Guppy breeding and how to create new strains.

[Jackk]

Hi, I’m new to guppy breeding. I’ve had success breeding them but I’d like to get more into creating different strains/color patterns.

 

One of my questions about Guppy and Endler breeding. I was fairly new to it so I was under the impression Endlers are considered fairly close to guppies in terms of genetics. I ended up having a black bar endler male breed with a black Moscow female guppy. I will add pictures to show the fry grown up now. I have multiple of this same color now. My question is whether the babies of this breeding will be sterile. I’ve been getting mixed answers online about endler/guppy mixes being potentially sterile. 
 

Another question is whether you can only have endler males breed with female guppies as the endler female supposedly can’t push out the guppy male fry as efficiently. Is this a true thing? If this is the case, I will no longer breed endlers and guppies together as it was a first time breeding. I do like the color of the mixed black bar and Moscow black guppy though. In the future I’ll stick to same species breeding if this is a problem.

 

My last question is about breeding new variations/colors. Is is mainly about culling what colors you want? How do you get the males and females to be the same without having incest within the breeding? Do you have to mix the colors but buy from different sellers? So for example you buy 1 black bar endler from 1 seller as well as a female, and then buy another black bar endler from a different seller as well as a female? I’m not huge intI biology so I’m unsure how to label and prevent incest and to preserve the desired color you want. 
 

Thank you! I hope the post makes sense as I’m fairly new to guppy breeding. I’m more so trying to learn how to create different colors and how to preserve those colors once desired.
 

 

[lefty o]

guppy endler hybrids will keep right on breeding. i ran crossed strains for many generations. you are on the right track breeding for characteristics. keep culling those that dont have traits you are looking for.

[PineSong]

On 8/19/2021 at 9:00 PM, Jackk said:

Hi, I’m new to guppy breeding. I’ve had success breeding them but I’d like to get more into creating different strains/color patterns.

 

One of my questions about Guppy and Endler breeding. I was fairly new to it so I was under the impression Endlers are considered fairly close to guppies in terms of genetics. I ended up having a black bar endler male breed with a black Moscow female guppy. I will add pictures to show the fry grown up now. I have multiple of this same color now. My question is whether the babies of this breeding will be sterile. I’ve been getting mixed answers online about endler/guppy mixes being potentially sterile. 
 

Another question is whether you can only have endler males breed with female guppies as the endler female supposedly can’t push out the guppy male fry as efficiently. Is this a true thing? If this is the case, I will no longer breed endlers and guppies together as it was a first time breeding. I do like the color of the mixed black bar and Moscow black guppy though. In the future I’ll stick to same species breeding if this is a problem.

 

My last question is about breeding new variations/colors. Is is mainly about culling what colors you want? How do you get the males and females to be the same without having incest within the breeding? Do you have to mix the colors but buy from different sellers? So for example you buy 1 black bar endler from 1 seller as well as a female, and then buy another black bar endler from a different seller as well as a female? I’m not huge intI biology so I’m unsure how to label and prevent incest and to preserve the desired color you want. 
 

Thank you! I hope the post makes sense as I’m fairly new to guppy breeding. I’m more so trying to learn how to create different colors and how to preserve those colors once desired.
 

 

Your guppy/endler crosses are cute! 

I'm not an expert, but studied up on breeding guppies a little, so:

--I think the reason the guppy should be female in a guppy/Endler mix is that the guppy female is larger and therefore will have more room for fry and an easier time birthing small Endler mix fry, while a tiny female Endler might struggle with fry that are larger due to the guppy genetics. It's like if they were dogs and you were breeding chihuahua-boxer mixes, you would want the mom to be the boxer.

--People breeding guppies for particular traits don't try to avoid 'incest' which is called line breeding or inbreeding--they do it on purpose to increase the amount of DNA for the traits they want in their line of guppies. 

