When To Seperate

[omega59]

I have seven guppy fry reaching 3 months and they are starting to get colours. How much longer do I wait to seperate to prevent interbreeding amongst one another?

 

[OldMan47]

You don't wait if you truly do not want any breeding. As soon as you can tell the males from the females, you separate them. I don't worry about it much because I am not trying to breed show guppies. Mine are allowed to breed freely except if I find one that is in some way defective. That one gets to live out his/her life with fish other than guppies. I have plenty of other tanks where an occasional cull can go live with others who are not going to breed with it. BTW, inbreeding gets a lot of mouthy advice from many people but is not truly a problem if you are willing to remove the defectives. It is the fastest way known to improve a line of any animal, including fish. Selectively bred fish are the source of most of the fancy fish we enjoy today. They will most often have been bred by mating a fry with its parent to reinforce a trait that the breeder wants to develop and improve. When you see a tank full of any fancy fish that all look much alike, you won't need to go very far back in their family tree to find parents that they share in common.

 

[omega59]

Aahh oh I see but I wish not to do that. Is it true thd darker fry are most likely males?

 

[OldMan47]

I find that the males in immature fry are likely to be the ones that have a hint of color to them. That means the ones with any easily detected color is your likely male. I am not willing to say that it is a positive indicator for sex, but it can help.

 

[omega59]

Ah I see , I have some turning dark and some still clear

 

[biokid101]

yea my males have color right now at 3 months but no female have yet