Think about who you learned to swear from. Your parents hadn't intended to teach you that either. ;) Regretably, sometimes these things happen.

Hypothetically, one could assume in nature, if there was not enough food in the pond, that cannibalism might help preserve the species. The adult might be able to hang on (until the rainy season?) when food would be more plentiful. Theoretically if the adults were starving, there might not have been enough food for the fry anyway.

Your's is a good question about protein in the diet. Sometimes the big issue is just consistantly feeding them. Any food is better than nothing.

Shubul didn't say when his guppies pretty much ceased cannibalism. On the other hand he didn't keep the cannibals or let them reproduce. He does continue his lines for years, selecting the best of each generation and back crossing lines every 6 generations or so. For instance he keeps three or four lines of his blue guppies.

He wrote that he often isolates his females before they drop. While they could have copies the pattern of eating fry from a holding tank (Shubul admits to getting so busy he may not isolate all females as soon as he would like - but he usually only breeds fish collected from controlled situations.) Humm, he always keeps tanks of virgin females of key strains too. They wouldn't be in a position to "learn" that foraging pattern prior to impregnation.

It is up, I would guess that you could link to the IFGA page and Shubul's page and check around.

If you want a spoof on killer guppies, go to:  http://www.killerguppies.com/

Naturally that site isn't up this morning. Hummm.... too much happy new year?

Ken is a president or former president of an Aquarium Club from the east coast. I wish him the very best with his growing mail order business.

While Shubul has long been an advocate of varied feeding, he also has been keeping guppies since before a lot of us were born. Who knows if he purchases these days from Ken? :)