--Because there are some problems that can result from too much inbreeding/linebreeding, some breeders make a point of getting some fish from other sources into their breeding mix. So if all my Blue Moscow guppies came from Breeder Sue in Ohio, and I bred them together for a few generations, I might buy some Blue Moscows from Kevin in Florida to put some new genes in my guppy strain.

There are lots of videos on youtube by breeders like D Grey and Aquarium Co-op has some with Cory explaining, too.

 

[lefty o]

you do have to do a certain amount of inbreeding when chasing specific characteristics in guppies. every so many generations, it is wise to outcross them to help minimize the bad affects of inbreeding.

[GameCzar]

I'm working on learning this too.   Following. 

[Jackk]

On 8/25/2021 at 7:12 PM, PineSong said:

Your guppy/endler crosses are cute! 

I'm not an expert, but studied up on breeding guppies a little, so:

--I think the reason the guppy should be female in a guppy/Endler mix is that the guppy female is larger and therefore will have more room for fry and an easier time birthing small Endler mix fry, while a tiny female Endler might struggle with fry that are larger due to the guppy genetics. It's like if they were dogs and you were breeding chihuahua-boxer mixes, you would want the mom to be the boxer.

--People breeding guppies for particular traits don't try to avoid 'incest' which is called line breeding or inbreeding--they do it on purpose to increase the amount of DNA for the traits they want in their line of guppies. 

--Because there are some problems that can result from too much inbreeding/linebreeding, some breeders make a point of getting some fish from other sources into their breeding mix. So if all my Blue Moscow guppies came from Breeder Sue in Ohio, and I bred them together for a few generations, I might buy some Blue Moscows from Kevin in Florida to put some new genes in my guppy strain.

There are lots of videos on youtube by breeders like D Grey and Aquarium Co-op has some with Cory explaining, too.

 

Wow, thank you for that information. I had heard of line breeding but wasn’t sure what it was. I didn’t realize you had to do that to achieve certain characteristics. That makes more sense. 

[Crabby]

On 8/20/2021 at 11:00 AM, Jackk said:

Hi, I’m new to guppy breeding. I’ve had success breeding them but I’d like to get more into creating different strains/color patterns.

 

One of my questions about Guppy and Endler breeding. I was fairly new to it so I was under the impression Endlers are considered fairly close to guppies in terms of genetics. I ended up having a black bar endler male breed with a black Moscow female guppy. I will add pictures to show the fry grown up now. I have multiple of this same color now. My question is whether the babies of this breeding will be sterile. I’ve been getting mixed answers online about endler/guppy mixes being potentially sterile. 
 

Another question is whether you can only have endler males breed with female guppies as the endler female supposedly can’t push out the guppy male fry as efficiently. Is this a true thing? If this is the case, I will no longer breed endlers and guppies together as it was a first time breeding. I do like the color of the mixed black bar and Moscow black guppy though. In the future I’ll stick to same species breeding if this is a problem.

 

My last question is about breeding new variations/colors. Is is mainly about culling what colors you want? How do you get the males and females to be the same without having incest within the breeding? Do you have to mix the colors but buy from different sellers? So for example you buy 1 black bar endler from 1 seller as well as a female, and then buy another black bar endler from a different seller as well as a female? I’m not huge intI biology so I’m unsure how to label and prevent incest and to preserve the desired color you want. 
 

Thank you! I hope the post makes sense as I’m fairly new to guppy breeding. I’m more so trying to learn how to create different colors and how to preserve those colors once desired.
 

 

Ooh fun! I like the detail on the tail of the male, not sure about the shape though. I did some endler guppy crossing a while back as well, and ended up getting a really cool dorsal fin on some males that I loved. Unfortunately I lost the line due to a HUGE die-off (100-200 fish, it was terrible). Very excited to see how it goes for you.

