Livebearer Sperm Storage

[LauraFrog]

Alright so basically what I've got here are a few situations... just trying to work out what would happen in each.

Female A is virgin. She mates with male X, and within a few hours, male Y.
Whose fry is she carrying, or will they be a mixture?

Female B is pregnant to male X. Within a day of giving birth to his fry, she mates with male Y.
Whose fry is she carrying, or will they be a mixture?

Female C is halfway through a pregnancy to male X. She mates with male Y.
Does the sperm from male Y get stored, allowing her next fry to be a mixture of X and Y, or does she lose the new sperm?

Female D has not mated with a male for a long time and is almost out of sperm.
Does she produce fewer fry, or more eggs with the fry, or do her pregnancies become less frequent?

Male X mates with female E. Within a few hours, he mates with female F.
Is there still viable sperm in his milt for the second mating? Will the female have as many fry and as many pregnancies as if he had not mated for a long time, or will it be too dilute? Is there a chance that she may not become pregnant at all?

Female G has stored sperm from male X. Male Y is very persistent and mates with her repeatedly.
Does he reduce the number of fry by male X in favour of his own or is he wasting his time?



Thanks in advance for helping clear that up!

 

[helterskelter]

Females A,B and C can have a mixture, this is when line breeding you keep the best male to breed from and only use that male.

Female D, Considering males pass hundred's of thousands of sperm she dose not run low it's just degreade's and it's the females body that decides on the number's of eggs

Males X....... oh yes there's plenty more where at came from LOL

Female G well there's many papers on this study and it's getting clearer with genetic studies, but in the past it was not clear.
In breeding studies the female selects the male she want to breed with, it's not all rape in guppies, the males dance around the females and if she not intrested then she dropps her dead and shimmy's this is a clear sign to a male she's not intrested and he'll move on the next.

 

[LauraFrog]

Haha, thanks...
I've seen the sperm storage firsthand because all of my platies kept on having fry... and having fry... and having fry... for several months when I had no male, but I noticed the size of their drops declining during the last month or so without a male and more eggs being born with fully-developed fry, also more taildraggers that I had to put down. (It kinda sucks when you have to sit next to a birthing female with a bowl full of clove oil. Not nice.)

Anyway, I have since remedied that situation with a stunning male and he is insane - most sex-addicted fish I've ever seen. Five females in the tank, one is too young to mate, he caught all the others on the first day. So I was hoping that they all got a fertile dose from him because they seemed a lot less interested in him after he got to them once.

Remember Striker? If she's not preggers now it sure ain't his fault.

 

[helterskelter]

LOL I'm sure he's having fun then with all them females.

I stop all my fish breeding over our winter, i drop the temp to 70F will april and then one rested I'll get loads of fry

 

[LauraFrog]

My temp goes down in winter too because I have no heater, so in winter it drops to about 20 C coz that's as low as it ever goes in tropics.. lol
One of my FISH gave me one of the best christmas presents I got - another patched fry, AND a black and grey platy with a ROUND TAIL. When they aren't three or four millimetres long, I'll post some photos and show off.

 

[bucksgill]

If you have a tank with 4 female guppies and one male and the male makes all of them pregnant will all the male fry look like the Dad.
Im curious because if I just buy 1 stunning male I would want to breed as many fry as possible like it.

Thanks

 

[LauraFrog]

I've got one tank at the moment but I'm setting up a second... all my females came from the LFS so they were pregnant when I bought them to unknown males with the exception of two virgins, now both pregnant to Bandit. He's a bright and colourful male. Another one in the LFS I intend to buy is going to be a really nice compliment to the Striker strain, and there's another female a bit like them in the LFS. There's also a strangely-patterned young female that would probably look very good under Bandit.

So I'm going to set up two tanks and separate the females between them based on which male I want them pregnant to. I'm going to get serious about my own patched strain too, but as yet all of them are still fry, too small to sex even the oldest. When that happens, another tank... my parents are getting sick of this. I'm going to splurge and buy those three fish though. They are stunners.

 

[helterskelter]

no coz the females carry colour gene's as well.

As far as i know though female pingu guppies are the only guppy that carries little or no colour gene's

 

[bucksgill]

Ah that makes sense sorry I didnt think of that