Guppy Breeds

[paige]

I have been told quite a few times before that you can tell if a guppy is inbred by the colours of its tail, if its true which colours are inbred ones and which ones are the non inbred colours??

Thanx

 

[Annastasia]

Essentially every single Fancy Guppy is inbred. That's how they got Fancy Guppies. So basically anyone you look at will be inbred. The extremely inbred ones will have very fancy markings or patterns, and huge tails, or fancy finnage.

 

[paige]

ok thanx, but i thought that inbred is when a brother and sister/ dad and his baby (and some more but you get the picture) have babies?? so surly they wouldnt have that fancy tails??

Ow and can you see the banner in my signature with the 2 guppies on (my little guppies ) how inbred would you say they were?? if its possible to tell.

 

[Annastasia]

Yes, that's what it means. However, Guppies did not come out of the Wild looking like they do. They had to breed the few fish that had the trait they wanted, which was the longer tails, to get it so it was a type. That ment inbreeding. And anytime you see a new color, that's been inbred too. Usually a batch will have a certain coloring, and they want to develop the coloring. That means multiple generations of inbreeding, to get fish with it in their genes that steadily produce that color.

Since they have marking on their tails and wild females naturally do not, I'd say medium inbred. Some females have hugely fancy tails, but yours aren't like that.

 

[paige]

ok thanx, at least there not that inbred...........and the blue one she has just got her colours of her mum as all of her mums babies had those kinda tails

 

[blitztidus]

I think almost every living creature has been inbred on this planet, but when you get to a point so distant, you are ok. Another way to know how inbred they are is if there are any with deformities, the more deformities, the more they have been inbred.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Male guppys that are very inbred tend to not grow very large and have a very curvy body more like a females, a lot of delta tailed guppys tend to be very fragile i.e;

This non-delta male has quite a sturdy body/thick build and normal length tail;

But this male has a curvy slim body and long tail;

The second male will be far more inbred and fragile than the first.

 

[paige]

thanx torkis that makes it alot clearer to me
And i think all of my guppy fry (well there not fry now there adults) arent that inbred as quite a few of them look like the first male, and i do have 2 females that are totally colourless (which is good right??) so they wont be very inbred either

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

The color isn't so important, but guppys that have colors like blue in them tend to be more fragile in my experience- red, green and yellow cobra/mosaic guppys were some of the first man-made patterns to be developed in guppys and have been around for a while, so these guppys have had a while toughen up a bit, but a lot of the newer color or pattern types tend to be more fragile

this is one of the newer strains, a blue japanese grass guppy;

Pingu delta tale;

Cobra/mosaic normal tail length males;

It's more in the tail length though as people have been breeding longer and longer tails in guppys over the years, so the longer the tail the more fragil the guppy tends to be .

 

[blitztidus]

as I like to say, The preeettier they are the more inbred they are

 

[Annastasia]

as I like to say, The preeettier they are the more inbred they are

I wouldn't say that's true. I find Wild Guppies very pretty, and they aren't inbred.

Some less-inbred fish can have lovely coloring, it just isn't as fancy.

 

[paige]

hey annastasia i have a little male guppy fry (about 2 months old) and he's getting his colours through and he has a tale just like that one and is begging to get loads of colours on him like that one

 

[dwarfgourami]

And individuals, even when inbred, can still be strong and healthy. I have two black tuxedo females with big fancy tails (one spotted yellow, the other silver) who seem as hard as nails, and are approaching what is probably a ripe old age

The problem with inbred fish is any undesirable traits are going to have twice the chance of surviving, as the well as the desired pretty colouration. Plenty of undesirable traits occur by natural mutation in wild individuals, but disappear through natural selection. In a tank, unhealthy fish may get a chance to breed who wouldn't in the wild- and if they breed with their siblings or mothers, then their problems stand an even greater chance of getting through to the next generation.

 

[blitztidus]

That still is not the worst part, getting undesirable traits, it is the effect it could have on all other fish if some slip out of the gene pool and ruin others by introducing unhealthy fish/ unhardy fish.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

And individuals, even when inbred, can still be strong and healthy. I have two black tuxedo females with big fancy tails (one spotted yellow, the other silver) who seem as hard as nails, and are approaching what is probably a ripe old age

The problem with inbred fish is any undesirable traits are going to have twice the chance of surviving, as the well as the desired pretty colouration. Plenty of undesirable traits occur by natural mutation in wild individuals, but disappear through natural selection. In a tank, unhealthy fish may get a chance to breed who wouldn't in the wild- and if they breed with their siblings or mothers, then their problems stand an even greater chance of getting through to the next generation.

I agree that not all guppys that would be associated with being inbred, are inbred to the extent it makes them fragile or weak etc- its just they are more likely to have these less than desirable qualitys. Black tuxedo's in general are quite hardy in my experience though. If you can devote the time, tank and money to keeping the more fragile strains then that is good, but its just one of those things that most people aern't willing to do now days when they find out how fragile some of these guppys can really be- a lot of people seem to be turning back to more hardy short tailed strains now days though which are more true to the guppy form and character.

In general though...
For most inbred delta tailed guppys, the key to success to keeping them is to have a tank no bigger than 30gals but more than 4gals with a weak filter current- keep lots of useful but not overly powerful meds like pimafix and melafix on standby in case anything goes wrong and feed the guppys a high veg flake based diet and occasionally fresh easy to digest frozen foods like bloodworms and daphinia. Don't stock them with any fish that are remotely agressive(like tiger barbs), nippy(like serpae tetras), hyper active(like danios) or dominant(like mollys) that could interfere with them, stress them out, bully them or over-compete them for food etc. Most of this is due to the fact that delta tail guppys easily tire out due to the weight of their tails, and their tails are often very fragile themselves, and they are also quite slow because of this.