What Guppy lines do you keep?

Just wondering what lines each of you keep? Do you have pet store guppies, or show guppies?

I keep:
Red-Gold Tuxedo
Red Blonde
Red Moscow
Black Moscow
Blue Moscow
Yellow Delta
Neon Blue Delta
Blue Grass (Thailand Import)
Red Cobra
Red Mosaics
Dragon Mosaics
Black Laced Silver
Japan Blue x Blue Grass
1/2 Black Delta

I'm probably forgetting a lot.

 

By keep do you mean breed or just have them in your tank?

I am considering breeding Endlers. Not commercially. Just for fun and learning.

 

By keep do you mean breed or just have them in your tank?

I am considering breeding Endlers. Not commercially. Just for fun and learning.

Sorg67. Either one. I breed mostly. But just for fun. I have some excellent stock. Just not sure if I want to get into showing.

 

Yes, fun and learning is what I am interested in.

 

I don't believe if you are colony breeding you can claim to keep a "line" that is pure!!!!
I have 6 ten gallon tanks devoted to my lines. So right now I only have 2 lines, and looking to pick up a 3rd one.
I have snow white and Yellow micairff, but there are some tequilla sunrise mixed in with the males and females separately in the yellow and micairff tanks.
You really can't colony breed and keep a line healthy, not to mention a ten gallon tank is not big enough to keep 50 guppies. It will degrade the strain over time, and your tank will get overcrowded and dirty and have die offs over time.

 

I don't believe if you are colony breeding you can claim to keep a "line" that is pure!!!!
I have 6 ten gallon tanks devoted to my lines. So right now I only have 2 lines, and looking to pick up a 3rd one.
I have snow white and Yellow micairff, but there are some tequilla sunrise mixed in with the males and females separately in the yellow and micairff tanks.
You really can't colony breed and keep a line healthy, not to mention a ten gallon tank is not big enough to keep 50 guppies. It will degrade the strain over time, and your tank will get overcrowded and dirty and have die offs over time.

I'm not sure who your reply is too. I have 5 gals all the way up to 55 gals all through my house. I am setting up new tanks daily from pairs to trios.

 

I don't believe if you are colony breeding you can claim to keep a "line" that is pure!!!!
I have 6 ten gallon tanks devoted to my lines. So right now I only have 2 lines, and looking to pick up a 3rd one.
I have snow white and Yellow micairff, but there are some tequilla sunrise mixed in with the males and females separately in the yellow and micairff tanks.
You really can't colony breed and keep a line healthy, not to mention a ten gallon tank is not big enough to keep 50 guppies. It will degrade the strain over time, and your tank will get overcrowded and dirty and have die offs over time.

I am wondering who this comment is directed to. OP has 22 tanks ranging from 10 gallon to 55 gallon. Where do you see 50 guppies in a 10 gallon tank.

Be that as it may, I am curious about the statement that colony breeding cannot keep a line healthy. I can understand that it is difficult to keep the target characteristics in a colony and that is the purpose of line breeding. But I would expect that colony breeding would result in more genetic diversity and healthier fish. But I am a rookie so there is a lot I do not know yet. Looking to learn.

 

I am wondering who this comment is directed to. OP has 22 tanks ranging from 10 gallon to 55 gallon. Where do you see 50 guppies in a 10 gallon tank.

Be that as it may, I am curious about the statement that colony breeding cannot keep a line healthy. I can understand that it is difficult to keep the target characteristics in a colony and that is the purpose of line breeding. But I would expect that colony breeding would result in more genetic diversity and healthier fish. But I am a rookie so there is a lot I do not know yet. Looking to learn.

Colony breeding will soon cause too much inbreeding. It's best to breed pairs and/or trios.

 

Colony breeding will soon cause too much inbreeding. It's best to breed pairs and/or trios.

I do not want to argue this point. I just want to understand. It seems that a line off a pair or trio would have much more inbreeding than a colony - assuming the colony was started with say 10 or 12 fish. That would seem to be a more diverse gene pool. Even if you ran two parallel lines and crossed every third generation, it would seem to provide less inbreeding than a colony started off more fish.

My understanding of the downside of colony breeding was that you would end up with too much genetic diversity and you would lose the characteristics your are breeding for. This could managed with culling, but it is difficult to identify the characteristics before sexual maturity so you may not cull before the undesired genes are passed down.

I am currently practicing with a colony of feeder guppies. Once I develop my skills and knowledge, I am considering a colony of Endlers. I have had a variety of ideas about how to pursue this which has been evolving as I learn more about breeding. My sister who is a phd in genetics has advised starting with a pair or trio. See how they breed and then carefully build the colony with fish that breed true to the desired characteristics. However, even then, it is expected that those characteristics would fade in time without aggressive culling or line breeding.

Anyway, Interested in your comments.

 

It was directed towards the OP of course. You have
Red-Gold Tuxedo
Red Blonde
Red Moscow
Black Moscow
Blue Moscow
Yellow Delta
Neon Blue Delta
Blue Grass (Thailand Import)
Red Cobra
Red Mosaics
Dragon Mosaics
Black Laced Silver
Japan Blue x Blue Grass
1/2 Black Delta

14 strains in 22 tanks, but your not colony breeding?
If you were to do it the IFGA proper method, that's 4 tanks per strain, you would have to have 56 tanks
Ovbiuously you are colony breeding, and I'm just stating my opinion that it dosen't work.
I am all for someone keeping guppies in a colony as a hobby. But a true "breeder" improves the line by careful selective breeding, and obviously you are not able to do that unless you have at least 3-4 tanks per strain (Bare minimum, as I have 6 tanks per strain)

 

First off many of them are just pairs that I recently got. So I own them but aren't at the point of breeding them all yet. My main focus is currently my black moscows, Blue moscows, Blue grass, and dragon mosaics. The rest I just started with. We are actually setting up 5 tanks per line just for starting our lines. That's 5 pairs or trios just for parent lines. Then we will be line and inbreeding and using the 5 separate lines of our single line to breed what we desire. Many of the common guppy lines we have we breed to sell locally to our local fish stores. We have tanks everywhere. I appreciate your opinion but you need more information on my side before forming the opinion.

