Wild Caught in West Virginia

I recently took a trip to Berkeley Springs, WV after reading about "wild" guppies living in the water at the park. According to articles I've found online, it seems guppies were released there sometime between the 1940s and 1960s and managed to survive the winters due to the warmer water temperatures from the thermal springs. It isn't clear whether the original stock was of the fancy variety or a wild strain, but today they appear to be most closely resembling the wild type.

Because I love "wild type" livebearers, and haven't been able to make my way down to their natural habitats (or Florida), I went and collected well over 50 individuals. I managed to cull them down to 5 males, 10 females, and 10 or so fry. A large portion of the fish were suffering from either fin rot or what appeared to be swim bladder issues, unfortunately, but I did get quite a few keepers that weren't symptomatic. I quarantined and medicated everyone and was able to resuscitate a few males to recovery that had particularly interesting patterns but were suffering from various ailments.

I already had a small school of "feeder" guppies that I bought from a local pet store in their own planted tank, so I decided to place the wild caught males with the store bought females, and vice versa, with the store bought males and wild caught females in a separate tank. I'm not too interested in developing a particular pattern at the moment, as I think the excitement of having wild type guppies is not knowing what to expect, but I thought crossing two completely different lines of "wild type" guppies may create offspring with stronger immune systems, as I would imagine both groups have suffered from quite a bit of inbreeding. The fact that the guppies from West Virginia survive the winter in open air water channels is also quite impressive. Usually it's only the mosquitofish that will make it through the winters here without being in a heated, covered, pool of water.

Has anyone had any sort of experience with wild caught guppies and crossing them with domestic stock? Or breeding strictly for health rather than for coloration? Obviously there are unknown genetics on both sides, but in theory the offspring should benefit health wise from being from mixed lines, correct?

Among the wild bunch I caught two blonde bodied females which seem to be extremely healthy and came without any visible ailments, as well as some males with varying tail types, so I imagine I will get some beautiful color pattern variations in any case, once the two populations mix. I also don't plan on removing the fry from the tanks as I don't want to be over run with too many, so it will be the strongest (and fastest) of the fry that are reared to adulthood.

Below are a few pictures of some of the wild caught guppies, in case anyone is interested.

 

These seem more like Endlers than guppies, but most likely they are all hybrids.

Yes, cross-breeding would enrich the gene pool, not all the fry would be stronger/healthier, but the probability of healthy fry will go up drastically.

 

Interesting. Since domestic guppies are so very often subjected to inbreeding, there is no doubt that mixing the two lines will be beneficial. However, it will take a few meticulously monitored generations to ensure future generations "flush out," if you will, the genetic profile that was compressed by inbreeding. As far as the color scheme of the fry, it's going to be like Christmas morning with every batch. So much fun!

 

I recently took a trip to Berkeley Springs, WV after reading about "wild" guppies living in the water at the park. According to articles I've found online, it seems guppies were released there sometime between the 1940s and 1960s and managed to survive the winters due to the warmer water temperatures from the thermal springs. It isn't clear whether the original stock was of the fancy variety or a wild strain, but today they appear to be most closely resembling the wild type.

Because I love "wild type" livebearers, and haven't been able to make my way down to their natural habitats (or Florida), I went and collected well over 50 individuals. I managed to cull them down to 5 males, 10 females, and 10 or so fry. A large portion of the fish were suffering from either fin rot or what appeared to be swim bladder issues, unfortunately, but I did get quite a few keepers that weren't symptomatic. I quarantined and medicated everyone and was able to resuscitate a few males to recovery that had particularly interesting patterns but were suffering from various ailments.

I already had a small school of "feeder" guppies that I bought from a local pet store in their own planted tank, so I decided to place the wild caught males with the store bought females, and vice versa, with the store bought males and wild caught females in a separate tank. I'm not too interested in developing a particular pattern at the moment, as I think the excitement of having wild type guppies is not knowing what to expect, but I thought crossing two completely different lines of "wild type" guppies may create offspring with stronger immune systems, as I would imagine both groups have suffered from quite a bit of inbreeding. The fact that the guppies from West Virginia survive the winter in open air water channels is also quite impressive. Usually it's only the mosquitofish that will make it through the winters here without being in a heated, covered, pool of water.

Has anyone had any sort of experience with wild caught guppies and crossing them with domestic stock? Or breeding strictly for health rather than for coloration? Obviously there are unknown genetics on both sides, but in theory the offspring should benefit health wise from being from mixed lines, correct?

Among the wild bunch I caught two blonde bodied females which seem to be extremely healthy and came without any visible ailments, as well as some males with varying tail types, so I imagine I will get some beautiful color pattern variations in any case, once the two populations mix. I also don't plan on removing the fry from the tanks as I don't want to be over run with too many, so it will be the strongest (and fastest) of the fry that are reared to adulthood.

Below are a few pictures of some of the wild caught guppies, in case anyone is interested.

View attachment 705418View attachment 705419View attachment 705420View attachment 705421

In this case, they're most likely wild type guppies and not wildguppies. The marking on the caudal of the lmale in the last picture is something you won't find with wildguppies. It's a trait that occurs in fancy strains. Most likely a mix of guppies were once released in there and reverted to wild types.

These seem more like Endlers than guppies, but most likely they are all hybrids.

Yes, cross-breeding would enrich the gene pool, not all the fry would be stronger/healthier, but the probability of healthy fry will go up drastically.

As a serious (both wild and fancy) keeper and breeder of endlers and guppies for over 4 decades (guppies this is, endlers ever since end 2003), I can say that not one of these guppies shown in these pictures have endler traits, only guppy traits. If they had to be determined, they should be called wild type guppies by their phenotype.

 

I know nothing about guppies, but i like the look of these better than most i see in the stores!