Guppy Selective Breeding!!

You isolate that fish and breed a line from it.

It's almost that easy, this is where the female selection hung me up for a while. Not all females bred true to the males characteristics back around my 2nd generation, this is also when I was really figuring things out though so I may have sexed one to late or something. But from reading more in depth true to male characteristics are easiest if the females line was similar (or even the same I've heard line breeders can in breed up to 60 or so generations before significant trusses in mutations) for me this meant at one point I had 4 tubs, with one female each waiting for drops. Then the female was pulled back to the main breed tank, those fry were seperated by sex by a diy window screen divider (I wouldn't use one of these for an extended amount of time as I'm not sure the material would be long term fish safe) and then, I ended up waiting until the males colored. I culled 2 of 4 tubs, and all the parents completely, and the select best colored fry and their sisters (eww) between the 2 tubs are what gave birth to my current generation. I added 3 females from each tub and one male from each tub. As I would see issues arise in personalities or commission development I culled further until I was down to 1 male and 3 females they dropped about 6-10 each. I culled that down to just fry and let it ride until I could see them, females were culled as I only wanted 4. And the males were seperated into tubs and watched for color. My 3 current EGMs were from this generation, of about 12 males they were there only 3 with both black dots, metallic green under and the orange bar. Only one of them has the bright color around his tail dot, the others have a metallic sheen but it's more subdued color wise.

 

I have a 40, 20 and 10 at the moment. The 40 currently has all the fish in a random breeding colony. The 20 is cycling. The 10 is waiting for a filter, then I will begin cycling that.

I am working on my strategy for organizing. I suspect I will evolve to something like you describe. Might pick up a couple more 10's while Petco has their $1 per gallon sale. Maybe a couple 5 gallon tanks.

Might partition the 20. I am most anxious to get my fry and unsexed juvies separated so that I can isolate some virgin females.

Once the older females have produced enough for me to work with, cull them all so that I can start clean. I am interested in learning how to select the right females. Maybe I will have to just guess and keep the drops separate so that I can breed siblings.

However, doing that moves away from my objective of seeking hardiness and genetic diversity. It would be nice if I could learn how to identify Endlerish characteristics in females so that I could match breeding pairs without breeding siblings. Although I guess there is a good chance they would be cousins.

 

Yeah, if you're going for a more various in appearance but hardier fish you might want to think about going old school.

Back in the day (I have been told the 70s-80s) when guppies were named after their breeders, the breeders would intentionally make harsh environments one generation at a time. One generation would be hot/cold shock tested, the next generation might be ammonia poisoned, the next maybe nitrates. They still like bred for appearance but once their stain was set, they would environmentally cull. The idea was that once you started selling your fish, it had better not die or your name would be garbage and that's how the community would view your strain. Back then it was all word of mouth I have to remind myself, and things got brutal a state over and you never knew until it was too late and your name was ruined and no one would but your stuff. I understand this procesd would take from 5-15 years but the gupies available were much hardier. Cory at aquarium coop mentioned this in one of his live streams, and I'm just across the water from him, my LFS owner has said the same and was into breeding "before all this technology took over" I don't really know what that means in aquaria but she is a super nice lady. I'm thinking since I'm in the land of rain for 6 months a year allot of locals have, and will continue filling the crappy weather months with fish breeding and other such time suckers

 

It would be nice if I could learn how to identify Endlerish characteristics in females so that I could match breeding pairs

Sorry I didn't address this. I don't know how endler my EGMs actually are but I had the most true breeding using copper toned females. They tended to have slightly darker dorsal as well. When I researched the papers on endler and then another researcher from the mid 90s they reported very little about the females except that they tended to be darker, (darker what I don't know) and grew larger than the males, easily mistakable for the common wild guppy female.

 

It seems that getting more organized will help my learning curve. See if I can isolate some drops and watch them develop. Maybe I could have a 10 gallon tank per drop. And divide it into two for sexing. Then I could see a drop together and keep the separated by sex so they do not breed until I am ready. If they are no good them momma and all the babies get culled.

Start whittling my population down until I get what I want. Challenge will be balancing the hardiness with appearance. I guess that is the age old problem all selective breeding programs face.

 

It seems that getting more organized will help my learning curve. See if I can isolate some drops and watch them develop. Maybe I could have a 10 gallon tank per drop. And divide it into two for sexing. Then I could see a drop together and keep the separated by sex so they do not breed until I am ready. If they are no good them momma and all the babies get culled.

Start whittling my population down until I get what I want. Challenge will be balancing the hardiness with appearance. I guess that is the age old problem all selective breeding programs face.

With the organization, my wife has an idea. One of my display tanks a 20 long is set aside for a fish I'm having trouble sourcing but on the network anyways. the idea arose to use Tupperware ish containers, drilled in the sides and tops, floated across the top of the 20 long. They would then be heated, have water flow and be seperated. Commercially you can buy breeder traps that are designed to do exactly that, and I think they make them so you could fit them in a grid in a 40 breeder. I am interested in the option of lids as I have seen my males jump up to about 5" out of the water and they could easily make it out of such confinement.

Honestly after a solid drop; currently looks like I have 15 viable, I expect another dozen, and a test with the chili, I will probably quit breeding these little guys as my reptile doesn't need the constant supply anymore and eats larger food now. I want about 5 pretty ones for my display and about 10 are spoken for by friends. Once that's done, I am going to buffer the network gently and play with shell dwellers. I will keep some females in the snake tank as they make it very well in there and if I want another drop our generation, will pull a display tank male.

 

That sounds like a good plan. I want to get things stopped by early February since I will be out of town for two weeks in late February and then again for two weeks in late March. Thinking I can learn for the next three months. Get my virgins separated. Cull the pregnant ones and get things shut down.

