Another Guppy Genetics Question

[Cinnebuns]

So I'm still not 100% understanding of color genetics in guppies. I have a clear understanding of recessive/dominant and sex linked genes but just not the specifics when it comes to guppies.  From what I understand, color in guppies is a combo of both. My question is if it's true that red is the dominant to the recessive blue.  Mainly wanna know if I will get one to pop up if I'm trying for the other. 

[Guppysnail]

I am not a genetics nerm by any stretch of the imagination. But I can tell you I randomly get ones that pop up looking nothing at all like either parents some look like mom some look like dad and some are a blend of both. My loose understanding is that is why you have to go quite a few generations in of specific line breeding to get them all looking the same. And even then random swill show up occasionally. 

[lefty o]

yes, they can and will throw colors that you think they should not.  when line breeding this is why they cull. say batch one throws 10 desired fish, and 4 not desired. they cull those 4. then they breed back the new females to the father (the original mother is taken out of the picture). now in theory this female would have 12 of the desired color babies and 2 non desireable. they would cull the 2, and repeat the process. over time the non desireable trait will become less common. it can, and will pop up because the gene is always there. dont make the whole line breeding thing into rocket science (you could , but why), just keep eliminating the ones that dont fit the desired traits as they pop up. nature can boggle the mind. look at squirrels, it takes 2 to breed that have a recessive black gene to produce white offspring. screwy aint it?!🤪

[Dwayne Brown]

They can and probably will produce fry that will grow to be the color morph of one parent or maybe something completely new. I have been breeding endlers and the only colors I had was white/orange, and green/black/orange/yellow colored  ones. However for some weird reason 1 scarlet chilli like morph showed up and subsequently produced even more scarlet chilli like endlers. Eventually I was able to separate some of the best ones and breed them in a 5 gallon. So in short all of this is caused by the genetic makeup of each fish. Each fish is different and when two breed and if they produce the right genetic combination will then produce a certain color morph of offspring. Sometimes people attempt to try and predict all of this using a punnet square but it usually requires data on all offspring from two specific fish... 

[Torrey]

On 1/20/2022 at 10:39 PM, Cinnebuns said:

So I'm still not 100% understanding of color genetics in guppies. I have a clear understanding of recessive/dominant and sex linked genes but just not the specifics when it comes to guppies.  From what I understand, color in guppies is a combo of both. My question is if it's true that red is the dominant to the recessive blue.  Mainly wanna know if I will get one to pop up if I'm trying for the other. 

I bought 2 blue females, who had only been in a tank with blue males, and the babies have electric yellow. 🤷‍♂️

The blue males were fan tail blue, and the offspring have all been spade tails. If they had come from a store, I would blame the variations on an unknown male in the tank, but these were local bred.

It reminds me of genetics for eye color: too many genes involved for a simple punnet square.