Half black red guppies - maintaining/improving the strain.

Needing a project for the coming months I am looking at my guppies. I mostly have half black red strain guppies - they are the leftover result of my experiment trying to use them as discus fish food.
But on a serious note, I do love the color on male guppies! An added bonus is that the species do produce and grow out quickly, and with the "unstable" genes - anything can happen!
I have done some research:

From: Guppy Types | Guppy Associates International Chicago



HALF-BLACK [FONT=&amp]is any male or female that has a black (any shade) coloration from the edge of the dorsal to the peduncle area with at least 50% coverage. The gene for half-black can be y-linked, x-linked or passed from both parents.

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[FONT=&amp] [FONT=&amp]Half Black Red[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]The Half Black Red guppy is a Red guppy with the half black trait. Some are genetically gold to have a cleaner red tail, but this degrades the desired dark half black body. This type of guppy is difficult to have the desired 1 to1 proportion body to tail length.[/FONT]

[/FONT][FONT=&amp] From: guppy colour genetics - FishForums.com

[FONT=&amp]Reds and H/B Reds: I will use the gold bodied red males into the gray bodied h/b red females to improve the h/b reds. First generation will give 100% h/b reds. These are show stoppers. I then discard all the females from the cross and breed the males back to the pure gray bodied h/b red females. The downside of this cross is losing the deep h/b body color in the males. Always select the females with the darkest body color. (Note: you can create an excellent gray red line by saving some of the F1 females and crossing them back to the pure gold red males. The resultant offspring will be 25% gray reds.)

Improving the strain will mean this:

"[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&amp][FONT=&amp][FONT=&amp][FONT=&amp]This type of guppy is difficult to have the desired 1 to1 proportion body to tail length." ?

To add something "personal", most of the young males are showing the orange above the light blue between the pelvic fin and eyes.



Would be desireble to intensify the coloring?

Would love your thoughts on this.

Lennard[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

[/FONT][FONT=&amp]
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I'm unsure of what your exact plan is with them, but I'd select one male which you think looks best in terms of color, size/tail size (whatever you select for). Use him and only him to breed with the females. If you want to keep the half-black body maybe this will be something that is carried over by the females and therefore select the HB females. Once their fry grow up, breed the father with his daughters. Later you should start looking for a male that looks better than his father(in terms of what you want to select for) so that you can eventually replace him, repeat this as the strain improves.. I am no genius, so any other help from members will help all us guppy breeders..

 

Thanks for the reply, Nemo.

It seems that the half black gene is carried by both the males and females.
[FONT=&amp] "The gene for half-black can be y-linked, x-linked or passed from both parents."[/FONT]

At this stage my main aim would be to maintain the traditional red half black strain. If possible I would like to reach [FONT=&amp][FONT=&amp]the desired 1 to1 proportion body to tail length[/FONT][/FONT], darken the black/dark blue and intensify and define the orange and blue. The males I have are quite small in reation with the female - so long term I would like to get some bigger males.

It seems that long term it would be best to breed three lines of the strain - the three lines being closely related but slightly different?

Looking at the fish I have this can be the possible three lines:

Line A - Mothers to sons.


Line B - Brothers(Still young and changing colour.) to sisters only the ones showing half black and no colour in tails):


Line C - This male(Full red now.) and the females showing half black and colour in tails.



Any thoughts on my ramblings will be appreciated.

Lennard

 

You only need to breed females with one male, if you breed them with different males you are going to get a bunch of different fry and leave you in same place in which you currently are. One line will already cause you to have quite a few tanks, when fry starts growing up males and females need to be split. That gives you three tanks already. I'd only go with one line..

 

This is so exciting. I love it when people start experimenting and thinking a bit out the box. I saw a similar strain at Petstop in Pretoria, it had cleaner definition but very very attractive. If that's what you aim to achieve , your are on to something lovely.

 

WOW! The colors are nice I like it.

 

Thanks for the replies.

It seems that the males from Line B are bigger than the other males.



The males are colouring up very quickly! I have bought two second hand smaller tanks and tomorrow I am going to get 2 more for free!

Now I need a fish room!

It is a lot of fun researching genetics.....and I do wait for that luck mutation!

Lennard

 

Good job!

 

As far as I remember these fish are the brothers and sisters of the others coming from my fish pond:






Some nice dorsals from this line:



I do like them?

Lennard

 

Looking good! I have spoken to @pHish-man about guppies before as he also breeds some and he told me that a long dorsal is a must in a show guppy. Just keep that in mind..

 

Beautiful guppies, my uncle loved the black and red ones. At a time I've had some but changed my tank setup so got rid of them but for some reason it's always fun to have guppies. Good luck with your project.

 

Thanks for the positive replies.

If I understand the genetics correctly, crossing a darker bodied fish with an albino red bodied fish, you will get a half black reds with bright red tails and half black bodies. Crossing half black reds with darker dark red tails to each other, you will get darker, almost black tails? Does this mean that it would be an good idea to maintain a black line with red tails in their history for future linecrossing?

This would mean that it would not be a good idea to cross this male from line B with the dark females from the same line, rather cross it with the lighter coloured females to try and keep the red color in the tail and dorsal?


Not these females:


Rather the ones showing some color:


To maintain the black cross these dark males with the darked coloured females?



Any thoughts on this will be welcomed.

Lennard

 

Some more pics and some more thinking needed......but I do enjoy all the genetics.

It seems that the females and males from the fish pond do have some blond/gold background:






I do remember now that the males I bought in the beginning were Tequila Sunrise males:


The original male had a bigger tail:


The original females are probably carrying the red half black gene:


The males are showing this gene.

The blond females and red half black males are then brothers and sisters - there are some fry growing up. It seems that one out of ten fry is going to show the Tequila Sunrise coloring. The rest seems to be red half black.

Will post some new pics of the other lines also.

Lennard

 

Some of the fish in the mixed tank. They are all related to the others.







This ones is sparking my interest - the orange on the tail is brilliant!



Lennard

 

Leonard , those fish are beautiful. Where about are you ? Very well done. I would love to see them in person.

 

Rustenburg

I am from Rustenburg in North West.

If you ever come this way you are welcome to visit.

At this stage I am still selecting the fish for the different lines. I am very lucky because it seems that the half black red genes is strong in all the lines.

Thanks for the reply.

Lennard

 

Ah no worries Brew. I have an office up there. If you ever need anything from John to up there, just shout.

 

Thanks.

There is a good chance that my red half black strain is going to produce some big ear guppies.

Here are examples:



Big ear (pectoral fin) guppy

Would love some of them!

Lennard

 

Size of males.

I have found this video that Matt have uploaded to Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Hi0iq55J0

I have noticed that the two Tequila Sunrise males I had/has were also very big. This one is much bigger than the females:


The other Tequila Sunrise male that died, did mate with some of the half black females, and I have noticed that some of the red half black males are growing much bigger than others:


The photo is from a few weeks back, and both the males have coloured up nicely. It would be an good idea to breed the best one to his sisters to conserve the "big male" gene? Or would it be better to breed the father to his daughters? The daughters are lighter in colour than the mothers.

I have separated the sisters from the males and they are without a male for a while now.

Any thoughts on this will be appreciated.

Lennard

 

Hey Bro,

Those Guppies are stunning.