to breed or.....

[guppler]

I hope i don't "create a phenomenon of anger" . (That's what som anti Arnold ads have been claiming schwartzenager wants to do.)
Ok, I'l go back to the beginning.
I got a little guy at a lfs that said he was more expensive than my other guppies, but they kept him in a guppy tank and didn't tell me exactly what he really was. (at first I thought he was a juvenile lyretail guppy.) Well, of course Tiger turned out to be an Endler's livebearer, and of course hybrids resulted. I actuallly separated all my livebearers according to gender, and didn't deliberately put any back together until most of my males had died. I intended to try for blonde snakeskins and violet tuxedos, but I did think my mini tuxedos were pretty cute. Well the breeding wasn't going well at first, because my males were all old and kept dying. Pretty soon all my males were about Endler size. ( the big delta tails were gone, and I never did get many snakeskins) I decided that I really did want to breed all the blonde ones, even if they were tiny, and one of my tiny tux's had a bright red, slightly elongated pectoral fin, so I had to try to breed him. Curt the red handed didn't last long, but his brother, Handy, who had a little yellow and orange on both pectorals ended up being the last male of that generation, and possible the father of most of my current fry.
I now have some brilliant yellow and red little guys with 3 pointed tails and lots of interesting patterns, as well as some that could almost pass for pure Endler.

There are also some in this generation that got a condition that I have seen in a few of my fish, that could be considered a handicap, but usually isn't much of a handicap. If you think of a celestial goldfish as handicapped, then, yeah, I guess these guys would qualify, except they actually get along better in mixed groups than a fancy goldfish with commets. I think They're cute, but I have not tried to breed them on purpose. Twiggy Rocket was the first. He looked like pure Endler. Then came Twigget and Girltwin, and Darker Pony, all tuxedo females, except Pony was Tiny (the smallest adult girl i ever had). I still have Girtwin, and now I have Angle. That's not "Angel". He actually has almost a boomerang shaped body, and he's not hunchbacked. It's the opposite. At first I noticed Twiggy and Twigget were kinda skinny and liked to rest on horizontal surfaces. Later I noticed that they always swam nose up and seemed to have deficient swim bladders, which could sometimes make abelly look almost concave just behind the gills. Once Twigget was grown up, she was big and plump, but her tail was curled or swept upward at the end. It's as if the tail bends to accomodate the swimming angle or something. Girltwin still likes her horizontal resting places, and she's big enough to defend her favorite sleeping nook from anybody. I've also noticed that about 3 of my tiniest fry have the angled look and probably small swimbladders. It only shows up in about 1 out of 50 live births, which is probably not so much that I would refuse to breed any of my fish, especially since I really don't know who the cariers are. Once in a while I wonder if it migh tbe interesting to breed the angled fisf on purpose, but i don't think they would be popular as pets. It would just be interesting to see what happens. I'm afraid most people would not approve, but in moost cases, it doesn't seem to bother the fish much at all. So I don't think I'll try to breed them, but it might be interesting to get opinions on that.

The other part is just my little gupplers in general, and maybe adding in a nice big blu lyre tail snakeskin to try to get some genetic diversity going, or focussing on the little red and yellows or trying to get my "penguins" back or more serious attempts at the long brightly collored pectorals. I've also seen some very long dorsal fins , but I don't know if mine are unusually long based on just what i see in stores. I'm sure some people would suggest starting over or quitting, but I thought I'd ask, and see what's interesting to other people.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

By any chance, are you breeding brother and sister fish or other genetically related fish together? The deformitys you mention are often a sign of inbreeding thats all, which is not good. If your tank is doing well and you havn't encountered any deseases, water quality or issues or anything similar then the swimbladder disoreders are also genetic.

Naturally in the wild these sorts of deformitys slow the fish down and they get picked off and eaten by predatory fish which is why wild fish have better genes in general than tank bred ones as inbreeding never goes very far, also the populations and very much bigger, into their thousands, so the chances of 2 related fish meeting and breeding iwth each other are slim.
I strongly suggest you don't breed your mutant fish, the deformitys will worsen, you will get smaller and poorer batchs of fry and higher mortality rates, their imune systems will become lowered so the fish become more suspectabe to desease and their life spans will also be shortened.
You should also research up on fish TB as this can also cause spinal and bodily curvature and kinks.
How many males do you currently have with your females?

 

[guppler]

How many males do you currently have with your females?

