Guppy Color Surprises and Darn My Plants

[PineSong]

Today while I was working in the kitchen I was staring into my tank and thought "Wow, that's a really pretty magenta and purple guppy!" 

Then I realized, hang on a minute-- I don't have any magenta or purple guppies!

On closer inspection I see this is one of my juveniles who has colored up without my noticing; there are so many plants in there it's easy for me to miss one fish. His potential fathers are both blue and orange so no clue where the pink and purple came from. Guppies are miraculous!

I tried very hard to catch him but due to the out of control aponogeton I failed completely. I'm going to try next time I feed them an O-nip tab.

[Guppy Guy]

It is possible that his mom had the pink/red colors, but you just couldn’t see that. It always trips me up with the females. They don’t show colors(except on the tail, but thats not really enough) they might show a little yellow on the tail, but their real colors are orange or red. It really is fascinating! Dr. Herbert Axelrod stated in one of his books that the best way to see the true colors of a female is to look at her brothers. Then you will see the entire color scheme.

I have a 3 gallon tank that I use for specific breeding/experiments, and the way it is set up, a pump pushes water to the upper sump. There, a bunch of plants filter the water, and it overflows back into the tank. More then once have I  Found baby fish in the top part, and they were unharmed from the pump since they are so small, and the parents can’t eat them.