Peter McLeod

Cool. There was a small petshop in Chartwell in Hamilton that were getting their guppies from someone in that area that bred double swords. As far as I could see all the males were double swords and when I bred them so were the offspring males. Since the double swords are X linked, any male you cross with a female from a proven doublesword line should produce double swords. Never got far enough into it to try crossing males from my other strains into them to see what would happen.

Haven't got any fish at all at the moment. Sent fish off to various people when my Marriage broke up. Sold an offshoot from that line to someone in palmy. Bruce used to have some of Cees's stock and I know Billaney has another offshoot from that line that is light blue and red. Prety sure the last males he had have passed on, not sure how the females are going. I also think Alan has got some of the yellow line I had. Don't think he has any to sell but you could talk to him and get put on a waiting list for when he does. Cee's and Alan helped me out heaps whe I first started linebreeding. Very good people to use to pick their brains. Still very keen to get back into guppy breeding. I have decided over the last few months to concentrate on building up a good line of guppies devoted to neutral, and X chromosome H/B dominant females, and keep as many as I can virgin for people who want to have a go at making their own lines. Not as nice as the males but will be a challenge anyway. The reason for the neutral females is they cary very little or no colour and are more likely to pass the males colour onto her male offspring. The H/B X dominant females will be good because any male they are crosed with all offsring will be H/B but if you cross the H/B males to a no H/B female later down the line the males resulting from that cross will be non H/B because it is only X chromosome dominant, just a way to create more strains that are fairly stable without too much outcrossing. People tend to forget about choosing nice females and concentrate on their males. Females can be nice in their own rite and it is the female especially in the delta tail shapes that can have a large impact on what the males tails eventually look like, the wider the tail on a female and the more likelyhood that her male offspring will have a wider tail. It's actually a gene on the X chromosome that makes male guppies delta, or flag, other wise the males would turn out some kind of sword tail. Good idea keeping the young males in a display tank inside. Something good to look at and plenty of backups if things go wrong in your fishroom.

True! and nothing stopping anyone from doing it that way, and no reason if you use the right male offspring that you will get decent fish. Theoretically the female should be only droping the selected males fry after the 2-3 drop. My way is very risky, and there is always the posibility of loosing the male. It has happened to me before and it is gutting. Especially when it's a nice male, but it is a much faster way to get a strain going. I almost lost a blue strain that was origionally the strain Cees started a few years ago, by loosing both males that were with one young female that I was given. I spent the next month worrying if the young female was pregnant. She was only young and think I only got a dozen fry off her. Thankfully that was enough to keep the strain alive and after that I always tried to have reserves just in case. When tankspace was low I kept the runner up males of all the strains in another tank together. Another way to start a strain is buying a nice female and using the best male ofspring and crossing him back to mother and sisters and grandaughters e.t.c. I have only used this way a couple of times and found it much less risky but took more effort and tankspace to fix a strain. Using this method is probably better by only crossing the best male offspring back to his mother, and then using the resulting fry to start a breeding program.

Have seen a few posts on people wanting female guppies for breeding with a nice male they have found. Just wanted to give a bit of advice to people wanting to start a new strain. Have a plan. If you are serious about starting a strain start your breeding program before you get a male. Find a female that is a good shape and size. If you want good delta tail shapes go for a female with as wide an angle on her tail as possible. A female carying some of the colour you want in your strain is good. If you are not sure go for a female with as little colour as posible. Keep her well fed and wait for the fry to be born. She could likely be carrying fry from more than one male but at least the fry will be genetically related. Feed the fry well and at 3-4 weeks separate the females from the males. When unsure of the sex treat the fry as a male, you don't want your hard work being ruined. Keep the origional female if possible in a separate tank. She could be useful later. When the females are 3-4 months of age you can start looking for a good male. Don't leave the females virgin for too long. Put the male with the best 3-4 females. If you have limited tankspace you will only collect fry from the best (one) of the bunch. If you still have the origional female you could put her in with the male as well. Repeat the process with separating the females again, and breed the young females back to the father. Keep doing this until either the male dies or the young females stop dropping fry and then use the (one) best male offspring from the last drop of fry. Within the next generation or 2 you will notice the fish are starting to look very similar. Now is the time to start another line. Keeping the 2 lines separate for 3-5 generations and then crossing them back to each other to help with problems comming from inbreeding.

Awesome!!

