GuppyLog || Inbreeding?

New to Guppylog?
Immediate Help

Conversions and Calculator
Conversions and Tank volume calculator

Add yourself to our guppylog map
Guppylog Members

* Change as much water as often as you can! *
Inkmaker

Front Page · Everything · News · Ask Guppylog · Diaries

Inbreeding?
By rocky from the Breeding department, Section Diaries Posted on Mon Jul 21, 2008 at 07:06:23 PM PST Tags: (all tags)

Hi Guppy Friends, This blog is totally new for me. After several tank tries with various fish in the last few years I deceided that guppies were for me. I purchased show guppies and have had the tanks running for about 6 months.

I started four 10 gallon tanks with undergravel filters and biological filters (I cover the intake of the biofilter with a net bag to prevent fry going in). Becuase of my early tanks I now am very religious about water quality/testing and quarantine. I also have an established 20 gallon tank...for displaying the best of the male guppies. I purchased three strains of really fancy show guppies and put each strain in its own 10 gallon tank (1 young male/2 pregnant females). These are the family tanks. The fourth 10 gal tank is for quarantine. The fish arrived in good shape. I lost one male the first week and all the others did real good coming into the new tanks. My favorite strain is the all red guppies. One of the red females produced 8 fry loose in the tank and died shortly thereafter. The other red female tried and tried to give birth (I stressed her in a breeder tank before she died) but managed to produce one weak fry then died (full of dead babies). The red weakling has survived but looks a little bent. The red male, who is probably not the sire of the present fry is alive and well.

Questions: 1. Should I breed the sibling guppies to each other? 2. Should I breed the weakling, I do not think his issue is genetic, just a difficult birth? Since he is the only survivor on his moms side I'd like to use him genetically. 3. Should I breed a baby male back to his mom?

My only other option is to buy more breeder fish...I do not want to go thru the quarantine and shipping losses again....and/or buy more tanks to separate the siblings/offsprings/from family members? I do not think I can keep up with more tanks.

Does anybody really care if the guppies are in-bred? Do you typically just let them work it out for themselves or do you delibratly separate and control the breeding? If I let them do as a they will for a few generations, do I then add in some outside breeding stock to open their gene pool? I move all the fry once of some size to the big tank til they mature a little then I separate out the females to be used as feeder fish for my friends set up. I have also taken the excess males (from the one good producing strain) to give to others for their tanks. I want to just keep a few fish in the family tanks. I know it may not be cool to use the females as feeder fish, but really my friend is going to the store and buying fish anyway, so I cannot see the issue.

Although I bought 'show' guppies I am not thinking of showing them...I just think they are beautiful. I do not want them to die out for lack of breeding partners as I have already spent alot of money to get them started and would like to keep them going. Without some additional breeding I do not have many good males in two of the three strains for my big display tank. Thanks

< High pH and Sandy particulate clouding | Swim bladder injury? >

Menu

· create account

· F.A.Q. For Newbies!

· Immediate Help For Newbies!

· search

· Scoop Info

· Our Tanks

Login

Make a new account

Username:

Password:

Related Links

· rocky's Diary

Inbreeding? | 4 comments (4 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Inbreeding? (none / 0) (#1)
by New Guppy Momma on Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 05:52:41 PM PST

Good luck with your gups. As for mine I introduce a new male every 6 months or so. Altho I'm now trying to get out of Guppy's as they are taking over my tanks and harassing my mystery snail. So I won't be getting any more.

But that's what I did when I was in Texas with my focus on guppies. Now I'm more into other livebearers.
As for using females as feeders....I have a neighbor boy who buys some of mine to feed his oscar. It's better than having them all die of a disease due to overcrowding.
Before all else fails....do a 25% water change ;)

Inbreeding is not unusual in animal and (none / 0) (#2)
by unclescott on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 12:27:12 PM PST

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.

[ Parent ]

Re: Inbreeding is not unusual in animal and (none / 0) (#3)
by rocky on Fri Aug 01, 2008 at 04:39:28 PM PST

Thank You Uncle Scott, I'll check out the books. I guess this explains why the guppy breeder I visited looked fairly crazy and had over 200 tanks. It makes me appreciate more the people who are willing to do all this just to make a beautiful fish.

[ Parent ]

Re: Inbreeding is not unusual in animal and (none / 0) (#4)
by rocky on Fri Aug 01, 2008 at 05:09:07 PM PST

Just one more reply...I read the guppylog articles mentioned. Thank You. Maybe I will learn how to actually search this stuff soon. I have to say my five aquarium set up is not going to get me anywhere with selective breeding. I guess I will just have to use bred fish from somebody who knows what they are doing. It will be much cheaper than the 12 or so tanks per strain to get any reasonable breeding done! At least I have not 'ruined' my show guppy lines by mixing the different strains together. After doing the math on how my strains must have been generated it really would be waste.

[ Parent ]

Inbreeding? | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

create account | faq | search