Selective breeding for color - guppies

I've been looking into guppy genetics and come across some color genetics relating to fin and tail length. Certain color genes can only be present in short tailed guppies, from what I read.

Something I haven't seen that I'm really curious about in regards to my breeding plans is if anyone knows how breeding a moscow variety with non-moscows would work out? I have a few solid moscow colors (like black and purple) and thought it might be interesting to see if I could create a strain of say - half blacks where the black is on the front end instead of the tail. So they'd look like black moscows in the face and front fins, while having the tail of the other strain.

Since I've never seen this before I wasn't sure if it's even genetically possible or if there's some complication in the guppy genes that would make it impossible and waste of time and money to attempt to pull off.

Again, only going on the fact that I've never actually seen it before and wasn't sure if it had been done somewhere.

What do you guys think? Especially interested in any sources if people know some good reading material on the subject.

 

Good morning,

Let's see if anyone has a reply for you today.

Best of luck with your Guppies!

Ken

 

If I have a certain coloured male guppy, does the females colour or appearance have an effect on the offspring?

 

If I have a certain coloured male guppy, does the females colour or appearance have an effect on the offspring?

Yes. That is basic genetics: phenotypic traits, dominant and recessive alleles, all that fun biology stuff that, coincidentally, I learned about with guppies (and boring pea plants).

Sadly, winglessicarus, I'm not sure how it works with various guppy strains. The way I understand it is, some of the offspring will be normal non-Moscows, others will be Moscows, and very rarely will you get something unique, a hybrid of the two. That's kind of like how rosy red minnows came into being; random phenotype popped up in a breeding farm in 1985. I'd say go ahead and give it a try, see what you come out with. I, too, can't find any details online regarding hybridizing new phenotypes/morphologies of guppy, aside from the typical 'typed' strains you'd commonly find with guppy breeders.

I blame trade secrets

 

Yes. That is basic genetics: phenotypic traits, dominant and recessive alleles, all that fun biology stuff that, coincidentally, I learned about with guppies (and boring pea plants).

Sadly, winglessicarus, I'm not sure how it works with various guppy strains. The way I understand it is, some of the offspring will be normal non-Moscows, others will be Moscows, and very rarely will you get something unique, a hybrid of the two. That's kind of like how rosy red minnows came into being; random phenotype popped up in a breeding farm in 1985. I'd say go ahead and give it a try, see what you come out with. I, too, can't find any details online regarding hybridizing new phenotypes/morphologies of guppy, aside from the typical 'typed' strains you'd commonly find with guppy breeders.

I blame trade secrets

So if I were to breed a male black moscow with a tequila sunrise female the offspring might be a half batch of black moscows and a half batch of sunrises?

That's almost even more interesting because technically I could keep them both in the same tank and they would still produce viable offspring of each "type" if I'm understanding this right...

I have them in a tank already, kind of still waiting on the first batch of fry to see how they come out.

 

I'm not exactly sure how it works with guppies, but I remember doing those punett squares in high school to see the chances of phenotypes (or genotypes, I can't quite remember.) I have a photo saved to my phone of what I think is allele patterns. I'll try to post it here later. I'm not sure how much it will help, but I'll brush up on my biology and maybe I can tell you the chances you have of offspring looking a certain way?

 

Found the picture. Since it isn't my own and the trees all that copywrite stuff ill just pm it to you.

edit: Trees all that copywrite stuff? What the heck was I on when I wrote this? Hope you got the link I sent you. Sorry it was Spanish.

 

Here's a pretty compact guide from ACTropical regarding selective breeding: https://www.aquaticcommunity.com/livebearer/notso.php

It's not the be-all, end-all, but it's a start in that it explains that multiple generations need to be reared and bred for positive traits and qualities, and that it might takes years to get excellent results.

 

Here's a pretty compact guide from ACTropical regarding selective breeding: https://www.aquaticcommunity.com/livebearer/notso.php

It's not the be-all, end-all, but it's a start in that it explains that multiple generations need to be reared and bred for positive traits and qualities, and that it might takes years to get excellent results.

Yeah I figured it would be at least a year before I could get something of "breeder" quality, I'm looking to sell fairly cheap though. Let them determine their own quality.