I found a combination of green water and microworms helpful once they were free swimming. Microworms are male and female unlike earthworms. The male microworms are much smaller than the females. Just have to be very careful not so suck any fry up when syphoning the bottom of the tank.

If all young survive be ready to have plenty of tankspace. After I had a go at spawning them, at 2 months the fry were in two 200litre tanks and I could barely see the other side, had to sell them for rediculous amounts and even give them away to stop the rest from being over crowded.I can say unlike my fighters they did take quite redily to flakes though.

http://www.fullredguppy.com. Prety good stuff there including the guppy designer CD. If your really serious about breeding you could find it very useful.

Found a peice of information in my guppy designer CD ROM. Moscows deffinately origionated from snakeskins. Early strain moscows that apeared in germany had alot of snakeskin patern, and aparently some moscow strains still put out a snakeskin or cobra paterned male occasionally.

Don't know if this will help much. But if you find a decent moscow male with no strain females you could possibly try using a snakeskin female, they aparently origionated from snakeskins somehow. Not sure if this has anything to do with the snakeskin patern covering more of the guppies body or not. Just an idea. Will try to find some more information.

You could try using the male to make your own AOC line. Bit harder to work with than a pure colour, but could be fun.

Anything is worth a go. Even if all you find out that it dosn't work. Can only lead to knowledge. I always wanted to have a go at making a solid snakeskin. Never had the tankspace. Needed two stable lines of non H/B blue or red guppies and blue or red snakeskins to try it.

Might be hard to start a strain with but would be fun to try. H/B is dominant over snakeskin. Crossing a male snakeskin or cobra patern with a female dominant H/B gene is often a cross that is good for producing fish with some kind of patern in the tail but keeping the fish H/B (tuxceedo). Interesting that there are dots in the tail instead of lines. Might be worth a go if you have tankspace available.

Sort of looks like a H/B leopard but red instead of yellow.

Can be a bit difficult if they are too young. Young males have more of a humped back. Their mouths tend to be more turned up. Females have a white protusion near the back of their stomoch. Females also develope virticle stripes within seconds when stressed, although some young males will get them as well. The only other way is to bump the temperature up. Even young males that have only just started to develope will attempt building a nest.

The only linebred stuff I started with were Cees's that he started off years ago. The rest I started from scratch. With a few tanks and a bit of patience it dosn't take long. Getting a few virgin females to breeding size and trying to work out what colours they might carry was the hardest. The rest was just a waiting game. Bit like a strategy computer game that never ends.

Not allot at the moment. Thinking of breeding Oranda goldfish for a while until I have somewhere stable place to live. Really miss the guppies.

Almost heartbreaking not being able to get those strains here.

Did you try the audio stuff with Stan Shubel and the other breeders. I thought that was cool.

www.fullredguppy.com Explains a bit about wasting disease and cures. Good audio interviews by some top American breeders as well.

Prety awesome!!. Tried breeding applesnails. All they seemed to do was eat allot. What was the temperature? and what was the water chemistry like?

Might sound a bit odd, but next time find a male with a smaller tail (younger). I found with some of my lines where the males had big tails, often the males were six months or older, the females stopped droping fry or had very few fry and often dropped eggs with the few fry that hadn't developed. When I put a male or two in with them from that line that was smaller (younger) most of the females would start dropping again. You could also try putting them in a smaller tank if you relly wanted to use him, basically he dosn't have to do as much work to get close to the females. This has worked for me as well.

Christchurch. They do courier. A bit pricey but they pack well. I thought they had a petworld branch in Auckland. Might be wrong. Have seen some interesting stuff at Wounderworld lately. Had Albino guppies males and females a couple of months back. Takes me alot longer to walk around in there now they have extended everything.

Petworld does up a list of new fish they have comming in. Some interesting guppy types and one they are saying is linebred, no pictures which is a bit anoing. Might be worth checking them out. www.petworld.co.nz Go to the botom of the welcome page and click on fish. When the fish page comes up go down to freshwater fish stock. Lots of other fish there not just guppies.

Increase the temperature to 26 degrees, change the water as often as possible with well aged water.Warmer water holds les oxygen so airation is important.Bare bottom tank is essential for easy cleaning.Feed at least three times per day. Finely crushed flake as much as the fry will eat When they won't eat any more flake then give them the brineshrimp. Increasing the temperature and feeding the fish more will make them age faster so you will be able to get through more generations but the fish will also have shorter lifespans.