Making Mutt Guppies: falling for it again.

[PineSong]

Glutton for punishment or mutt guppy addict? You decide.

Even though it has only been a few months since I was beyond burned out on sexing guppy fry, I decided to go ahead and mix up some mutt guppies for my summer tub pond. The pond is currently a block of ice but it'll be set back up in April for fish to go out in May, so if fry are born in a month, they will have 60+ days to mature before I start putting the males in the pond.

I had been sworn off breeding any of my current females due to a mystery illness that was impacting my females' tank and one of my lines of guppies in particular, last fall. At the same time, the females of that line produced my prettiest boys, so I didn't really want those genes to die out and I was afraid they are getting past breeding age if they aren't already past it. I've had no signs of the illness in 3+ months, so I decided to risk it.

In the past when I bred mutt guppies I selected a single pair and let them honeymoon alone, so I always knew who the father was.

This time, I am letting it be a free-for-all: I selected two healthy-looking girls from my favorite "whale guppy" line, a couple of chubby random gray ladies one of whom has a long dorsal fin, and one of my ginga sulphureus girls. Then I added one male who is a Moscow/Endler cross, one of my orange split-tail males, and a young male with a short version of the "whale guppy" neon double sword-type tail. I will leave the boys in for several days and then return them to the bachelor tank. Cue sad music.

Here's a video of what I'm calling Guppy Love Island. ((Apologies in advance for the background track of my dog's collapsed trachea noises))

 

[lefty o]

they are fun. i have 1 tank of red dragons, pure, but my big tank  started with a variety of dragons, and it evolved into pretty much an orange dragon strain. neat to see what the mix comes up with.

[Fonske]

On 2/5/2023 at 1:29 AM, PineSong said:

Glutton for punishment or mutt guppy addict? You decide.

Both? 😄 

Why not have fun if the main goal is a bunch of colorful males and the parent lines are not hard to source. 

I'm not a fan of male guppies... much prefer colorful guppy ladies. I made a mistake of crossing my purebred yellow females (with blue-tail male endlers) just once...the male offsprings' appearance didn't change, but the hybrid females lost their pretty colors. I got these yellow guppies by an accident and never saw them available again... oh well, the not-so-pretty guppes are still healthy and thriving :) 

[PineSong]

On 2/5/2023 at 1:00 AM, Fonske said:

Both? 😄 

Why not have fun if the main goal is a bunch of colorful males and the parent lines are not hard to source...

...I got these yellow guppies by an accident and never saw them available again... oh well, the not-so-pretty guppes are still healthy and thriving 🙂

Yes, I really appreciate that my ginga guppy females are all yellow instead of gray. I have not attempted hybridizing them before so it will be interesting to see what they fry are like--although I guess I won't technically be able to know whose fry are whose unless I divide the females up into different tanks... Now there's an idea! I could leave the "whale guppy" ladies in together and separate out the long dorsal fin and ginga into their own tanks... who needs a kitchen counter anyway?