Silly Guppy Question

[Battersea]

i had this really random idea... and wanted to do somthing with the many guppies that have invaded my neighborhood ponds.
IF
i caught a couple of adult females from the pond, and got a fancy male from the LFS, would they breed?
Very stupid question, i know, and i probably wouldn't even put it into action if it works, but i was just cerious
I totally bet one of you will say: "if its from the pond it might carry bad bacteria"
lol...

AND this other question i have is totally unrelated to the other.
If my Black Molly male and my Golden Lyretail molly(she just had her first fry, from an unknown lyretail father!) breed, will the fry be gold and black with possibly long fins?!!!
I have attached pics of both!

 

[OldMan47]

The guppy question is easy. Guppies from the LFS will not know that the other guppies were not from the tank next door. They will breed as guppies always do.
The molly question is much harder for me because I don't intentionally breed fish that are very different in appearance. They will not hesitate to cross but I have no idea what the offspring will look like. Maybe Laurafrog or another molly expert knows more about their genetics than I do and can help.

 

[Battersea]

lol, now that its a yes i might actually try that....
really i haven't bred guppies before, but this could be a cheap start!
someone should do a post on cross breeding colors(like, genitics), it would totally be worth pinning to me!

thanks!

 

[LucaBrasi]

that sounds kinda cool... why not give it a try?

if it work out post some pics

 

[helterskelter]

The wild females will carry on producinf wild fry at first, what u want to do is collect several fry, select the females and keep them virgin.

Then cross that with a cultavated male and you get true cross.

The problem is the large females can store sperm for several months resualting in you not knowing what are crosses and what are not.

As for genetics their is far to much to go into one simple topic!

 

[Battersea]

Great! I'll go net some tomorrow, ive caught plenty before and releced them! Tuff little mites! i'll post pics of both crosses, the mollies im not sure about because the female might be still carring the other unknown male's sperm. The guppies i have caught before have somtimes been fat, but none ive gotten so far have had babies. I see their fry all the time in the ponds, plane but kinda cute!

Quick other question:
are minnows the same thing as guppies ? I think so! the ones in the pond are the planest kind of guppy you can find! gosh

Tomorrow i'll post pics of the guppies i catch! ( i think 2 or 3 should do- not a whole lot of room in the tank, so i'll keep them in a bowl or somthing while i add some water and do a change! )

 

[Battersea]

I have just answered my own question! I think there a tad bit different, but the ones 'round here look more like guppies. For instance mine won't have a dark stripe like you see here:

infact... they look nothing like that! i guess thats good.

 

[Battersea]

Okeydokey here we go! They were in really warm pond water... i though they might go in shock to how much a difference the temp was, so i let there little container float a bit in the tank. THEN i discovered this disgusting pond gunk on on of them! It looked like ich, but more like poop. Its on its side now... so i didn't include it in the shot. (it just died..)
Me and my friend caught them(really the net work was ALLL me ) We think we caught all females but were not sure....

The one i focused on in the pic was the one that im pretty sure is preggers, we put her into the breeding trap. She and another are the only ones that seem ok right now. I put the others in a seperate bowlish thing. So... i hope all goes well. Tomorrow my friend and i are going again to make sure we get good ones, and relesing the ones that seem to be struggling. (last time we were in a major rush)

here are some pics:

 

[Battersea]

Another from the top:

 

[OldMan47]

It is my guess that you have found some gambusia there Battersea. Check the picture here and see if it isn't your new fish. http/www.yorkcounty.gov/eds/images/gambusia.jpg

If that is what you have, they will not be safe with guppy males, they will tear them up.

 

[Battersea]

Thats just great. Perfect.
I looked it up an they said they were part of livebreeder family, i just seem bord now because its not going to be a surprise when they grow up and i see what colors they are because there just plane seethrough! I guess i can later get my own pretty female guppies without trying to be so cheep. i am mad at the fish... my firend wants me to keep it so we can still watch the babies grow up. But i don't see her eating the dry fish flakes i put in there. i figured alll she would ever eat was bugs, and i was right by founding out they eat missceto(sp?..) larva. *sigh*

 

[LauraFrog]

Everybody says they've got a guppy/gambusia hybrid but nobody's ever proved it. Personally I have seen something that looked a LOT like a hybrid but I'm not prepared to say that it was, because there are a lot of things (most specifically the shape of the male's gonopodium) that would just about rule out this happening in the wild. But those do look like gambusia to me.

As for the mollies... both black and creamsicle (which is what the yellow/white colour pattern is usually called) are fairly common markings. Lyretail is recessive, so you won't get lyretail fry in F1 (her offspring) unless the male is carrying the gene. If you crossed two of her offspring together though, you'd be seeing about 25% lyretails pop up in F2.

I really doubt that you'd get black AND gold on the same fish, more likely each fry would be one or the other and you'd get a fairly even batch (about 50/50 black/gold.) Getting black and gold onto the same fish is a pain. It's been done by crossing flat yellow (like the creamsicle) with the black and white dalmatian resulting in a yellow fish with black spots - the yellow dalmatian, which is quite attractive. I don't think you'll get it using that male. (There are two basic types of black molly - the black/melano or traditional black molly which is a flat, velvety black and is what you've got, and another that looks black but is really a dalmatian with such heavy spotting that you don't see any white.)

Somebody also managed to breed a largely black molly with iridescent gold markings, called the gold dust. The black was not pure and there's a lot of greenish/blue mixed into the colour mix, but still a very pretty fish - if you can find it. I've personally never seen one. Still, I live in Australia... I've never seen a celestial pearl danio, an otocinclus, any cory other than julii, paleatus, aeneus, panda or habrosus (which was a MAJOR SCORE) and the only doubletail bettas I've ever seen are ones I imported myself. So the fish situation gets you down sometimes over here...

 

[helterskelter]

Yes their Gambusia and most likely G. affinis affinis

These are nast fish this is why u cant keep them with guppies, they will kill them.
Getting fry from these are very difficult also.

The females can turn and eat their own fry in a second. and in an aquarium they will corner the fry and eat them even if they get away at first.
You have to stuff a tank full of plants and check it all the time for fry.

They will also not cross with guppies as LauraFrog said. if any one ever produces it this it will not be in the hobby.
still I dont want to poo poo on this. these fish are a challenge to keep in an aquaria
If you can do it then your doing well, esp over several generation.

 

[Battersea]

This is all very interesting! I don't see my black male chasing after the lyretail anyway, hes more interested in the black molly female :]

i let the Gambusia go. They seem to much of a hassel!

Thanks for the help with the genetics(colors, fins and whatnot), someone should do a post on it, i think its worth pinning! I could try to put something together from what i gather from other sights... but i bet u guys know more!