 

I have to go with above here about the punett squares. I have done a lot of research as I breed guppies as well. Lets say you have a normal wild type guppy male and a albino female. Since the albino trait is recessive, all the offspring will be wild types

Wild guppy will be AA genes while albino would be aa

A - wild
a - albino

so all guppies will be wild coloration with the recessive albino gene (Aa)

Breed siblings together and you will get...

1/2 of fry will be AA (soley wild type), 1/4 will be Aa (wild with the recessive gene), and 1/4 will be aa (albino)

Now this will only work if your female is not pre hit and is ONLY in a tank with one single male, as guppy females can have fry from multiple males at one time.

 

I have to go with above here about the punett squares. I have done a lot of research as I breed guppies as well. Lets say you have a normal wild type guppy male and a albino female. Since the albino trait is recessive, all the offspring will be wild types

Wild guppy will be AA genes while albino would be aa

A - wild
a - albino

so all guppies will be wild coloration with the recessive albino gene (Aa)

Breed siblings together and you will get...

1/2 of fry will be AA (soley wild type), 1/4 will be Aa (wild with the recessive gene), and 1/4 will be aa (albino)

Now this will only work if your female is not pre hit and is ONLY in a tank with one single male, as guppy females can have fry from multiple males at one time.

If she's with several males that are all the same lineage would she have the same sort of offspring, just different number variations?

My tank right now is 6 black moscows and 3 tequila sunrise. So it sounds like the girls could drop either black moscows or tequila sunrises at birth.

Since it doesn't seem to be possible in terms of genetics for what I originally had in mind, I'm planning to focus more on my red tequila variety, which are in another tank. There's 2 tequila males in that tank now with 5 tequila females and one red female. Basically six mgEX and one mgEx, I'm hoping their genetic coding being more similar would make it easier to get mixed genetics from them.

 

You could also get some crosses I would think. I had my pink flamingos (2 males, 4 females) in a tank with my blue grass pair. One of the blue grass 'babies' is a couple months old. He has the black spots of a grass guppy on his pink tail

 

You could also get some crosses I would think. I had my pink flamingos (2 males, 4 females) in a tank with my blue grass pair. One of the blue grass 'babies' is a couple months old. He has the black spots of a grass guppy on his pink tail

That was the hope, but it looks like the sunrise genetics and the black moscow genetics are polar opposite (mgEX and MGex from what I can tell.) Most everyone with experience or research on the matter seems to think in the case of moscows hybrids and mixed genes in fry are less likely to happen than normal.

I do know my cobra babies show no hint of their mother at all, you wouldn't know they're not pure cobras by looking at them. ???

 

You very well could get some mixes. What I posted was just the "basic of genetics" that I read when doing my research when starting to breed my guppies. I have guppy fry from a electric yellow female that was in a tank with a pink flamingo male and a yellow cobra male...and the fry are now over an inch big and showing their color....some are solid yellow like the mother, some are yellow with black markings (but not quite cobra, at least yet), some are starting to take on wild colorations, and I have one that is turning almost solid black, no idea where that one came from lol.

 

I agree, I would think it is still possible to get some mixed. From my understanding, the pink flamingo is a type of moscow. The blue grass is not, but I'm getting some babies that have characteristics of both.

 

You very well could get some mixes. What I posted was just the "basic of genetics" that I read when doing my research when starting to breed my guppies. I have guppy fry from a electric yellow female that was in a tank with a pink flamingo male and a yellow cobra male...and the fry are now over an inch big and showing their color....some are solid yellow like the mother, some are yellow with black markings (but not quite cobra, at least yet), some are starting to take on wild colorations, and I have one that is turning almost solid black, no idea where that one came from lol.

That one wanted to be unique

My tequila sunrise had tequila sunrise babies after being exposed to a cobra male. Not sure if she came pregnant or her genes just dominated his. They look like literal clones of her, though.

My tuxedo blue girl had two cobra boys, they have a bit more black in their markings than their father, but otherwise show no sign of her color.

The rest of them came from breeder strains so they bred true to their parentage (my red female had boys that look like their father and girls that look like their mother.) They were shipped in a bag together so he had three days to make sure she was pregnant if she wasn't before then