Maybe my 20 gal could be partitioned into males and unsexed. The 40 gallon could be for pregnant females. And a 10 gallon for virgin females. Have that as a separate tank so I don't have some randy males jump the partition to get to the females.

If I get the fry drops stopped and let the fish stay separate for 8 weeks or so, I will be sure my virgins are really virgins.

Then in April, pick a choice pair and see what they yield. Then maybe evolve from there. Maybe by this time next year, I will have some idea of what I am working with. If it is interesting, keep going. If not, maybe keep a few choice males in one tanks and a few choice females in another and work on something else. That way I have something to work with if I decide to play with it again.

I guess I could dabble here and there at my leisure.

 

I think my second tank is close to completing it's cycle. I have gone around with a variety of ideas of how I am going to divide my colony. My current thought is to move all the males to the new tank. The rationale is to stop further breeding. Let the existing females drop what they are going to drop, but avoid letting new females get pregnant.

The rationale for putting the males in the new tank rather than the females is that I think the existing tank is better for fry - more mature and more plants. I will then keep an eye on the young ones and when I can identify males, move them to the male tank before they start breeding.

 

Sounds like a great plan. I don't know how many of these guys you have tried to move individually but they can jump pretty good and are fairly fast. I have a hard time if I don't have 2 nets in there. Maybe use secondary/intermediate bowl or tub Incase you get the opportunity to net a few at once, then you don't have to try and chase them around in the other tank if you get a female on accident.

This, is the "fun" part lol. I always start with a smile and end with a beer.

Maybe take some pictures of your males as you move them, I'm curious about your luck of the draw with the net-fulls you got.

 

Yes, I am looking forward to it. Hoping the new tank will afford better photo opportunities.

I few juvies are coloring up. All different. Will be interesting / difficult to decide what to keep. Thinking I will have multiple cuts.

 

I have about 30 guppies in a 40 gallon breeder. I do not have an accurate count, but let's call it 10 males, 12 females and 8 unsexed juvies and fry. I am guessing all my females are pregnant. Some visably so. Two or three look like they will drop in a week or so, maybe another two or three within a couple weeks, the rest perhaps three to four weeks.

I have had two drops so far. The first was seven. The second was difficult to count but smaller. Maybe 3 to 5.

I am hoping to separate my males and females soon. And separate the juvies and fry shortly thereafter. Waiting for some tanks to cycle. I am working on some capacity projections.

My guppies are small so I think my fry drops will be small for the first few months and get bigger in time. So let's say I average 8 per drop for the first three months and I have 10 drops a month. That is 80 fry per month. That is less than the average for fully developed guppies, but mine are small and came out of a feeder tank so I am thinking that the drops will start below average.

Let's say I get a 75% survival rate. That is 60 a month. 180 in three months. I think I need to grow them for at least three to four months before can select the ones I want to keep and before my LFS will accept the culled fish as feeders.

So in three months, I will have say 20 six months or older, 8 about four months, 60 about three months, 60 about two months and 60 about one month. Perhaps another 80 or more fry since I think my drops will get bigger and possibly more frequent as my fish prosper in better conditions than they came from.

So this will be about 150 sexed fish and 140 plus unsexed fry and juvies. That would be about 80 females in the 40 gallon breeder, 70 males in the 20 gallon long and 140 fry and juvies in a 10 gallon tank. That is going to be tight. But maybe okay for a month until I can cull some. Maybe I will be able to cull a few sooner to keep the population down a bit.

All of my tanks have double filtration so I am thinking that I will be able to keep things reasonably healthy with frequent water changes until I get the population down. But maybe I should have a cull tank. Maybe I should have something to cull into along the way. I think the Petco $1 per gallon sale is over, but perhaps I could get another 40 gallon breeder on a black Friday deal and use that as a cull tank.

Just thinking a bit down the road. Trying to be ready for the guppy deluge many of you have warned me about.

 

John58ford Momgoose56 GuppyDazzle PascalKrypt

Wondering what you guys think about my math here. I think my LFS will take 1/2 fish as feeders so I will have to have capacity to grow my guys up to that size before I can give them away.

Alternatively, I can give away some of the adult females to stop the fry train if necessary.

Trying to anticipate peak capacity.

Thinking that the filter I am cycling in the cycle experiment (Fluval 70) would be sufficient for a 40. I could set one up quickly as a cull tank.

Wondering how far overstock I can go temporarily with extra filtration and frequent water changes.

 

Here is one of my EGMs

 

There may be flames on this, but I have seen people with 3 small non fancy guppy to a gallon in show tanks and it didn't even look too crowded, it's pretty common in breeding operations to see more yet. It's common advice in endler tanks over 10 gallons to go 2 fish per gallon as it keeps them social and cuts down on actual fighting. These numbers are for long term display/show tanks where the fish will actually be happy forever...

With fry tanks it's tricky, they don't need a ton of space at all. I have had 20 of them about 2 weeks old survive for a week in a 1/2 gallon specimen tank with some rough marbles in the bottom, daily 50% water changes. It was all I had available at the time, I used to use that tank for my incoming stock to feed the snake, before I ever learned about breeding, it would actually hold a cycle as funny as that is.

This is why I ended up stealing my wife's tuperware though, the one gallon sized ones would hold 3 females drop worth, in my case usually about 18-25 until they were big enough to sex, typically 4-6 weeks. Then I had 2 more tubs the same size, one male, one female. I would grow out in these to about 2 months old. At that point usually color would develop enough I could tell if the males were there pattern I wanted our not. Those containers would be constantly full, and I never had any more than 6 females in adult stage. I still don't lol. That said, I had about 40 "fish" in 3 gallons constantly, before deciding if they would be culled or get to replace their parents in the 4 gallon as I started selectively breeding for color. I'm pretty sure you have the gallons required to be honest, it's just a matter of using them.