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Once I had a few kids, I took the males back out. Actually, by then, I didn't have any males left from the former generation, but now I have 6 males in the comunity with the nonlivebearers and just decided tonight that 4 of the fry in my second girl tank need to move out too.
I don't know exactly how related my gupplers are, because my original 5 fish that started it all lived together, but most of them are probably at least cousins, which is why I want to get some more genetic diversity. The problem there is that I try not to buy new fish when I'm already crowded, and it's hard to sell my little guys because they are all unique, and some people don't want hybrids anyway. Considering that I only had 1 store bought Endler and most of my boys don't make it to full guppy size, I suspect he's the grandpa to all of my new generation. With all my ecology classes, I know what founder effects and inbreeding can do, but I also know that most new strains of anything start off by doing a little inbreeding.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

You should have at least 2-3females per male, although in larger male groups you should opt for 3-4females per male.
If you cannot offer anymore genetic diversity due to lack os space, stop breeding your guppys for the time being or completely separate the males from the females into their own tank and only breed the male with the best genes- and when i say that, not the prettiest male as the more colorful and longer tailed they are the more inbred they tend to be.
If you are finding it difficult to rehome guppy/endler hybrids then don't breed them.
Instead of buying new males everytime for genetic diversity, concentrate your efforts on females for a while as it sounds like its a while since you last bought a new pair of females. Black tuxedo, brown and pale yellow and red tailed females tend to have good genes the most- buy the largest and curviest females for breeding as these ones will be the most likely to successfully produce large batchs of healthy fry, the smaller and younger the female the more likely she is to experience birthing complications.
When it comes to buying males, buy the most "masculine" ones you can, when i say this go for the ones with the least curvy bodys but instead ones with straight thick set physique and also the ones that are the largest- many males are growing smaller and smaller with longer tails and curvier bodys and this is a sign of poor genes.
Also study and watch your males- only chose the most sexually active and high sex drived males for breeding, when it comes to females try to breed ones with peaceful and freindly personaltys and large appetites.

Many guppys are already very inbred from selective breeding and line breeding from guppy breeders, but even they put down any that show serious signs of inbreeding like deformitys- all you will get from breeding deformed guppys is even more deformed guppys with poorer and poorer health, guppy breeding should only be attempted by people who are serious about it.

Do you even realy know what you are trying to achieve by breeding your guppys?

You may get some interesting colors from crossbreeding them but it will be imposible to create a new strain unless you stick to aiming for a particular color/pattern type and this usually takes years(5minimum on average)- your strain won't be considered a strain unless you can breed the guppys and get flawless look-a-likes everytime, getting a guppy every now and then that does not look exactly like its siblings will classify all your guppys not as a new strain but a crossbreed.
And if you are going to achive this is any amount of time it means investing in at least 40 guppys and many tanks, most serious small time breeders have at least 30 10gal tanks, also finding and making a partnership with a serious lfs that will take your fry off you every time.
You say you are interested increating a new strain, but you will not achieve this by the way you are going and certainly not by breeding mutant guppys and changing the males around all the time to completely different looking ones. If you do not have the proper time, money, lfs and gear to invest in creating a new strain of guppy then i would suggest you just stick to ensuring your guppys have the best genes and health as posible and leave the new strain guppy thing alone.

 

[guppler]

I've actually only had one person say thaey didn't want hybrids when I asked if they'd buy them, and someone else at the same place said they'd take them as long as they were pretty. One reason I said they were part Endler was because some say they won't pay much unless they are at least an inch long, and endlers don't get that long. The problem for me is more deciding which ones i can part with. I haven't actually sold any fish yet, but I have offered some to friends and family. I would expect them to go with "fancy guppies", which is what some of mine were called, and they vary a lot, so it isn't really a strain I'm going for, so much as traits that i like. At first it was just going to be Jack and Jill O'Lantern, but they didn't breed for a while, so i got more guppies, and that Tiger was a good breeder, and Dot was big enough to produce broods of around 50, so I have kept mine separated most of the time. I set up a temporary breeding tank for just a few of the promising fish in pretty good ratios, and pretty soon I basically had one boy with a few girls. Now I have 2 ten gallons full of fry with a few moms (only 3 in the tank where my last boy spent his last days. The fry in the other tank are mostly from when I let 5 of my girls visit the comunity for a few days before i set the breeding tank up.) and the boys go to the the comunity as soon as I'm sure they're boys. i would sell them mostly to avoid overcrowding and if I get money or credit it would go back into caring for the fishies or gettin new ones when I have room. I want bigger tanks, but I have to find space for that too. I guess I just hate to see a really interesting trait or combination completely disapear, and wanted to give some of my boys a chance because some of them lived out their lives without directly passing on their genes, and they were pretty too.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Well i have told you why you shouldn't breed badly inbred or mutant guppys, if you want to breed irresponsably with these sorts of guppys it is your decision but i hope i have at least made you realise why you shouldn't.
Freinds and family might take your livebearers but if they knew what they were actually buying i am sure they wouldn't be too impressed with you- also you won't have an unlimited number of reletives and freinds to take your fish off you forever.
Breeding any fish is alot more than simply selecting what you think are pretty ones.
Also, unless you are very lucky, no lfs is going to pay anything for crossbreeds considering they can pick most purebreeds up for pennys and also get insurance on them.
I think you need to re-think your plan, it seems to me that you have your head in the clouds also considering you have asked this question in other places of the forum a few times and got a similar response.

