Half black red guppies - maintaining/improving the strain.

First guppies to the pond.

I have cleaned out the pond and have moved the first guppies outside:



The water is about 23 degrees now.

The guppies are all offspring of the very dark females. As soon as the have grown out a bit I will select future breeders from them.


I am also running in a lot of plastic containers for the other lines.

Lennard

 

Your snails are trying escape.

 

23 degrees in Rustenburg? Wow.. You guys are lucky. My ponds are still at about 18

 

Only lucky until your tank temp says 31'C and its only 11 o Clock.

 

Eina... Dis warm!

 

When humid at night the snails do leave the pond to feed. I have to put them back on a daily basis- and they do survive outside for a long time if not in the sun.

These snails were kept in the pond the whole winter.

Lennard

 

Blacks

Some of the young "black half black" males are going very dark. I do believe I am going to get some full black fish very soon. I will maintain this line - having the red half black gene will make them valuable for further breeding. Some of the darker females do show the red from my line when the light hid them from a certain direction. Another bonus from this line is that I am getting big males and females also. What I still need is larger finnage - but it will come!

Some pics of the darker fish:





I will select the best male and two females from this line and breed them seperately - the rest of this line will go into a pond soon.

(Anyone wanting to breed any of the guppy Iines(not fixed) I am breeding is welcome to come and get breeding trios for free - also have some plants and apple snails to give away.)


Lennard

 

@lennard, they look great! Keep sharing the great pics

 

Getting there.

The dorsal still needs some work, but the tail does not look too bad?















Lennard

 

Have you ever crossed them with ATFG full reds?

 

Wow.. That's a beauty right there! Can you give us a rundown of the breeding?

 

Hi Lennard, do you have any Virgin females from any of your lines?

 

Not at this stage, Gerhard.

 

An update.

A photo of the fish in the outside pond - the water surface comes alive at feeding time:




Closer view:



There are some very beautiful red half black males in there............, but at this stage I am getting more and more convinced that the "bright" red half black line can only be obtained by outcrossing either a red half black male or a half black female carrying the red half black gene to respectively a red blond/gold male/female. This will mean that the line can not be fixed? This will also mean that two or more lines carrying the red half black gene will have to be maintained.

...but I will do some more international research on this.

Comments on this will be welcomed.

 

Got this from Tony Anderson:

You breed a blonde Red male to a HB Red female to brighten the red in the fins. This will also lighten the black on the peduncle. Breed the best hybrid HB male back to pure HB females and you should be good for 3 or 4 generations before doing it all over again.

 

Some males in the display tank with the discus:









It seems that the crown tail is dominant in my breeding line?

 

The last from Tony Anderson: I have read that the females that produce the best HB Reds have lavendar and/or spotted fins. If yourlineis throwing blonde HB Reds, use them as your outcross line instead of blonde Reds.

Some more pics of my best male at this stage:

 

Genetic madness....but still a lot of fun!

Almost two months later I caught out all the males from the pond. This also gives me an indication of how fast the fish can grow - remembering correctly the males and females could not be distinguished when I placed them in the pond. Some very interesting results:











I do believe this female, one of the original females, have something to do with the coloring.

 

Wow lennard ! Interesting indeed! ! Weird how some funny result comes out generations later

 

Those are some nice guppys, good work!