There's a sticky in the betta section about using knitting dividers to separate bettas. The mesh would be to large for new fry but would probably contain any older than 4 weeks quite well, you could cover one in nylon screening for a newborn chamber. Maybe pick a couple up to see if you think it's feasible, I think the whole thing can be done for about $10 and looks kinda cool to be honest. If you set a divider every "net width" across a 20 long you should be able to house a couple hundred throughout the growth stages and then put all your likely culls in the 10 with another m/f divider. use a dry erase and Mark the compartments as you go so you can keep track of who's who. 40 breeders are a dimension I haven't worked with for any diy stuff, but I know they make dividers for them.

Honestly though the trick here is deciding what parts of this will be your "display tanks" and what parts will be hidden in the other room kind of things. I like having my breeding females and youngest fry visible in their tank, the grow out process however I never figured out how to make look attractive.

My culls don't have to wait to go to a store either though, as I can add them into a feeding with Lucky's worms and it's a done deal. For your situation I would just use the smallest tank I could ethically bring myself to, in my case, I can't temporarily keep more than 10 over about 3 months old in a gallon without feeling bad about it. The vacuuming would be constant to the point of 30% daily water changed daily. I would estimate at 10 per gallon in a 10, coming to about 100 fish waiting to go to the store.

Funny thought, those little tubs I described were my first "networked tanks" I should have just put dividers in a 20 long and m my fish room would have looked significantly different lol.

Good luck with the math .

 

John58ford Very detailed and useful reply. Thanks!

 

Heres the only guppy math I know. I started with 7 guppys in a 30 gallon tank (3f, 4m). In less than a year, I had almost 300 guppys. Daily 75% water changes didn't keep up with nitrate production. In a city of (seasonally) over 1 million people, I could not find a single fish store that would buy or give me store credit for my guppys. I did find a single store that "took them off my hands" aand resold some for 1$ each and others as feeder fish. That's the only guppy math I know lol!

 

Heres the only guppy math I know. I started with 7 guppys in a 30 gallon tank (3f, 4m). In less than a year, I had almost 300 guppys. Daily 75% water changes didn't keep up with nitrate production. In a city of (seasonally) over 1 million people, I could not find a single fish store that would buy or give me store credit for my guppys. I did find a single store that "took them off my hands" aand resold some for 1$ each and others as feeder fish. That's the only guppy math I know lol!

I am just trying to make sure I have enough space to grow them until they are big enough that the LFS will take them as feeders. I think they will need to be at least 1/4 inch, maybe 1/2 inch.

I also want to grow them enough so that I can select the ones I want to keep to evolve my population the way I want.

Since I started with a bigger population, I think I may be pushing 300 in a few months.

 

Here is one of my EGMs

View attachment 637753View attachment 637754

Looks like a nice feeder guppy male. One that has had the time to properly show his colors unstressed.

 

Yes, it is amazing how the colors come out with space, good water and food.

I will be curious to see how the young ones develop. And what I can develop if I select for color.

There are already some little guys that had no color when I got them that are developing nicely.

It will be difficult to know how to select the ones to keep and cull. Thinking I will just select the most colorful and see what happens. Although I know that mixing up a bunch of colorful fish in a colony does not necessarily result in a colorful colony.

 

Reading the title, experienced Guppy breeders may start with the perspective that this cannot be done. In another thread GuppyDazzle said you cannot selectively breed in a colony. I think what was meant by this statement was that the dramatic characteristics serious breeders develop are the result of selecting unique mutations. Mutations start from one individual and can only be continued with the progeny of that individual.

Previously developed strains can be evolved and improved through selective line breeding and individual breeders can create their own unique strains. Mutations can be very difficult to select since they are often recessive and / or are part of unique gene clusters. Fish that look similar may not produce a colony of similar looking fish since their similar look may not be driven by the same genes.

Therefore, line breeding closely related fish is necessary to develop dramatic and unique features. Out crossing and line crossing is done in line breeding to reduce the tendency of line breeding to produce weak fish due to lack of genetic diversity. Line crossing is effectively breeding cousins. Out crossing is introducing unrelated fish into the breeding operation. Out crossing is a very advanced technique and is very difficult to do without setting the selective breeding process back. Most breeders do not use out crossing. They will instead increase the number of lines they cross to maintain genetic diversity.

Colony breeding beginning with multiple males and females effectively starts out with multiple uncontrolled out crosses and will therefore trend towards dominant traits and traits produced by common gene clusters. For this reason it is impossible to develop characteristics that are associated with recessive traits or unusual gene clusters. Therefore, colony breeding dramatically limits the characteristics that can be selected. But for the same reason that colony breeding produces less dramatic looking fish, it produces stronger healthier fish that are more resistant to disease and tolerant of less than ideal conditions. An exception to this statement is eliminating known genetic weaknesses that can be identified at an early age, such as a bent spine.

I would like to use colony breeding to produce a line of cool looking guppies that are good choices for novice fishkeepers. Fish that will survive rookie mistakes, fish in cycles that are not managed perfectly and inconsistent water changing habits. This is the reality of how many aquariums are kept. I believe these characteristics will naturally result from the genetic diversity of colony breeding. But even colony breeding is less diverse than breeding in the wild so I plan to continually introduce new fish to the colony to continually broaden the gene pool.

