Selectively Breeding Guppies

[adam_s_101]

I have about 5/6 years experience of keeping tropical fish, and after a year or two away from the hobby, i want to start keeping them again. I quite like the idea of selectively breeding guppies for thier colour variations to try and see if I can get some nice fish.

I am not interested in getting any major physical mutations of the fins etc (However I know the guppies that are readily available from LFS are quite different physically to the wild forms). I just want to see if I can breed fish that are stunning to look at, but that also have a good strong genetic foundation. There's no point breeding fish that look incredible but die all the time. Also, I dont just want to throw a few fish together and hope for the best, I want to set out to try and breed a guppy that has a particular colouration (and as I said before has good genetics).

Does anyone here have any experience of trying this? If so do you have any hints/tips for me. Also, I guess I will need fish that already have good genetics, as a rule what are the genetics of fish from a LFS like?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated
Cheers

 

[modaz]

i would say that the best thing to do is keep searching on forums, auction sites and general searches for breeders of a strain that you are interested in breeding. also a good idea to look at this http/www.guppyinfo.com/ always some great things on it for you and will put you on the right path to something even more special and exciting

 

[dillowpillow]

I would probably try to buy the guppies at different stores or a month apart to reduce the chance that your first fish are closely related, and immediately start off with inbred fry.

 

[helterskelter]

Their is a guppy show and general livebearer auction Oct nr derbey.
Click here

Their will be many lines of guppies there and the prices will start from £3 a pair.
If you looking for stunning fish then the best around atm are the moscow blues, i do have a friend who breed then and will post but I think their around £10 a pair now.

Also in Nottingham/Derby their is a bloke called Alan Hodgeson i think, He owns a shop somewhere and is a guppy fanatic with over 30 lines of guppies

If you rearly want to work on breeding strong guppies you should think of haveing 3-4 tanks per line, as you need to seperate the fry to a rearing tank, then remove all the young males to a different rearing tank, then select the best females and then breed them back with the very best 2-3 males.
So tank space is the best thing to invest in and good luck.

Helter