What strain of guppy is this?

[lmhicks101]

A year ago me and my son went to all the Petcos, Petsmarts, and LFS around and got several guppies of all the lines we could find. We got tuxiedos, kobras, red tails, a beautiful purple and blue half moon tail, and possible an Endler snuck in. Should I try and separate these strains I like or not and if so how do I pick a female? Nearly all the females are now tuxedos. Should I go out and look for a female that matches better or will it not matter?

[AnotherHumanPerson]

you could try to separate the males you like and a few females, the females already most likely have sperm from any male in the tank (of which they can store for up to 6 months).

If you wanted to start from a clean-ish slate, you could grab a few unsexed juveniles and separate them while they grow out. As soon as you can sex them, you should remove the males asap and put the males you like in with the young females. It will probably take quite a bit of time and work, but you may eventually have a new line of guppies.

Of course, the inbreeding required to get the line will weaken the genetics, which may be a problem to look out for.

(Disclaimer that I have never actually line bred any fish before and am just going off my knowledge of how strains are developed and how genetics work) (Now that I think about it, a project like this sounds pretty fun, but that's for another day)

[lmhicks101]

On 5/23/2023 at 7:52 PM, AnotherHumanPerson said:

Of course, the inbreeding required to get the line will weaken the genetics, which may be a problem to look out for.

(Disclaimer that I have never actually line bred any fish before and am just going off my knowledge of how strains are developed and how genetics work) (Now that I think about it, a project like this sounds pretty fun, but that's for another day)

I thought about something like that but in my case it was desperate the females until they give birth then put the males in and babies out. The juveniles are a good try. Since there are multiple of each of those maybe separate the males with 2 females and every couple generations cross bread the 2 lines to add genetic diversity. 

[AnotherHumanPerson]

On 5/23/2023 at 8:05 PM, lmhicks101 said:

every couple generations cross bread the 2 lines to add genetic diversity.

That could work. If you do go through with this, I would love updates on the process.

[Shadow]

Pic 1 to me looks most like a Dumbo Mosaic. Pic 2 def is a mutt guppy, IMO. If you are just wanting loads of colorful, vibrant mutt guppies...by all means keep em together or if you are trying to create a unique strain(like I am) you can keep however many in there for the look you are attempting or as @AnotherHumanPerson stated above removing one or two males from the equation with less desired colorations. Juveniles sex at about 2 months from my recent experience and at that point you can move them about as you see colors coming in. For example, one of my pure bred Blue Dragon guppies has a mutation of a red dorsal fin. I am both curious and eager to see where this progresses, so I am pulling him to another tank to chill until the time I am ready to try to breed this out in some way. My current main experiment is breeding Albino Yellow King Cobras with Blue Dragons. I want an Albino Blue Dragon or some Blue Dragon/Yellow Cobra hybrid minus the albino gene. I am super new to this as well, so its cool to see other threads of lines getting started. Biggest thing is pinpointing something that interests you and breed for that. Also, invest in a mutt guppy tank/pond as culling is part of the process for sure. I am not one for saying adios to their life cycle until they are ready hence my newest project, patio mutt guppy pond. 🙂 

[sumplkrum]

If you have the strains in the same tank with females, they've already breed. ... Kinda of up to you what to do.

If you are trying to maintain the look of each strain, you should keep each strain in a separate tank. (preferably get new uncontaminated females)

Mixing strains will give you wild variations.
It's not as simple as saying "I like the color on this one, but the tail on that one, so I'll mix them together."
Each time you cross strains, you scramble the genetics.
It takes many generations of line-breeding to try and stabilize them again.

[lmhicks101]

On 5/24/2023 at 12:54 PM, Shadow said:

For example, one of my pure bred Blue Dragon guppies has a mutation of a red dorsal fin. My current main experiment is breeding Albino Yellow King Cobras with Blue Dragons. I want an Albino Blue Dragon or some Blue Dragon/Yellow Cobra hybrid minus the albino gene. Also, invest in a mutt guppy tank/pond as culling is part of the process for sure. I am not one for saying adios to their life cycle until they are ready hence my newest project, patio mutt guppy pond. 🙂 

Do you have any pics of the red dorsal fin? That sounds interesting about the hybrids. I’d like to see what happened with that. I e also been trying to think of what to do with the mutts but in the end I might just collect and grow them out then sell them to the LFS as fancy tails. Even if they don’t end up exactly like I want they’re still pretty and would be something someone wants. 

 

On 5/24/2023 at 1:57 PM, sumplkrum said:

If you have the strains in the same tank with females, they've already breed. ... Kinda of up to you what to do.

If you are trying to maintain the look of each strain, you should keep each strain in a separate tank. (preferably get new uncontaminated females)

Mixing strains will give you wild variations.
It's not as simple as saying "I like the color on this one, but the tail on that one, so I'll mix them together."
Each time you cross strains, you scramble the genetics.
It takes many generations of line-breeding to try and stabilize them again.