 

[guppler]

I'm not concerned about friends and family being "impressed with " me for raising gupplers. I keep fish as pets. Some of my friends and family keep fish as pets and if they're interested I let them have some of mine to give them a good home. Most people who see my fish ask questions about them and say they are pretty, and they like to see how lively they are.
I got guppies first and one of them happenned to be an Endler. I have a few other fish, but the guppies are fascinating to me because they all have individual personalities and looks. I actually haven't bought any guppies since I got Tiger, the Endler, and I still have a few girls who don't look like endlers. I try to breed girls that don't look like endlers and I don't have boys that don't look like endlers, which is why I would get a male or both genders if I buy more. Strangely enough, one of the girls who lived longest was Jill, my very first guppy. I do have some designated nonbreeders, which I also will not sell and probably wouldn't even give away. In the end the only traits i was trying to breed were clear yellow or blonde with nice bright tails because they look most like Jack and Jill, and tuxedos that might have unusually long and colorful fins, because they are probably the most unusual of the ones i have.
I have mixed feelings about putting the ones that look like endlers back into circulation at pet stores. It might actually be good to add to the genetic diversity of endlers, by letting some guppy genes in, as long as they look like endlers, but if it will just dilute them, then it might be better to keep the hybrids with guppies or non breeders. It's a controversy that has more than 1 side. I studied the florida panther a little in school. Their population is so low and isolated that they all have the same kind of kink in their tails. Some people want to breed some with cougars from other parts of the country to counteract the founder effects from inbreeding. Others say that would result in something other than a florida panther.
As a horticulture student , i thought it would be fun to try to breed a new color of flower, but guppies turned out to be easier to control. I may not currently have the resources to establish a good strain, but if i can find a trait and prove to myself that it is inherritable, maybe I can have some part in establishing it, or introducing it. If not, I get to learn something first hand about genetics, while i enjoy my little family of fishies.
I would be curious to know if it is very uncommon for guppies to have colors on their pectoral fins. I haven't seen that in stores, except maybe black or whitish.. So that's the sort of trait I would like to share if I can get more than 1 or 2 in my house that show the trait.
I wouldn't be the first person to discover a trait accidentally and try to breed fro it. I recently read about a type of fish advertised as new that originnally resulted from an endler jumping into a neighboring tank of guppies, and what about blonde endlers? Do those occur in the wild? Because I think that's what almost half of my new generation is turning out to be. I have read that the original wild endlers were actually a lot more variable than the ones people find in stores now, and when I read about different types of endlers i wonder if they descended only from pure endlers or if they got some of their genes from guppies.
When I do offer my fishes to friends and family , I explain exactly what they are, and so far they just think it's interesting and they accept them as nice little pet fishies.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Hybrid fish breeding is not some science classroom experiement.
Many beautiful breeds of fish have been completely destroyed by breeding hybrid fish.
Do you even realy know what you are breeding? because it sounds like to me you don't.

Endlers and guppys are seperate types of fish, endlers are very rare in the wild and aquarium breed ones are always getting diluted out by people that breed them with guppys, the results are somthing that is neither endler or guppy and contributes nothing to either species. You do not get a variety of colors in the wild stocks because they have not been bred by breeders, and it is illegal to release aquarium bred strains into the wild stocks. Your livebearers like your endlers may be inbred but the majority are not, endlers acutually have better imune systems than guppys in general since they have not been so severely line bred and inbred over the years.
People in the past have already bred endlers with guppys to produce unusual colors in each species and the colors you speak of like blonde endlers are very common colorations. Guppys already have every color you could imagine- from a glowing array of neon colors, silvers, golds and bronze and every other metallic color you could imagine, violets, pinks, emerald greens, snow whites, midnight blaack and sky deep ocean blues etc etc etc- and the tail fin types are always expanding in their dozens, there are hundreds of pattern variations.
Your lfs selection is very limited.

