plant husbandry. Here is a start:
Line breeding:
People breeding to develop or maintain really superior lines of guppies will very carefully select one or two males and one, two or three virgin females and put them together as they get size on. The first batches of fry may be discarded (perhaps fed to something bigger or euthanized.) Probably only the next or next two batches of fry will be kept. That sounds cruel but otherwise one would be over run with crowded, stunted, possibly diseased fry,
Not only that, but they keep stud books of each individual, so they know woe descended from whom. In line breeding, some breeders will keep maybe 4 lines of the same color, let's say blue deltas. They are very careful which male and which female they will use. Then every 4 or 5 generations they will back cross the best members of those lines of blue deltas for their next generation. (Line A x B, Line C x D.)
Stan Shubel has written a couple of excellent guppy books. The smaller, more recent one, available in big box stores, is more for newer aquarists. You probably could get his out of print Proper Care of Guppies (Tw-133)(Hardcover - Dec 1995) through interlibrary loan.
If someone doesn't do that, after a few generations the guppies will devolve more towards wild forms. Fancy Bettas also need that selectivity, though it probably isn't as rigorous.
Any time people play with a sport or a "good mutant" which is quite different from the wild form, they will have to guard against offspring going back to the wild forms, which a lot of that fish's DNA favors. Probably the hardest to breed to form are the really fancy gold fish. Maybe 5 out of 500 fry in some fancy strains will be eligable to breed the next generation or show. Recently read where with a certain strain of lionhead, with no dorsal fin and a well proportion hood, the top notch specimens might be 1 in a 1,000!
A terrific thunderstorm is here. Want to get off before frying the computer. For more see below and Google line breeding guppies.
All the best!
unc
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2007/7/26/19017/6213
color dominance genetics
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2006/10/21/5486/8345
Conservative reproduction math:
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2005/8/4/135040/3766
Just breeding stuff:
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2005/8/4/135040/3766
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2006/2/7/133323/9683
A really good book on the shelves of the big box bookstores is the $10 Aquarium Care of Fancy Guppies by Stan Shubel (TFH Press). Browse it in their beverage area. Even if you decide not to buy it, you will glean some great info from it.
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