Giant Guppy Females?

[Spishkey]

was browsing my lfs on saturday, ready for chosing which guppies i want when my tank is ready this week, when i noticed that they have what seem to be giant guppies??

i mean, i know the females are larger than males, and look huge when they are pregnant, but these females were HUGE!! we're talking around 2inches plus huge. ive never seen females so long and colourful. last time i kept guppies (20years back) the females were small and dull coloured, males a bit smaller with colourful tails. now even the males bodies are coloured!

are these huge females pumped full of growth hormones or something?? ive never seen anything like it in my life and feel uneasy buying them if they've been given something to make them grow so big. surely that would effect the health of them or even their lifespan?

 

[Corleone]

There's a discussion of this in the hybrid forum, actually (thread here). They've been showing up in my area, too, though I've seen some huge males, too. Many of the ones I've seen have had bent spines and deformed fins. Not sure what they are, but a couple people have posted guppy limia hybrids that also tend to be much larger than normal guppies. Somebody suggested a guppy/molly hybrid, which are apparently sometimes deformed because of the different body shapes, but the pictures I've found of them look more like this.

 

[lilfishie]

i saw some a few years back, a neighbour had some and i had some of the fry but they were normal sized, maybe a little bigger than normal but round about there, she had a trio they must of been atleast 3"

 

[Spishkey]

corleone thanks for the link i am off to read that thread now. these gups dont look like the one in the picture though, they are very long, well built and also have big tails full of colour. i am thinking of buying a couple just to post the pictures here!
the only reason i was after some guppies was to breed them for food, and boy would the big ones make a nice snack for the recipitants, but they are so beautiful in their own way that id be inclined to keep them.

im just worried about the hardieness of them and the aggression perhaps if they are hormone filled ladies!

 

[layne2000]

corleone thanks for the link i am off to read that thread now. these gups dont look like the one in the picture though, they are very long, well built and also have big tails full of colour. i am thinking of buying a couple just to post the pictures here!
the only reason i was after some guppies was to breed them for food, and boy would the big ones make a nice snack for the recipitants, but they are so beautiful in their own way that id be inclined to keep them.

im just worried about the hardieness of them and the aggression perhaps if they are hormone filled ladies!

Hi
We have had these jumbo Guppies in Essex for years now.
I first remember seeing them about 15 years ago, then the shops stopped selling them. They re appeared about 2 years ago.

I purchased 2 heavily pregnant females last year and the offspring were only slightly larger than normal.
The female adults do not seem to be very hardy and soon die off in the tank.. same goes with the males.
I have given up on the Guppies alltogether now as I believe the interbreeding is making them prone to illness and stress. Guppies are no longer the hardy little tropies they once were.

 

[Butch]

My LFS sometimes get huge ones mixed with their order from time to time. I've seen some huge female platies and some huge mosquitofish too. I once obtained 4 inch long female mosquitofish which sold as Jumbo feeder guppies which none of them are actual guppies but average mosquitofish. I sometimes get huge female feeder guppies once in awhile too. I have a 2 inch long bendy female feeder guppy and she would be huge female if it wasn't for the deformed spinal.

 

[NoRp]

last time at my lfs they had a "guppy" tank with males and females mixed except it was clear as day that the males where endlars and the females where huge so i just put it down to them being female endlars.
its also posible that my female guppies never reach past a year old and so never reach there full size?

 

[Athena]

I have a larger than normal female guppy. She was one of the first fish I bought about 6 months ago and was small at the time (less than 1") - she now measures about 2.5inches and is quite a stocky build (I named her "Big Mamma" ). She has a greyish silver colour body, an orangey tail with black bits in it and her dorsal fin is a pretty pale blue and black.

She produces quite a lot of good, healthy fry, some of which I have kept and one of them, also female, looks as though she is on her way to taking after mum in size, but she has a yellow & black tail fin.

I would say that they are very hardy fish, compared to other guppies I've owned. No idea why they are so large - but they are not aggressive with it. Behaviour is normal.

Athena