If I am to be successful at developing this pool and producing something cool looking, I will have to become educated in identifying the cool looking characteristics I can develop in a colony. That is the education I am looking for help with. I have several cool looking fish out of a feed guppy scoop. However, choosing a few cool looking fish to create a colony will not necessarily produce a cool looking colony.

So my question is; are there any guidelines for the characteristics that I can select for? My sister is a phd in genetics and she has stated that if 75% of a particular drop of fry shares a particular trait, then it is a dominant trait. I suppose I could isolate some breeding pair, examine their fry, and look for cool looking traits that appear to be dominant. Then develop a colony of cool looking fish whose look is dominant. Such a colony would be able to receive on-going genetic material while retaining these characteristics. Fish that do not have these traits could be culled. This is easier said than done since the cool looking fish would be males, but the extent to which particular females contributed to the look would be impossible to know unless the females were isolated for dropping fry.

Anyway, I think I have a handle on some of the basics but I have a lot to learn. What do I understand correctly and what have I mis-understood?

 

Ummm well as you said, you can't really develop a trait that much in a colony breed. And your idea of fish that will survive rookie mistakes, you will never know unless you test and there are several other factors that go into it. Plus the guppies are fragile due to inbreeding.

 

I agree that it would be difficult to select for hardiness. I am attempting to achieve this by less in-breeding. It is my expectation that feeder guppies will have be subject to less in-breeding than line-bred fancy guppies and will start out hardier. And if I continually introduce new fish to the colony, I will be reversing whatever inbreeding they have been subject to in the past. These may be arguable points. But let's set those arguments aside. That part will either work or not work on its own.

My question in this thread relates to selecting for "cool looking fish". I will not be able to select for traits that are related to recessive genes or to unique gene clusters. I will have to select for dominant traits that are more common. I have read that guppies naturally evolve to more colorful when they are not pressured by predators and to less colorful when they are pressured by predators. Therefore, it seems that there must be dominant color characteristics that can evolve in a population. I am trying to understand those characteristics better so that I can select for them and evolve a population of colorful fish.

I want to be able to select the best fish to begin with and compatible fish to add in the future. I am thinking that there are common colors and color patterns that I can look for. In my first scoop of feeders, I got some cool looking fish. But the cool looking fish are all different. So if I take the four coolest and begin a colony with them they may devolve into less cool looking fish as their genetics meld into the colony. But if I can identify cool looking characteristics I may be able to select fish that share those common characteristics and build a colony with those fish and by doing so, build stable cool looking colony characteristics.

 

You are correct that guppies with diverse genetics are stronger than selectively bred guppies.

I do see some problems with your theory. You're going for "cool looking fish," which suggests you will breed for specific traits. If you want specific traits, you need to selectively breed. If you colony breed, and don't separate males and females, you're not going to produce the traits you're looking for specifically because of the genetic diversity.

Some things to keep in mind.

- All fancy guppies are the result of mutations. Wild type guppies are smaller and much less colorful.

- If you let guppies breed randomly, the colony will immediately start to lose the size and color and will revert to a smaller, plain-looking wild-type within a few generations.

- If you "reverse" inbreeding, by definition you're going to reverse the traits that make the guppies cool looking.

I have nothing against colony breeding. I've done it in the past and it's fun. But once you see a trait that you'd like to maintain, you have to selectively breed.

To sum up my point, it's fine to colony breed with a goal of producing healthier guppies, but once you start going for a particular look, you need to switch back to inbreeding in order to maintain or improve the line.

By the way, I'm jealous. Your sister has a phd in genetics. I hope you have her on speed dial, LOL! There are lots of doctors and other scientific professionals who breed guppies, because guppy genetics are complex and interesting. Also, guppies will tolerate inbreeding much better than most other species, so breeding experiments tend to be much more successful.

 

I agree with GuppyDazzle (see, we can come to the same understanding after all these threads, haha!), depending on your definition of "cool looking" this can or cannot be done.
The one way I see this working (skipping the things already touched upon by the other users above) is if you select a very broad category of one trait you'd like to select for, and then stay completely blind to other traits, PLUS (and this is very important) not seeking to maximise that trait, but only to keep it present.

What do I mean? Take for instance, you want your guppies to be colourful. Pick one colour (doesn't matter which, let's say red) and get a bunch of red-containing guppies from different sources. The only thing you'd cull, indiscriminately, in your offspring tank is any guppies not showing any red whatsoever and any that are debilitatingly malformed. With debilitating I mean that they are not able to have any quality of life.
*Do not* select for: size, tail types, tail size, amount of red, intensity of red, fin shape, patterns, etc, etc.
This way, you get a varied bunch of genes while still having some interesting look to the guppies. The tail shape and size and patterning will probably become dull and boring, but they'd have a splash of colour and they should be considerably healthier gene-wise after a dozen or so generations if you regularly add to your stock with new additions from different places.
The best way I see this working though, to ensure that genes that are present in the colonies truly do get mixed, is to maintain four colonies or more and regularly swap stock around (so every month, rotate a randomly selected half of the stock of each tank clockwise, or something like that).

I have no idea to what extent you would be able to maintain the red colour in practice (if there are a lot of different genes causing an expression of red rather than one one or two genes causing the colour itself, it will likely be lost in a few generations even if all the stock have red in them), but this I think is the most viable way to try your idea with your goals in mind.

 

You are correct that guppies with diverse genetics are stronger than selectively bred guppies.

I do see some problems with your theory. You're going for "cool looking fish," which suggests you will breed for specific traits. If you want specific traits, you need to selectively breed. If you colony breed, and don't separate males and females, you're not going to produce the traits you're looking for specifically because of the genetic diversity.

Some things to keep in mind.

- All fancy guppies are the result of mutations. Wild type guppies are smaller and much less colorful.