I think the thing with endler females not being able to push out guppy fry is a bit of a myth, I never experienced any problems with that. That being said, my endler females were HUGE. Later generations were smaller, but the males were also smaller. So it could be true, and maybe you stick to breeding guppy females with hybrid or endler males, but I don’t think it should be necessary.

I kind of skimmed over everyone else’s posts so I don’t know if someone has answered this yet, but the fry of guppies and endlers will not be sterile. They're far from it. Those things breed faster than rabbits.

Definitely following this thread. Looking forward to seeing the fish you get. 

[Jackk]

Awesome! I appreciate it. I just got 8 new fry yesterday. I’ve got a few males that look like the male in the picture, and other variations of the black bar/Moscow black guppy. I’ll try to get a picture of the other males. I’ve noticed that they’re coloring up more and they’ve developed a candy apple green coloring behind their eyes on a lot of the males. I’ll try to post updates. At a local fish store I noticed there were some huge guppies and the owner said they were bred to be that big. That might be one of my goals. These guys are on the smaller side but very nice looking I think. I really liked this guy in particular for his tail. 

Edited August 26, 2021 by Jackk

[Jackk]

Here is a picture of another guppy baby that grew up. Also the green patch behind the eye I was talking about on the black guppy.

[Jackk]

Are you allowed to post videos of fish here? I’ve been trying to catch a picture but my guppies are too fast to get a good picture. In the meantime here’s an update of two of my guppy males. My guppy females also have some nice shimmering color to them on their side bellies. I also have a beautiful guppy that I think is a female because she has so much color to her but has a grey body. If I can post a video I’ll show everyone! I’ve primarily used black Moscow females and black bar endlers.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Jackk

[Levi_Aquatics]

I believe you are allowed to @Jackk

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

You can just copy and paste a link from YouTube that’s what most of us do for video. 
 

I agree with everything mentioned above. Endler females are every bit as big as Guppy females so I’ll bust that myth. You need to watch them once they’ve been bred 4-6 times they’re often quite large and may start to predate on the young more. LRB often mentions he’ll cull them before this occurs. 
 

The yellow pattern is a tiger Endler and is quite a common morph when Endlers hybridize with guppies. The black tailed male is its own thing. If you look at LRB’s website you’ll see he has volcano guppies and a bunch of guppy and Endler hybrids. 
 

Have fun with this I’ll look forward to following your progress. 

[GameCzar]

Sure you can post video links.  Please do!  I love me some guppies. 

[WhitecloudDynasty]

I would use a male endler on a female guppy, and here's why. With a endler female chances are you won't be able to tell what she carry and what line of endler she is, with a female guppy atleast you can guess by her tail color. 

Create a strain mean that family is breeding true, almost every fish looks the same and almost have same adult size.

I recommend you drawing your "goal" guppy so you'll have something to reflect on. Also theyll need they own space to grow up and mature without other guppies getting mix in. 

I would start with putting that male endler with that black female guppies in their own aquarium, culling out her next 3 batches of babies cause she could gotten prehit by other males now. 

[PineSong]

On 1/17/2022 at 3:45 AM, WhitecloudDynasty said:

Create a strain mean that family is breeding true, almost every fish looks the same and almost have same adult size.

This is clearly the hard part! I am not trying to create a new strain, so it doesn't matter to me, but I have young males from the same batches of fry who look nothing like each other. One looks like a red chili endler but is pink and purple, another one has a long white double sword tail. Lots of them have short little swords that are mostly white. Nobody would guess they are related. 

 

[WhitecloudDynasty]

On 1/19/2022 at 9:45 PM, PineSong said:

This is clearly the hard part! I am not trying to create a new strain, so it doesn't matter to me, but I have young males from the same batches of fry who look nothing like each other. One looks like a red chili endler but is pink and purple, another one has a long white double sword tail. Lots of them have short little swords that are mostly white. Nobody would guess they are related. 

 

With endlers and wild guppies since they have small body marking it may vary. Even pure blue grass have less or more body marking