 

[imouse]

Don't want to step on toes here, but hybrid offspring of a male Endler to Female guppy produces sterile, colourful Males that have a potentially longer lifespan than inbred Guppies. Sterile being the operative word here, the genes die with the individual male fish.
I have been breeding Endlers & Hybrids for a number of years (separate tanks) and always have people asking for the long finned hybrids, NOT the pure Endlers.
Most Endlers available from UK based LFS have been bred from ONE central importer and the colour strains are almost identical whether from Scotland or Cornwall.
I breed them because of demand for them (from LFS & friends) but shoud demand decline, then the fry become part of nature,ie. strongest will survive.

 

[guppler]

Thank you imouse for not being as negative as the other person!

I happenned to be at Walmart today and I resisted the temptation to buy more guppies mostly because i could probably get healthier ones elsewhere. I was actually quite happy to see that some of their guppies did have collor on their fins, so I won't feel bad if I loose that trait in my guys. One of them at walmart today reminded me of a butterfly. His pectorals were b right yellow and the rest was sort of tuxedo with silver and purple and orange and stuff. There were a lot of temptingly pretty ones, including a girl that looked almost exactly like my Jill. There weren't any with dorsal fins quite as long as my tuxedos used to have, but that's probably at least partly because they aren't old yet. I usually feel more tempted to buy fishes at walmart partly because I feel sorry for them and partly because there's less selection, which makes it easier to notice specific individuals. When I go to a place with lots of different types of guppies There are so many pretty ones it's hard to choose and if they have a lot that look alike I figure they'll be there later.

I have heard a lot about guppy-endler hybrids being sterile, which sometimes makes me wonder if Tiger wasn't really pure endler himself. He looked like an endler and they charged me extra for him, and he was definitely not sterile, unless Dot was part Endler, which i doubt very much. Now I sort of want to try breeding one that has good strong endler traits on purpose to see if he's sterile. I don't know how many of my girls have endler genes, but some have the same dorsal fin spot pattern that Tiger had. I am pretty sure I have fertile males that are at least a quarter endler, because otherwise, I don't think I would have a third generation at all, and the blondies and even some of the tux's look a little like endlers even if it wasn't just for the size.

Oh and about the blonde endlers, I didn't mean to make it sound like they had never been seen before, I was just suggesting that there are some out there that people breed, presumably withuot people saying they shouldn't (much), so what I'm doing by letting my hybrids live is probably not such a horrible thing.. And if their fin types are expanding, then why is it wrong for me to enjoy the different fin types and let them breed and maybe sell a few?
As for guppies and endlers being totally separate things, well, i think the jurry's still out on that, from what I've read.
The Endlers I've seen in relatively good lfs's all look almost exactly alike, because they are somewhat inbred i supose, but if you read about the ones originally taken from the wild, you'll see that they did vary more than the ones available in stores today. Maybe I shouldn't worry about somebody trying to pass off a hybrid as an endler. It usually isn't hard to tell the difference, and with all the proffesional breeders, I think there will be enough "pure" ones so it won't matter if a few hobyists mix some of them up.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Once in a while I wonder if it migh tbe interesting to breed the angled fisf on purpose,

At the start of this thread you appeared intent on breeding your "boomerang" shaped guppys or the ones with kinks/bends in their bodys, your guppys also have genetic swimbladder disorders. You were also interested in breeding a betta that had a beard or mutated chin.
This is what i am concerned about, i hope that you do not breed your mutated guppys.

 

[imouse]

Guppler, i agree with 'hobbyists' trying to breed new colours and i say go for it, as long as you have an outlet for them.
I have to stand with Tokis-Phoenix on the stance of breeding from 'deformed' fish or from fish that have an obvious genetic flaw (swimbladder, kink spine etc) for the simple fact that it may damage the fish further due to the physical changes that occur during pregnancy, and the fry crry the chance of a poor life/lifespan.

I usually get a few deformed fry in every batch (combined births, double headers, twin tails etc) but this also happens in Nature anyway, and these are usually the first to dissapear as a meal for the other occupants.