 

Your right I should have asked. I'm glad to see your yaking such an intetest in guppies. I just don't believe in colony breeding. Nothing personal. It sounds like quite the undertaking must be exciting! Its gonna be a lot if work. I like to siphon the bottom every other day and feed live BBS. To me it's the key to success (along with stable environment and good selective breeding) You should look up Phillip shaddock article on the genetics of the different guppy strains. Understanding genetics is another key to sucess. Sorry for the call out again and let's get this thread headed in the right direction.

Also I might know where you can get guppy grass in bulk. I know a guy in Florida. Pm me if you'd like

Here are some pictures of my fishroom as it is currently. Nothing to spectacular.

 

Glad you guys clarified that. I am a rookie and interested in learning.

I can understand that line breeding is the most effective way to maintain and develop certain characteristics. I do not understand the statement that colony promotes more in breeding.

It seems to me that even with crossing multiple lines, occasionally out crossing and back-crossing you would still have more inbreeding with line breeding than in a colony that begins with a larger gene pool, assuming that you add in new members in the colony with the same frequency that you out cross lines. In fact it seems that is the principle objective of line breeding since a certain amount of in-breeding is required to maintain certain characteristics. Out-crossing his helpful to maintain a healthy gene pool, but increases the difficulty of maintain the desire characteristics.

Not trying to argue. Just trying to understand.

 

Sorg67 I have bred show quality poultry my entire life. I know more about poultry than fish genetics. I just decided that I would use the knowledge of breeding I have to breed our fish. That's the reason we set up 5 breeding tanks. Our common strains will also be setup this way when we get our first drop of fry. As we get new stock they will freshen up a line. With how we are doing it, it takes per line 5 breeder tanks, 10 grow out tanks, and then extras go into our sale tanks.

Whitewolf I like your setup. I'm not good with carpentry so I have asked a friend of ours to build my racks. At the moment I have them on every counter and table or structure strong enough to hold them. I have some work to do on my fish room and then I will be adding a central air supply to power filters. I would love the info on guppy grass. Ive lost most of what I bought. I can keep every plant I own in perfect shape but guppy grass just doesn't grow. I'll pm u as I have some questions as well. Oh and by the way, no harm done. I would have probably assumed the same. I definitely am in it for the long haul. Our goal is 250 tanks minimum with all being guppies.

 

Glad you guys clarified that. I am a rookie and interested in learning.

I can understand that line breeding is the most effective way to maintain and develop certain characteristics. I do not understand the statement that colony promotes more in breeding.

It seems to me that even with crossing multiple lines, occasionally out crossing and back-crossing you would still have more inbreeding with line breeding than in a colony that begins with a larger gene pool, assuming that you add in new members in the colony with the same frequency that you out cross lines. In fact it seems that is the principle objective of line breeding since a certain amount of in-breeding is required to maintain certain characteristics. Out-crossing his helpful to maintain a healthy gene pool, but increases the difficulty of maintain the desire characteristics.

Not trying to argue. Just trying to understand.

To explain. You can basically inbred guppies as much as you want. Over 5 years they may lose color and vigor and die off from virus or tail rot, whatever. You do not get " weak fish" pervsay from inbreeding, nor fo you get brnt spines. What you get is whatever problems the parents had. You can kill the bent spines and pretty soon you have heavily inbred clones....but NEVER a bent spine. That gene has been elimated. However in a big colony breeding iperation like a Florida gish farm, you have more variety of genes and perhaps stronger fish, but recessive spine deformities are allowed to pass on. What you are seeing is a narrowing of the genes, leading to weaker fish, but no deformities. So a 8nbred pure strain has huge tails straight backs but Will die easily if shipped across the country. While a perstore fish has more genes total, including the genes for strep bacteria resistance, but also the recessive y genes femakes carry for head shape deformity and spine shape deformities. These can be eliminated over time by selective beeeding and culling!

 

Colony breeding produces much more diverse genetics than selective breeding.

To selectively breed, you need two tanks per breeders per the number of drops. If you're only going to take one drop from a pair or trio, you need two tanks so you can separate males and females at around one month, and you need to discard the breeders. Personally, I use four tanks per line, and can only take two drops from breeders, then I have to dispose of them (usually the LFS).

If you have 14 lines, you need 28 tanks minimum unless you're colony breeding. If you want two drops per breeders, you'll need 56 tanks.

Top breeders run at least two lines of the same strain, some run three or four. Unless you bring in fish from the same lineage, you will quickly go backwards in your breeding program. You can bring in fish that look exactly the same, and you're going to get a tank full of mutts unless they're related. The reason for running more than one line is so you can line cross every few generations in an attempt to introduce genetic diversity.

Right now I have five lines going. I have two lines of HB Blues, two lines of HB Mosaics, and one line of Black Moscows. I have 20 tanks dedicated to breeding guppies. I'm looking to set up some more 10G's so I can run another line of Black Moscows so I can line cross.

22 tanks is not enough to run 14 lines even if you only take one drop per line.

There's nothing wrong with colony breeding if that's what you want to do. But it isn't line breeding, and isn't selective breeding.