't know what the genetic makeup of them is.
There are a number of Guppy clubs around the country and around the world so do some legwork online to find them and hopefully there is one in your local area. There's also the IFGA ( International Fancy Guppy Association HOME | ifga) that can help connect you with fellow breeders and the hows of breeding. There are also a number of sites online and books on line breeding fish so do some reading before getting into this.
Hope this helps.
I trust your advice which is thorough and I'm still processing it 
It is much appreciated. I understand I will need multiple tanks, but don't understand this deal with hormones. Seems trivial. Way I see it is, if I want a specific trait, I breed specific fish. Segregation I get. Hormones? Seems trivial. Guppies are horny enough as is right?
It is much appreciated. I understand I will need multiple tanks, but don't understand this deal with hormones. Seems trivial. Way I see it is, if I want a specific trait, I breed specific fish. Segregation I get. Hormones? Seems trivial. Guppies are horny enough as is right?
Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
Good case, bad lawyer.I trust your advice which is thorough and I'm still processing it
Unlike humans, fish have the ability, through hormones, to impede the maturation of their siblings. This is a problem when you are trying to breed for a certain trait because that trait may be in a fish that is being purposely stunted by it's sibling. ( You want to have the largest selection of fish to choose from. ) This is why you want to remove the faster maturing fish and doing daily water changes. With that said, if what you are looking for is fast maturing fish, you want to keep track of these in your spawns so you know to use these fish in your breeding program even if they don't have the other trait(s) you are looking for.
Look up the Punnett Square and when you use it, you'll see how many of a spawn will contain the genes for the trait(s) you are looking to enhance based on the parents and their lineage. This method is very handy when trying to isolate particular traits. Case in point, many decades ago, the Pingu Pink Guppy was made. The original parent for this color came from a single fish with a single pink scale on both sides of its tail. The whole process was photographed and was an article in TFH magazine back in the 1970s. ( I may even still have this issue buried in my archives.
)As for Guppies being always horny, males may pester females all the time but it's the females that decide when they want to take that sperm and fertilize some eggs. This is why you pamper the females so they are more receptive.
emeraldking
Aquarium Advice Freak
As Andy has already stated, selectively breeding with fish from a store which you don't know the genetic background of, will result in disappointment. Unless, you like a mix of colors, patterns and shapes. Bit that wouldn't be selectively breeding. And another thing is that when you buy them off a store, you don't know whether a female has already mated or not and if she's still storing sperm packets.
Selectovely breeding needs virgin females of which you know the genetic background of. And the same goes for males. For the genetic background is needed to predict the outcome of the offspring.
The mistake that many people make who are new into delectively breeding guppies is to predict the outcome of the offspring by the phenotypes of the breeding pairs. While it's important to know their genotypes instead. For instance, is a phenotypical black guppy also genotypically black? Doesn't have to...! Is it the male who only passes on his traits? Doesn't have to...! Both male and fema;e can carry dominant or recessive traits. And the combinations of these mating partners will give an estimation of the outcome of the future offspring.
And be aware of it that when using a female which is still storing sperm packets of one or more matings (of one or multiple males), such a female is of no use for selectively breeding purposes. When such a female releases sperm packets that were stored in the folds of her fallopian tube, it will happen randomly. Some claim that the most fresh donated sperm will be used first. This is not correct. It happens randomly. And be aware of it that once a female stores sperm packets, she can hold on to it for over a year without any loss of the quality of the sperm packets. This gives the female the ability to become pregnant multiple times without another mating needed.
I do have to say the following about the regulation of the water temperature. It won't harm those guppies when that happens. But all within reason, of course. I myself am keeping my livebearers at moderate till somewhat lower temperatures. This will make them stronger. That's the experience I have all these years of keeping and breeding them. If you keep guppies at higher rates, their lifespan will be shorter. Also if you raise fry at higher temps, they will grow faster but will be weaker than fry that are raised at moderate temperatures. But many people want those fry to grow up fast. This will result in a shorter lifespan. Most breeding forms of guppies should be able to reach 2-3 years. But at higher temperatures, you should be lucky if they will reach 6-12 months. Many don't care about this because in that time frame, these fish have already taken care of new generations which they can work with.