- If you let guppies breed randomly, the colony will immediately start to lose the size and color and will revert to a smaller, plain-looking wild-type within a few generations.

- If you "reverse" inbreeding, by definition you're going to reverse the traits that make the guppies cool looking.

I have nothing against colony breeding. I've done it in the past and it's fun. But once you see a trait that you'd like to maintain, you have to selectively breed.

To sum up my point, it's fine to colony breed with a goal of producing healthier guppies, but once you start going for a particular look, you need to switch back to inbreeding in order to maintain or improve the line.

The only part of this that I am not convinced of is that a colony will necessarily trend toward less colorful fish. I have mostly pretty cool looking males from my random scoop of feeder guppies. A few are dull, but most are very colorful. I have also read that in the wild guppies can be very colorful if they exist in an area without predator pressure. They will naturally evolve towards more color. And females will prefer colorful fish in that environment.

Therefore, I believe there are dominant colorful traits that could be brought out in a colony. Admittedly I will not be able to develop fish that are as cool looking as line breeding. But my perspective on "cool looking" is small, colorful, fast and active fish.

What I am looking for is ways to identify dominant colorful characteristics so that I can select fish that are likely to perpetuate these characteristics in a colony.

I agree with GuppyDazzle (see, we can come to the same understanding after all these threads, haha!), depending on your definition of "cool looking" this can or cannot be done.
The one way I see this working (skipping the things already touched upon by the other users above) is if you select a very broad category of one trait you'd like to select for, and then stay completely blind to other traits, PLUS (and this is very important) not seeking to maximise that trait, but only to keep it present.

What do I mean? Take for instance, you want your guppies to be colourful. Pick one colour (doesn't matter which, let's say red) and get a bunch of red-containing guppies from different sources. The only thing you'd cull, indiscriminately, in your offspring tank is any guppies not showing any red whatsoever and any that are debilitatingly malformed. With debilitating I mean that they are not able to have any quality of life.
*Do not* select for: size, tail types, tail size, amount of red, intensity of red, fin shape, patterns, etc, etc.
This way, you get a varied bunch of genes while still having some interesting look to the guppies. The tail shape and size and patterning will probably become dull and boring, but they'd have a splash of colour and they should be considerably healthier gene-wise after a dozen or so generations if you regularly add to your stock with new additions from different places.
The best way I see this working though, to ensure that genes that are present in the colonies truly do get mixed, is to maintain four colonies or more and regularly swap stock around (so every month, rotate a randomly selected half of the stock of each tank clockwise, or something like that).

I have no idea to what extent you would be able to maintain the red colour in practice (if there are a lot of different genes causing an expression of red rather than one one or two genes causing the colour itself, it will likely be lost in a few generations even if all the stock have red in them), but this I think is the most viable way to try your idea with your goals in mind.

Yes, this is exactly what I am thinking. Helpful, thank you!

 

With heavy culling, selective colony style should be possible, the biggest challenge in it is the females, they all look pretty much the same. That is why I tended to cull all my females every generation until I was able to re create the ones I was looking for. It took me about 200 fish through 4 generations over a 2 year period to get to the point where all the males in a drop looked similar using 3-6 females at a time. My operation is small, but since I use 3 similar males and 3-6 females in each batch it is technically a colony right? Maybe I'm wrong on it but it seems like line breeders use a pair or trio method where only one male is introduced to the females. I figured having the 3 competing males together would make them dance more and the females selection may help with choice of mates and resulting drops.

I hope you get someone with way more serious experience in this than me to help you out, as I would like to learn more too.

The thing is most of the very successful guys aren't telling the secrets lol. My breeder contact at the lfs said he may infact quit giving his females to the store as dollar fish/feeders specifically because someone like me may be too successful in recreating a specific Gene from the line he's using. My endler guppy mutts look near identical to his original, expensive peacock endler males that he used to start his hybrid sunset endler line. He knows I have no plan to sell any but thinks maybe if I hadn't had so much luck I would have ended up buying from him to get similar looking fish. In my case he's not correct as I really just needed the micro form of whatever fish I could get my injured snake to eat, but in most cases, he's probably right.


I do feel like you could do the hardiness thing though, go old school and intentionally push water parameters on a drop our 3 and use natural selection to find the hardy ones. I would bet the fish bred out of my little tank would survive way more abuse than the ones I bought from the store a few years back. They were bred differently in a tank a large predator has unlimited access to, that has had issues with filtration that took me years to diagnose and correct, and they are still up and kicking. In my male only tank they out dance and bully all my larger store bought/professionally bred hybrid endlers into submission. I actually had to take a tiger endler out and put him in with the rasboras because he quit fighting back.

I'm all for someone trying to make a cool looking bullet proof fish, and if you're successful I'll take the first dozen you put on but/sell/trade. Assuming I'm still able to fish keep in a couple years, being deployable you never really know that's why I'm teaching my oldest boy (8) the science of it hoping he can keep my creation alive if I have to vanish for a year or three.

 

My operation is small, but since I use 3 similar males and 3-6 females in each batch it is technically a colony right? Maybe I'm wrong on it but it seems like line breeders use a pair or trio method where only one male is introduced to the females. I figured having the 3 competing males together would make them dance more and the females selection may help with choice of mates and resulting drops.

It's a good point in this discussion to try to define "colony breeding," and "selective breeding." The way I define selective breeding is a pedigree. It's my impression that most of the top breeders keep records, and can trace back any fish in their room to their specific ancestors. I keep a record of every group of breeders I set up, and the dates of drops of fry. I usually breed trios, but will also set up larger groups for example with two males and four females. All the males would be siblings and same for the females. I can track back through my breeding log to the original source of the ancestor fish and when they arrived in my fish room.