I’m looking for 2 distinct patterns but both with the current tail finagle but with more dumbo ears.

The first I’m looking for is a solid dark to bright red tail with a black rear section and a colorful front half similar to a cardinal tetra. Either a neon stripe on top with red on the bottom or vise versa. From what I saw with the mosaics, they don’t have distinct color separations that I’m interested in. The attraction is that the fish looks looks a chimera or someone just took a bunch of fish parts and stitched what they like the best together. 
 

The second is the intense patterns of colors on the tail like that one and with endless guppy striping and patterns in the body. I don’t want either fish to have massive float tails but I’d love this one to have either a pintail, lyre tail, or double sword tail. I want this one to be a blast of color to match something you’d see in a saltwater tank. 

[Shadow]

On 5/24/2023 at 8:56 PM, lmhicks101 said:

Do you have any pics of the red dorsal fin? That sounds interesting about the hybrids. I’d like to see what happened with that. I e also been trying to think of what to do with the mutts but in the end I might just collect and grow them out then sell them to the LFS as fancy tails. Even if they don’t end up exactly like I want they’re still pretty and would be something someone wants. 

 

I’m looking for 2 distinct patterns but both with the current tail finagle but with more dumbo ears.

The first I’m looking for is a solid dark to bright red tail with a black rear section and a colorful front half similar to a cardinal tetra. Either a neon stripe on top with red on the bottom or vise versa. From what I saw with the mosaics, they don’t have distinct color separations that I’m interested in. The attraction is that the fish looks looks a chimera or someone just took a bunch of fish parts and stitched what they like the best together. 
 

The second is the intense patterns of colors on the tail like that one and with endless guppy striping and patterns in the body. I don’t want either fish to have massive float tails but I’d love this one to have either a pintail, lyre tail, or double sword tail. I want this one to be a blast of color to match something you’d see in a saltwater tank. 

All sounds super cool! I will try and get a pic of him tomorrow when I get home from work. 

[sumplkrum]

On 5/24/2023 at 9:56 PM, lmhicks101 said:

I’m looking for 2 distinct patterns but both with the current tail finagle but with more dumbo ears.

The first I’m looking for is a solid dark to bright red tail with a black rear section and a colorful front half similar to a cardinal tetra. Either a neon stripe on top with red on the bottom or vise versa. From what I saw with the mosaics, they don’t have distinct color separations that I’m interested in. The attraction is that the fish looks looks a chimera or someone just took a bunch of fish parts and stitched what they like the best together. 

The second is the intense patterns of colors on the tail like that one and with endless guppy striping and patterns in the body. I don’t want either fish to have massive float tails but I’d love this one to have either a pintail, lyre tail, or double sword tail. I want this one to be a blast of color to match something you’d see in a saltwater tank. 

My suggesting would be focusing on one little thing at a time. Small changes.

The genetics are not a simple: A + B = C

Some traits may not be compatible.
Some traits will be dominant, while others will be recessive and may only show up in certain generations.
Some traits are Y linked and only passed through males. Some are carried over through generations in the females.

Any time you do a cross, it's a dice roll what you'll get.

--

Also having a fish you like does not guarantee traits will be passed to future generations.
You often get 'transition' fish which look nice, but their children don't stick to the same look. As the genes resettle future generations may end up having a very different look to their grandfather.

When you get a cross you like, keep them separated from your other fish so you can isolate and establish them as a new line.
Then you inbreed over several generations to try to get the traits to stick. ... They might not.

It's quite a lot of work. Keep good records and stay organized.

[lmhicks101]

On 5/25/2023 at 11:29 AM, sumplkrum said:

Also having a fish you like does not guarantee traits will be passed to future generations.
You often get 'transition' fish which look nice, but their children don't stick to the same look. As the genes resettle future generations may end up having a very different look to their grandfather.

When you get a cross you like, keep them separated from your other fish so you can isolate and establish them as a new line.
Then you inbreed over several generations to try to get the traits to stick. ... They might not.

It's quite a lot of work. Keep good records and stay organized.

I’ve seen the variations all over the place in this tank. It’s about a year old now with the guppies. 
 

current variations I’ve seen establish

fenales - 70%-80% will have black halves and silver fronts. The rest will either be a variations of lighter grey or yellow.
There’s currently a 10%-15% chance to get a female who’s black and silver has a tails that’s either black with orange trim or just completely orange.

males - 90% of them all have that blue and orange mark in the front regardless what patterns or colors they have.  
As for colors and patterns they go through cycles where the majority in a generation will be orange and red cobras and the next will be almost all tuxedos with the color marks on the front like in the pics.

The last generation is the first I’ve seen of the mails gaining red and maroon tails and the last 2-3 generations have had a few colorful ones.

I only have maybe 1-2 kobras left as they don’t seem to be the hardiest guppy of the lot.