The method of a higher frequency of water changes to raise fry does work. But that's more of use when the number of growing fry is excessive in a tank or when they're kept in a very small tank. This has got to do with the growing hormones. If there's enough space for the number of fry in a tank, a higher frequency of water changes is not needed. In that case, you also don't have to worry about a stunted growth.
And yes, if you want to focus on selective breeding where focusing on certain traits is key, you'll need at least 4 tanks. If you use a male and a female of different strains, most fry will carry the traits of both parents. Whether that's dominantly or recessively. Don't cross siblings of the F1 by all means. For that will mostly result in multiple phenotypes in the future offspring. Use a male with multiple females. The offspring of each individual female should be kept separate from the offspring of the other females. That way, you have half siblings to work with. Using half siblings to cross wirth another will have a better result.
And if you want to anhance the traits of the father, crossing daughters back to the father is an option. Crossing a son to the mother won't be of any use. For she's still storing sperm from that the firtst breeding male. from time to time I do read that some try to make others believe that that would work. But that already tells me that they just don't know what they're talking about. Unfortunately, there are lots of people who like to label themselves a specialist in guppy breeding while they're not. This happens more frequent once there's a hype among guppy breeding fram what I've noticed. More over when those who have listened to them, are surprised that the outcpme of the offspring turned out differently than expected. And how often do they even claim that if a female has already mated before that after a couple of months, she should be free of stored sperm packets. That's totally nonsense. As already mentioned by me, a female can even hold on to sperm packets for over a year without any problems.
Mixing wild guppies into the gene pool is indeed a way to improve the strength (or hardiness) of those guppies. The downsite of this is that it will take more time to set up a new line of a breeding form. For you've mixed other genes which means also other traits into the bloodline. But if you're patient enough, this shouldn't be a problem.
Thinking that getting guppies from different stores would implicate not related fish could be a farce. For if those stores have the same wholesaler and the wholesaler had them from the same fish farm, those fish could still be related. Just a note before anyone tries to claim that they've got unrelated specimens because they bought them elsewhere.
At my place I'm fortunate that the adults won't eat their fry. They're so used to smaller tank mates that they leave fry completely alone. If someone starts as a novice aquarist and if it's desirable to keep as many fry, start with a group of fish of different sizes. This way many livebearers learn to leave smaller tank mates alone.
I'm keeping and breeding guppies and other fish for over 50 years. Started off back in 1973 till this very day. And in present time with the internet, there are so many who have recently started keeping and breeding guppies and think that they know all about it. There are many seasoned breeders of these fish who are dealing with such know it alls...
There's always something new to learn. Even for seasoned aquarists which includes myself. I'm not arrogant enough to claim to know it all. But many know it alls think they have already the full package of knowledge.
Sorry for my long story. But I'm a devoted and passionate livebearer breeder (guppies have a special focus all these years) who likes to give the correct info about these fish.
Selectovely breeding needs virgin females of which you know the genetic background of. And the same goes for males. For the genetic background is needed to predict the outcome of the offspring.
The mistake that many people make who are new into delectively breeding guppies is to predict the outcome of the offspring by the phenotypes of the breeding pairs. While it's important to know their genotypes instead. For instance, is a phenotypical black guppy also genotypically black? Doesn't have to...! Is it the male who only passes on his traits? Doesn't have to...! Both male and fema;e can carry dominant or recessive traits. And the combinations of these mating partners will give an estimation of the outcome of the future offspring.
And be aware of it that when using a female which is still storing sperm packets of one or more matings (of one or multiple males), such a female is of no use for selectively breeding purposes. When such a female releases sperm packets that were stored in the folds of her fallopian tube, it will happen randomly. Some claim that the most fresh donated sperm will be used first. This is not correct. It happens randomly. And be aware of it that once a female stores sperm packets, she can hold on to it for over a year without any loss of the quality of the sperm packets. This gives the female the ability to become pregnant multiple times without another mating needed.