Selective breeding of guppies is the same principle as dogs or horses. If they're registered, the papers will show specific ancestors.

I would call colony breeding as anything other than selective breeding. Like I said before, I've enjoyed colony breeding in the past and got some really nice guppies. But if you're looking for a specific trait, you need to keep track of the pedigree to have any realistic chance of predicting how a fish will turn out. There are too many things going on with the genetics to have success toward a specific goal without selective breeding.

 

It's a good point in this discussion to try to define "colony breeding," and "selective breeding." The way I define selective breeding is a pedigree.

I was almost on track with your definitions. I thought colony would be more than one each possible uncontrolled male/females breeding at will.
Selective breeding would be one male and one female breeding under controls.
And line breeding would be any breeding of either type done under pedigree.

One could theoretically have a colony line breeding if they introduced only papered males and females into a colony. All the offspring in that colony would be paperable since all parents are of a known line.
That breeder could then select the best of the line, and begin selective line breeding where you could pick and choose a mutation or trait and amplify it through in breeding, but they again would still be line bred and paperable.

In the flip, one could start with a mutt colony, and still selectively choose traits until coming up with a hybrid that drops true but it would never become paperable. It would more so represent the old school breeders that had their name attached to the strain, this creating their own hybrid strain, but clearly not a pedigree or line breed. Maybe in a few years well see the "sorg rainbow EGM" at all the LFS, you never know.

Personally, I am now breeding endler guppy mutts, working on a strain of my endler guppy mutt females crossed with a hybrid chilI endler. In this situation, I know the chilI endler has at least some endler, and some guppy, it's not a papered fish but in the hobby it is a sought after strain. I have no intention of selling my results, I just love nano tanks (29 and smaller) and breeding is fun but I feel like you could 100% say I'm breeding selectively, just not line breeding.

 

I was almost on track with your definitions. I thought colony would be more than one each possible uncontrolled male/females breeding at will.
Selective breeding would be one male and one female breeding under controls.
And line breeding would be any breeding of either type done under pedigree.

One could theoretically have a colony line breeding if they introduced only papered males and females into a colony. All the offspring in that colony would be paperable since all parents are of a known line.
That breeder could then select the best of the line, and begin selective line breeding where you could pick and choose a mutation or trait and amplify it through in breeding, but they again would still be line bred and paperable.

In the flip, one could start with a mutt colony, and still selectively choose traits until coming up with a hybrid that drops true but it would never become paperable. It would more so represent the old school breeders that had their name attached to the strain, this creating their own hybrid strain, but clearly not a pedigree or line breed. Maybe in a few years well see the "sorg rainbow EGM" at all the LFS, you never know.

Personally, I am now breeding endler guppy mutts, working on a strain of my endler guppy mutt females crossed with a hybrid chilI endler. In this situation, I know the chilI endler has at least some endler, and some guppy, it's not a papered fish but in the hobby it is a sought after strain. I have no intention of selling my results, I just love nano tanks (29 and smaller) and breeding is fun but I feel like you could 100% say I'm breeding selectively, just not line breeding.

I don't know if the fish world does things any different (I don't think so, but not 100% sure) but linebreeding =/= breeding with pedigreed individuals.

Line breeding refers specifically to the practice of interbreeding individuals of the same line, in order to maintain or enhance a desirable (pretty much always rare and recessive) trait that would be lost if any of the individuals would be bred to a specimen from another line. It *is* possible to bring out recessive traits without the use of line breeding, but it would take a *lot* more time and effort because you have to work with several generations of individuals that might carry a trait recessively, so both the turnout of individuals with this trait will be significantly lower and with some crosses necessary you won't be able to tell which individuals do and which don't carry, and so you have to breed possibly undesirable offspring in order to check, etc, etc. (and you'd still need a significant portion of inbreeding anyhow).
Essentially, line breeding was invented to shortcut all of this time and effort and resource cost that may not even pan out. The downside if significantly increased inbreeding.
Whether the individuals used in line breeding are pedigree individuals or not does not matter. You can line breed with mutts if you wanted to, in fact that is how new breeds are created, at some point the dogs are numerous and uniform enough that they may be considered for a name and paperwork of their own.

Selective breeding can be done with colonies or groups as well, and has - in principle - nothing to do with pairs or singular individuals. It is just that this is in fish populations the easiest method to achieve selective breeding, as you have much less control over which fish breeds fish otherwise. Selective breeding just refers to breeding with a particular goal in mind, and barring some individuals (or many) that do not fit with this purpose from breeding, thus narrowing (selecting) the specimen that become the genetic source of your next generation.

Colony breeding is not a dog thing, so I don't know about it, but I'm assuming it just means a breeding method whereby you use breeding groups and don't remove individual pairs (or double pairs) for breeding in a separate tank. It is not incompatible with either of the two terms above.

 

It's a good point in this discussion to try to define "colony breeding," and "selective breeding." The way I define selective breeding is a pedigree. It's my impression that most of the top breeders keep records, and can trace back any fish in their room to their specific ancestors. I keep a record of every group of breeders I set up, and the dates of drops of fry. I usually breed trios, but will also set up larger groups for example with two males and four females. All the males would be siblings and same for the females. I can track back through my breeding log to the original source of the ancestor fish and when they arrived in my fish room.

Selective breeding of guppies is the same principle as dogs or horses. If they're registered, the papers will show specific ancestors.

I would call colony breeding as anything other than selective breeding. Like I said before, I've enjoyed colony breeding in the past and got some really nice guppies. But if you're looking for a specific trait, you need to keep track of the pedigree to have any realistic chance of predicting how a fish will turn out. There are too many things going on with the genetics to have success toward a specific goal without selective breeding.

