Advice On Buying Guppies Please

[rifty]

Hi i currently keep malawi cichlids and have a well established fish house. Mysone who is 6 is very interest in the hobby so i have agreed a tank for his fish!
I would like a fish that will breed and is fairly easy to keep and he likes guppies on visits to lfs
my question is I would like a real nice strain of guppy with the potential to sell or swap the offspring something like a moscow red or blue etc but not sure where to buy good fish from!
can anyone help me in my quest

 

[This Old Spouse]

Honestly, I'd post something in the livestock section in this forum and get some good fish from local breeders. At least they can tell you about the fish, and more likely than not they'll be much hardier than the fish you would buy at your LFS.

 

[StandbySetting]

You'd be better off with Endlers as they produce a smaller number of fry.

 

[joefish72]

If you want your son to love the hobby the best ones to get are the ones he picks. Even if he wants different colors/strains just do it, once they have babies you can let them grow out to see what you get. Keep the ones he likes and you coud always feed the discards to the cichlids. I'm in the fish sales business and each of my kids has an "off limits" tank. I don't dare sell the fish in those tanks, and the kids do all the work to keep the tank.

 

[OldMan47]

For StandbySetting: A 45 gallon endler tank that started not long before with 2 pairs.

For rifty: one of the best selling guppy type fish I have seen lately is a thing called a "tiger endler". It is really a guppy / endler cross but has been developed to the point it will breed true. They are quite pretty fish that still demand a nice price at club auctions compared to guppies or true endlers. If you insist on just guppies, the Moscow guppies and half blacks seem to demand a decent price too. As a source of stock, try calling your local club and find out when they will have their next auction. We have a reasonable listing of local clubs right here on TFF. Have a look here for a club near you http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/forum/143-local-aquarium-societies-and-clubs/

 

[StandbySetting]

Another reason would be that Endler's are more sought after than Guppy's, I don't know whether that is true of the US but it is of the UK form my experience.

 

[OldMan47]

Things like tiger endlers are quite popular but the wild type endlers are a very poor bet at an auction in the US. I should know since it is the only kind I keep here in the US. I keep wild type endlers as a species preservation project but never expect to see them pay their own keep.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Things like tiger endlers are quite popular but the wild type endlers are a very poor bet at an auction in the US. I should know since it is the only kind I keep here in the US. I keep wild type endlers as a species preservation project but never expect to see them pay their own keep.

So just what is the difference between guppies and endlers?

 

[OldMan47]

Spouse:
Depending on which scientist you believe, they are the same fish or they are separate species. The ones that I believe say that P. reticulata, guppies, are a different species than P. wingei, endlers. While breeding guppies with endlers is fairly easy in captivity, the two species largely ignore each other where they occur together in the wild.
Some of the obvious differences are in their appearance. Endlers are quite a bit smaller than wild or domestic guppies. Endlers drop smaller numbers of fry at about 23 days while guppies drop more fry at 28 days. Guppies are jumpers and should only be kept in well covered tanks while endlers are not jumpers. Guppies are opportunistic breeders that will perform a sneak breeding with a female and will pester a single female that takes their fancy endlessly. Endlers are more inclined to court a female and move on if she shows no interest in breeding. Endlers in a single species tank are very energetic swimmers while guppies are sedentary by comparison. There is no reason to ever worry about endlers eating their fry since they largely ignore them, take another look at my endler picture. The typical guppy tank will contain small numbers of surviving fry with no help from us but only a small percentage of the fish in a mature guppy tank will be fry. Most will have been eaten.

 

[This Old Spouse]

I think I have some endlers!!

 

[This Old Spouse]

Here's a really bad photo of a few of the fish I have that I think might be at least part endler. The ones I have are about half the body size of my regular guppies, and have the same kind of body markings. Could it be ...?

 

[StandbySetting]

They're definitely hybrids, they have some of the key traits of a common Endler.