Guppy Line Breeding Project Log

[cockroach]

Supercool! Very nice project, progress and success!
One suggestion I can think of (probably you are implementing something equivalent) is to separate the growing fry by gender as soon as they can be recognized, which is relatively early relative to getting to full maturity.
In my experience, both males and females develop much better (stronger, healthier, and attaining larger final size) if separated, such that no energy is spent in courting (males) and on having babies (female) at an early age. Males develop better tails and overall coloration, females are stronger and larger when grow-out is separated by gender.
Of course this requires additional work (constantly because they don't all develop at the same rate), and more aquarium space. But in my personal experience, it is well worth the effort.

The rack is divided into 5 sections at the moment breeding 3 strains. The top 6 tanks are breeding 2 lines of wild type bottom swords. 3 tanks for each. 1 breeding tank, 1 female grow-out/drop tank and 1 for male grow out.
The middle 6 are divided the same way but for 2 lines of silver el dorado endlers. Every 3rd generation I will cross the two lines.
The bottom row of tanks only has 3 up and running with some ok quality red grass. I want to move these and get a different strain but start with a much better quality group. I will leave 4 tanks for this strain.

I have started noticing the difference in separating sexes for grow-out and will continue to do so.
I tried using these drop boxes but the females got so stressed they would drop underdeveloped fry which often died.


Then I made drop tanks with plastic mesh boxes that fry can swim into and females cannot fit through. I had to do this because both strains are ravenous fry eaters. One silver el dorado cleared out more than 30 fry in 30 mins.


I bought this pump 14 months ago and only set it up on tis rack. Contrary to what the box promises, this pump is anything but silent.

Even with a t-shirt to absorb some vibrations I can hear it almost three floors up.

 

[cockroach]

A shot of the Wild Type Bottom Sword Line A. 1M 3 of 6F.
This line is being bred for the dorsal and bottom sword. Line be is for size and color.

 

[cockroach]

The fry refuge cages I made. Cheap and simple.


The Wild Type Bottom Swords


I now have 2 lines of El Silverado Endlers. The size difference with males and females is insane. Even though males are small, I think they may have some guppy genes in them.


And fry, fry fry....EVERYWHERE.
And these two strains are so damn hard to tell males and females apart at a younger age.


The Red Grass Delta Tales I got. They have a bunch of fry starting to color up for the next generation of breeders. Not high quality of anything. This summer I am looking to replace them with a high quality, show guppy strain of some sort.

 

[cockroach]

The shrimp have been taking off lately. The mixed cherry shrimp tanks are almost at a volume where I can start using them as live foods for the larger tank.

 

[Chub_by]

This has been a great read, nice thread

 

[cockroach]

The El Silverado F1 fry have grown up nicely. They are super hard to get a pic of as they are super fast. The F2 fry are now growing up but I have not seen any great males yet.

.
The Red Grass F1 guppies have also grown nicely and are in full swing making the F2 generation.


The rainbow grass I have had going for a few years is slowly plodding along. As a colony the fry get eaten a lot. And in addition to this, there blood line is so mixed the color of males I am looking for only comes along once in a while. I added one of the lower grade red grass females to see if it helps up the anti a bit.



I went to Taipei about 3 weeks ago and got 2 great pairs of "Metallic Red Grass" guppies. Not sure of the strain as it was in Chinese and I forgot to take a pic of the name. I have put them in a 10 gallon to see what the fry are like. I like that the females have a nice dorsal and some tail color.


The wild types have been moved into a tub on the roof. They will breed out as an uncontrolled colony for a while to see what comes out of it.

A weird color came out of the El Silverados which has all the colors of the parents but none of the blue or iridescence. I dropped them with some female sin a roof tub and will see what happens with their fry.

There was also a blonde color strain that came out from the El Silverado and I have given these 6 tanks in the rack as I really like them. They are small, bright and pretty. So trying to breed more of them.

 

[Hybridfish7]

Not sure if it's somewhere in the 12 pages of thread, but do you have any advice on how to get them to drop fry consistently/what did you use to make the fry refuge cages? I'm getting back into breeding platies so I'd like some quick advice, and you seem like the person to ask. My setup is just a 20 long with sand, cloud of hornwort and then leaf litter and sticks.

 

[cockroach]

I just feed regularly and change water regularly. Once they are settled and not afraid because the routine is consistent. Their drops become more consistent.

I used a plastic grate I cut up and cable tied in the size I wanted. Here they are used as floor covers for wet areas. The holes were perfect size for keeping the females out.

As long as fry have places to hide from parents, you should have plenty in no time. The hornwort should help as well.

 

[cockroach]

Fry Fry everywhere.
The el silverados are not very good stock. They do not breed true and MOST males have low levels of color or iridescence. And with the large groups of females I can't pinpoint the ones that are dropping colorful fry. Soooooo.......I will see what to am going to do about that.

The new metallic grass guppies are breeding well and I will need to get a growout tank for their fry soon as it is filling up quickly.

 

[cockroach]

Was running out of space so had to thin out the herd.

The El Silverado's were getting too numerous. The females are also getting quite large so went and removed all the breeder females and replaced them with the largest of the next batch of fry that were getting ready to breed. These are about 2~2.5cm.
I am struggling with males. They are not breeding as true as I had hoped. This wasn't all that unexpected as I got them wholesale and cheap. However, very few males have all the coloration of the desirable males. This leads me to believe the problem is lying in the females.

I am toying with separating 6 pairs and breeding them in their own tanks to see what happens and which pairs throw proper fry. This will be a few months of watching which I am not sure I want to do. I may just get a new strain and breed them for a while.

The red grass are doing well and breeding nicely but I have noticed a fair few which seem to be 'stunted' or have warped spine between the caudal penduncle and dorsal fin. When I notice these I remove them.

Then blonde strain of the El Silverado that popped up are breeding nicely and I finally have enough fry to be able to start choosing breeders. That should happen in the next month or two.

For food, I have just gotten 2 livestock feeder hanging containers I will use for the BBS hatchery. Having that up and running again should get some good growth in the fry. I also got a vinegar eel culture I will raise and feed those occasionally as well as to the odd egg I rescue from the barb and danio tank.