Thank you for taking the time to define these terms. Your perspective makes perfect sense to me now. I am defining "selective breeding" in a very broad and I now think incorrect way. I was thinking that anything you do to "select" fish to breed is a form of selective breeding. But I see that you are thinking of this as selecting particular traits and it make perfect sense to me why you cannot do that in a colony.

Thanks for the clarification. That helps.

 

Colony breeding is not a dog thing, so I don't know about it, but I'm assuming it just means a breeding method whereby you use breeding groups and don't remove individual pairs (or double pairs) for breeding in a separate tank. It is not incompatible with either of the two terms above.

You can compare colony breeding to dog breeding. Selective breeding would be dogs bred by a kennel to produce purebred lines, hopefully responsibly. Colony breeding would be everyone letting their dogs roam the neighborhood, then seeing your dog have a litter of puppies that have a trait that looks like the dog down the street.

 

Many years ago I colony bred, then started selectively breeding the nicer guppies from the colony. I developed my own line that bred fairly true. It wasn't up to any organization's standards, but it was fun. I'm sure there was a period of time when the method could have been described as a combination of colony breeding and line breeding. Maybe the presence of records could be a defining factor in selective breeding, which would have to be written except for the lucky few with photographic type memories.

 

Maybe the presence of records could be a defining factor in selective breeding,

So I guess this sounds right, I guess we are line breeding our mutts, not selective breeding? Sounds fancier to say we have a line lol, I suppose that's why I thought it was the other way. Seems like one could more easily be selective than line breed but often times in different fields and hobbies words have sightly different meanings.
I wonder if Mcasella might have a reflection in this thread as she has already helped us in the right way to classify or hybrid mutts and I believe she also breeds a few strains as I have been trying to convince my wife I need her Japan blue hybrids before it gets too cold to ship lol.

 

I guess we are line breeding our mutts, not selective breeding?

I think it's selective breeding if you're truly breeding a line, even if you're starting with mutts. When you're choosing specific males to breed with specific females, separating males and females before they're sexually mature, with a specific goal in mind, that's selective breeding, IMO.

 

Colony breeding from a group of genetic mutts will have the dominant traits come to the surface - however the females are likely to be pre-hit by a random male so can cause more confusion over what was the traits the female is passing on versus what the male is passing on.
Red is a dominant trait, so it is easier to play with than saw a blue or even albino (albino is just a pain, mainly because they are so easy for the bigger fish to eat).

Line breeding involves a lot of effort compared to just selective breeding, because - as others have stated above- lines require more care to make sure they have needed genetic diversity to avoid stagnating. Selective breeding gives you a wider range to choose from because you are going for one particular trait, be it color, shape, or something else that can be chosen from a broad range as long as it isn't a genetic mutation (which drag you into line breeding rather than just selective).
To create a line of fish you would need to prove they breed true to a specific trait (color, tail shape, even size can come into play), that the males will have that trait down the line from any female of the line. Most breeders don't let go of females for that reason, so they can hold a form of monopoly over the fish - while people can do an out cross to another female it would require months and possibly years of work to get back to the original strain from the out crossing (as it could get lost if it is recessive to the fish you are breeding to's trait or if it is co-dominant to them). A recessive is going to be easier to predict than a co-dominant.

Having people with similar fish helps with out crosses.

If you are just looking to produce interesting looking but hardy fish go with a mixed group that has a similar appearance to give you the best change at producing a colony setup for what you are looking for.

 

however the females are likely to be pre-hit by a random male so can cause more confusion over what was the traits the female is passing on versus what the male is passing on.

I super agree with this, and it's why I culled all my matured post birth females, 3 generations in a row before I could successfully reproduce the target on a drop.

Red is a dominant trait, so it is easier to play with than saw a blue or even albino

Also this, I have been able to pull tons of electric green, but never any blue, part of why I want a certain pair of Japan blue hybrids. I'll probably have to wait until winter clears though, it's getting cold fast this year and I won't have a tank to breed the first drop pure until I'm done with my chilI drops (3ish months out).

Thanks for your input on this, so regardless of whether the starter fish are papered n or k it even mutts, we would still be able to proceed with either technique and start with selective breeding to get a baseline, then pull what we were looking for and try to get a line. And for the sake of forum advice, call it what it is, selective if we are just choosing what lives in a colony to get a solid pool going, then line after we get a rough target set and are breeding smaller batches specifically to get consistent identical fry in a drop.

For Sorg67, I think we have multiple people other than myself to reinforce you really need to watch your females lines to get consistent drops, in my case it took quite a few to get it right. It might be best to cull your first gen females after you verify you at least have some of the males you are looking for in your drop. Then use discretion on the second generations drops and cull further as needed. I feel like you can definitely achieve what you want, it's just going to be allot of work with the number of fish you started with. The plus to colony breeding though is the speed of the fry coming in as long and your make female ratio is in check and the females don't feel pressured while dropping.

Thank you for chiming in on this one, the terminology can be confusing, as you already helped up figure out in the thread about hybrids.

 

I'm not as experienced as many here but I thought I'd chime in as I'm currently attempting to do some 'selective colony' breeding. Basically I have 2 main tanks separated by sex. Ideal trios are isolated to a 3rd tank for breeding for a short time. All the un-sexed fry are in the male tank as they're typically slower predators than the females. This setup clearly isn't as ideal as line breeding but it seems optimal in terms of any selective breeding for the limited amount of tanks I have. I've considered instead doing two colonies each in one of the main tank and crossing as necessary but I really prefer have precise control over breeding.