On the point of 'inter-family breeding' & cross breeding Endlers with Guppies,
A ) if it's so wrong, why did Prof John Endler try to cross breed the two species on discovering them? (the hybrids are a collaboration of two very closely related species unlike the Parrot fish which is believed to have had 'human intervention')
B ) wild species of endlers are found in landlocked water sources so how do they manage without the introductions of 'fresh blood' surely they will be related?
C ) interbreeding will and does eventually weaken a strain, but only affects a species after prolonged 'abuse' from fish farms and the like

Please don't think i'm trying to start arguments, all i'm trying to do is agree with you both on respective points

mouse

 

[guppler]

Once in a while I wonder if it migh tbe interesting to breed the angled fisf on purpose,

At the start of this thread you appeared intent on breeding your "boomerang" shaped guppys or the ones with kinks/bends in their bodys, your guppys also have genetic swimbladder disorders. You were also interested in breeding a betta that had a beard or mutated chin.
This is what i am concerned about, i hope that you do not breed your mutated guppys.

I wonder about a lot of things that i don't really plan to do. I haven't tried to breed mutants. The guppies with the angled shape are the same ones with the genetic swimbladder problem, and they are in my non breeders group. I did kind of want some ideas about what people would think of them, but even if they usually end up living as long as the others, i can see the potential for worse problems if i tried to select for that trait. The bearded betta is a different thing. Mostly I just think he looks interesting, and I was only going to breed him if a more knowledgable person saw him and thought it might be worth it. Since i like science and genetics I really do think it would be interesting to find out more about particular mutations and stuff, I'll think about it at times, but I would at least want to be sure there will be a place for the critters, and usually I'm at least half joking about breeding mutants, because i know it will get a reaction from some people. I was hoping to get more variety of reactions about the handicapped gupplers and stuff.
I think the angled swimbladder thing did shorten the life of one of my little girls and might prevent some from growing as fast, but most have done surprisingly well. I do have about 3 tiny babies that look like they have the thing, but I'm not sure to what extent yet. I was really more interested in breeding for the colored pectorals because I didn't remember seeing that in stores, but i did recently find that pretty boy with bright Yellow butterfly wings, so I'll be looking in better stores when I have more time and space. Some of the other traits are cool too, even if they aren't necesarily new to the whole world. i also wonder how many people would be interested in hybrids that look like guppies but are smaller, like if I could eventually stablize the mini tux or penguin. Right now I'm not sure I even have any that closely resemble those in my current generation. They're almost all modified endlers or blondes so far. I think my new blondes have more purple than the last generation, but maybe less green, still mostly orange, which happened partly because I wanted to focus on something at first and I happened to buy my first pair close to halloween. It's nice, but I really like variety, so i might never make a great specialist.

One reason i started this thread was because I wondered if the occasional malformed but otherwise pretty healthy fish should be a concern, but i imagine some things like that do happen in almost any big batch of fry, and I don't think I've had more than 2 in one brood with that particular problem. I could go into my cories too. I'm almost afraid to mention it, but so far my odd catfish are also designated nonbreeders, but also mostly keeepers. One of the first 3 to survive the comunity has funny bent up pectorals like flippers, and I'm not sure how soon I need to isolate that one, or if it has a potential for bad genes. I'm starting to suspect so as my younger fry grow and I see some that might have more mishaped fins. They sure have character though. I don't know if I need to isolate the 1 eyed catfish becasuse that might not be genetic. Most of the crooked cories didn't last a month and I did have one cute little tiny guppy called Woggy with poor little tiny fins almost everywhere that I thought might be a more severe form of the swimbladder disorder at first, but it died when it was still too tiny to be sure. Interestingly, I later realized that only 1 of the fry from that small brood is still here and he is smaller than some fish half his age. I was surprized when I realized Alba 2 was gone. She was the biggest baby I had for a while. They were Gill's kids, maybe his only ones, which would mean most of my blondes probably got ressesive genes from 2 different darker parents. I think the blonde moms were gone before the younger broods showed up. Big Alba was the only one I ever did a post mortem exam on. She was so fat I just had to know if there were fry in there. There were lots of eggs, but they didn't look like they had fry inside. I wonder how much unfertilized eggs usually grow in a guppy. She probably was a bit old for breeding. This time I'll try to rehome more of the kids and maybe not think they're all infectious every time anything happens.
My bio teacher said "it isn't exactly survival of the fittest, it's survival of the fit." I suppose we could say "survival of the fit enough", and we might make it a little too easy for some of them, but there's still some selection going on.
I was thinking I might be able to give up one of my biggest new males even though he's really pretty, but I watched him and contemplated him a little too much one day, so now he has a name. TJ looks almost like a cross between Tiger and Jack. I wonder if I'll get any snakeskins without buying more. TJ kind of has Jack's tail, but I haven't seen any with his spots for a while.