I do have to say the following about the regulation of the water temperature. It won't harm those guppies when that happens. But all within reason, of course. I myself am keeping my livebearers at moderate till somewhat lower temperatures. This will make them stronger. That's the experience I have all these years of keeping and breeding them. If you keep guppies at higher rates, their lifespan will be shorter. Also if you raise fry at higher temps, they will grow faster but will be weaker than fry that are raised at moderate temperatures. But many people want those fry to grow up fast. This will result in a shorter lifespan. Most breeding forms of guppies should be able to reach 2-3 years. But at higher temperatures, you should be lucky if they will reach 6-12 months. Many don't care about this because in that time frame, these fish have already taken care of new generations which they can work with.
The method of a higher frequency of water changes to raise fry does work. But that's more of use when the number of growing fry is excessive in a tank or when they're kept in a very small tank. This has got to do with the growing hormones. If there's enough space for the number of fry in a tank, a higher frequency of water changes is not needed. In that case, you also don't have to worry about a stunted growth.
And yes, if you want to focus on selective breeding where focusing on certain traits is key, you'll need at least 4 tanks. If you use a male and a female of different strains, most fry will carry the traits of both parents. Whether that's dominantly or recessively. Don't cross siblings of the F1 by all means. For that will mostly result in multiple phenotypes in the future offspring. Use a male with multiple females. The offspring of each individual female should be kept separate from the offspring of the other females. That way, you have half siblings to work with. Using half siblings to cross wirth another will have a better result.
And if you want to anhance the traits of the father, crossing daughters back to the father is an option. Crossing a son to the mother won't be of any use. For she's still storing sperm from that the firtst breeding male. from time to time I do read that some try to make others believe that that would work. But that already tells me that they just don't know what they're talking about. Unfortunately, there are lots of people who like to label themselves a specialist in guppy breeding while they're not. This happens more frequent once there's a hype among guppy breeding fram what I've noticed. More over when those who have listened to them, are surprised that the outcpme of the offspring turned out differently than expected. And how often do they even claim that if a female has already mated before that after a couple of months, she should be free of stored sperm packets. That's totally nonsense. As already mentioned by me, a female can even hold on to sperm packets for over a year without any problems.
Mixing wild guppies into the gene pool is indeed a way to improve the strength (or hardiness) of those guppies. The downsite of this is that it will take more time to set up a new line of a breeding form. For you've mixed other genes which means also other traits into the bloodline. But if you're patient enough, this shouldn't be a problem.
Thinking that getting guppies from different stores would implicate not related fish could be a farce. For if those stores have the same wholesaler and the wholesaler had them from the same fish farm, those fish could still be related. Just a note before anyone tries to claim that they've got unrelated specimens because they bought them elsewhere.
At my place I'm fortunate that the adults won't eat their fry. They're so used to smaller tank mates that they leave fry completely alone. If someone starts as a novice aquarist and if it's desirable to keep as many fry, start with a group of fish of different sizes. This way many livebearers learn to leave smaller tank mates alone.
I'm keeping and breeding guppies and other fish for over 50 years. Started off back in 1973 till this very day. And in present time with the internet, there are so many who have recently started keeping and breeding guppies and think that they know all about it. There are many seasoned breeders of these fish who are dealing with such know it alls...
There's always something new to learn. Even for seasoned aquarists which includes myself. I'm not arrogant enough to claim to know it all. But many know it alls think they have already the full package of knowledge.
Sorry for my long story. But I'm a devoted and passionate livebearer breeder (guppies have a special focus all these years) who likes to give the correct info about these fish.
No I very much so appreciate all of your responses. I have gained a wealth of knowledge just in the interactions with y'all. Now it is time to put it to use. I will come back with any updates or questions. Thank you so much 
for getting me this info
for getting me this info