 

This discussion has really helped evolve my thinking about how to approach this project. My original objective was to breed pure N strain Endlers. I started with feeders because I wanted to learn about breeding before I invested in expensive fish. But the feeder project has become more interesting to me as I have learned more. I will not be able to get as dramatic results as I would with pure beginning stock but I will derive some satisfaction from having drawn whatever I get from feeders.

Currently I have the entire colony in a 40 gallon breeder. I am cycling a 20 and a 10 and I have a 10 gallon Betta tank I may use if I can get my Betta to live peacefully with the males.

I am thinking that the first step in the process is to identify "cool looking" males. The second step is to identify females that drop cool looking males.

I am thinking that I will separate the males into the 20 and begin culling the dull and uninteresting males. I will have to establish my criteria for culling. I like multi-colored fish, especially greens, purples and oranges. But PascalKrypt has stated that red may be easier to select for. So I will have to observe characteristics and develop a selection criteria.

The 40 gallon will be the female tank and I will continually pull the males as I can identify them. I will then start pulling females who are about to drop and isolate them in the 10 gallon tanks. I will be able isolate fry drops and observe how particular drops develop. I may need more 10 gallon tanks for this. Perhaps some 5 gallon tanks.

My goal would be to develop a population of "cool looking" males and a separate population of virgin females from fry drops that had high concentrations of "cool looking" males.

Once I have these starter populations, I could isolate pairs in 5 or 10 gallon tanks and see what the progeny looks like. As several have stated, finding the best females will be the most difficult part of the project.

Identifying cool looking males will be easy, but identifying cool looks that will survive in a colony will be more difficult.

Ultimately, the goal would be to find a group to start a colony. Put them together, cull all the rest and then repeat the process. GuppyDazzle has stated that 10 gallon tanks are preferred and I am beginning to see why. My 40 and 20 may become grow out tanks.

Doing this right may be more involved that I am up for. But I guess doing it wrong will still be fun and educational. I have a friend who says that FAIL stands for; "First Attempt In Learning".

Thanks to all for contributing to my education.

 

This discussion has really helped evolve my thinking about how to approach this project. My original objective was to breed pure N strain Endlers. I started with feeders because I wanted to learn about breeding before I invested in expensive fish. But the feeder project has become more interesting to me as I have learned more. I will not be able to get as dramatic results as I would with pure beginning stock but I will derive some satisfaction from having drawn whatever I get from feeders.

Currently I have the entire colony in a 40 gallon breeder. I am cycling a 20 and a 10 and I have a 10 gallon Betta tank I may use if I can get my Betta to live peacefully with the males.

I am thinking that the first step in the process is to identify "cool looking" males. The second step is to identify females that drop cool looking males.

I am thinking that I will separate the males into the 20 and begin culling the dull and uninteresting males. I will have to establish my criteria for culling. I like multi-colored fish, especially greens, purples and oranges. But PascalKrypt has stated that red may be easier to select for. So I will have to observe characteristics and develop a selection criteria.

The 40 gallon will be the female tank and I will continually pull the males as I can identify them. I will then start pulling females who are about to drop and isolate them in the 10 gallon tanks. I will be able isolate fry drops and observe how particular drops develop. I may need more 10 gallon tanks for this. Perhaps some 5 gallon tanks.

My goal would be to develop a population of "cool looking" males and a separate population of virgin females from fry drops that had high concentrations of "cool looking" males.

Once I have these starter populations, I could isolate pairs in 5 or 10 gallon tanks and see what the progeny looks like. As several have stated, finding the best females will be the most difficult part of the project.

Identifying cool looking males will be easy, but identifying cool looks that will survive in a colony will be more difficult.

Ultimately, the goal would be to find a group to start a colony. Put them together, cull all the rest and then repeat the process. GuppyDazzle has stated that 10 gallon tanks are preferred and I am beginning to see why. My 40 and 20 may become grow out tanks.

Doing this right may be more involved that I am up for. But I guess doing it wrong will still be fun and educational. I have a friend who says that FAIL stands for; "First Attempt In Learning".

Thanks to all for contributing to my education.

2.5-5 gallon are good starter tanks for fry, easier to stack and less weight. 2.5 is a little harder to observe in, 5 gallons is easy. Feeder males will develop much earlier than most fancy guppies (but once you get the "eye" for it you'll be able to identify males as early as two weeks old, sometimes on behavior, sometimes they have a spot of color early). You'll want to separate all males and females for fry early if you are wanting to get virgin females to work with.
I'd give your current males at least a month to show their full colors before culling off the dull ones, sometimes time makes a difference in what they look like.

 

2.5-5 gallon are good starter tanks for fry, easier to stack and less weight. 2.5 is a little harder to observe in, 5 gallons is easy. Feeder males will develop much earlier than most fancy guppies (but once you get the "eye" for it you'll be able to identify males as early as two weeks old, sometimes on behavior, sometimes they have a spot of color early). You'll want to separate all males and females for fry early if you are wanting to get virgin females to work with.
I'd give your current males at least a month to show their full colors before culling off the dull ones, sometimes time makes a difference in what they look like.

What kind of heating a filtering do you use for the small tanks? I guess I could pick up a bunch of sponge filters cheap. Maybe use some tupperware tubs. Although tupperware tubs would be difficult to view. Maybe get some 5 gal tanks at the next Petco $1 a gallon sale.

Room temp is usually around 74 deg. But can dip colder in the winter. We usually do not turn the heat on when it gets cold because here in Florida, the cold does not last and I hate to run the heat for a few days when I know I will be turning the AC back on soon. Might get down to the mid to high 60's in the house for a few days when it gets cold. Is that going to do them much harm?