Peter McLeod

Check out all your local building suppliers for seconds and packing sheets. Its not like your building a house, the fish won't care.If your going to use pink batts find out from a building supplier who is contracted to install batts for them.They will usually have leftovers comming out their ears.

I read an article in a book on the genetics of swordtails. Wild swords (green) were origionally crossed with platties to give them the colour.The offspring were then crossed again back to the wild type and there offspring crossed again and again to retain the colour but keep the swordtail genes.

wild guppy http://www.zierfischverzeichnis.de/ordn ... culata.htm mosquitofish Gambusia affins http://www.iisgcp.org/EXOTICSP/Mosquitofish.htm http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/good-bad/gambusia.html Gambusia affins are closely related to guppies.Like I have said in other posts I don't know if they will cross and don't want to find out.Mosquitifish are very aggressive compared to guppies and much hardier even in temperatures close to freezing for short periods.One reason MAF don't take too kindley to them being taken.I have seen Gamusia on and around the edges of lake Rotorua near thermal runoffs.I doubt if guppies could maintain a healthy popullation bellow 16 degrees. Notice the difference in colour between the wild guppies and the gambusia.

I have always found the pearl gouramis the easiest to keep and the ones I had bred like rabbits. I did find that unlike my fighters they didn't take too well to large water changes, fry especially.

This may work and I have thought about trying it out myself.I would only use the wild females as a clean slate to work with against a nice male you have found somewhere.This does not mean you won't have problems with linebreeding but if your working with clear tailed females it could make setting up a strain easier if your working mainly with the males colour. Wild females are generally clear and don't don't carry any noticable colour. The main problem you could encounter are single and double swordtails after a few generations, depends on when the fish were dumped there if they carry this gene.You may not come accross it at all.This gene is carried on the X chromosome or female genes.I actually like the swordtail guppies but they don't seem to sell well.

There are a few wild populations around the Rotorua area.I will try and find out exactly where.We also have wild populations of mosquito fish around here that arn't supposed to be caught that look similar without any colour.There are also wild populations of mollies around Taupo and apparently swordtails in the Waikete area. Just out of curiosity, why wild.

Just purchased a CD ROM from a breeder in the US.Awesom information for anyone interested in breeding or genetics. http://www.wizardinteractive.com/guppyinfo/

Very nice fish and would be awesom in a display tank. However I tend to agree with livebearer breeder.They look like some kind of hybrid at least.

Is the female the largest. Male guppies can tend to chase the larger females first.

You can condition them in the same tank if you want but you will get better results and more eggs if you contition them sparately.Heaps of livefoods if possible, they will eat baby brineshrimp live or frozen blood worms.Put the fish somewhere they can see each other but can't get to each other.This seems to help the female not only to produce eggs but also to not be as intimidated by the male when they go in together.Still give her somewhere to hide.

You might want to check out petworld.They sometimes have available males and females of the same type(not sure if they are related or linebred) but workable over time.They have red king cobra's at the moment and on their last list they had yellow snakeskins. I am working on a yellow and red snakeskin at the moment (no where near the quality of the fish in the top photo) but stable.I can sell you some of the fish I am working on or just some virgin snakeskin females that you can start a strain with if you see a nice male at petworld.Just make sure the males are as young as possible to help safeguard from infertility problems although true snakeskins tend to be very prolific.

You should think about giving it a go.Cees had a similar discusion with me a few years ago.If your careful about your breeders it won't take that long.It is possible to get four generations in a year if you use the same male over his daughters and then his grand daughters.

Deffinately not bad. I notice the females have some dots in their tails.You could quite easily set up another strain here by crossing the males with the most patern with them.

Cees won't let it die that easily Let me know if you need any help Cees!!

All of my blues and reds are origionally from Kelly.

I can help you out there EON if you want to swap some of your albino's. Have been trying to source some for years to add to my collection. I have a dark blue strain that would be good for you.

Contact your local building supplier.Ask for a phone number of the people they contract to install their pink batts.They will often have offcuts etc you can use.Also ask about dammaged Gib board.No good for housing but for a fishroom there is nothing wrong with just plastering any holes up.You can usually pick up the sheets for next to nothing or free.You can also ask about polystyrene packing sheets if you want even better insulation.They are usually 20-25mm thick 1200x2400 in size.I lined my whole guarage insulation and painted for under $100.I use 2 oil radiators.Power bill is about $25 a month during the winter and next to nothing in the warmer months. You must check with your local council to see what you are allowed to do.All of the different councils seem to have different idea's on what you are allowed to do.

Looks like a bit of a mix there.You have gold body with grey.Some of the females show colour only on the edge of the caudal sugesting perhaps they carry double sword genes.Some of the males look as if they are going more back to a wild type hence the black dot midway down the body.They also look like they may have had snakeskin mixed in at some stage with the small high peak on the dorsal.It is hard to find snakeskins with good long dorsals.Some of the females show colour and others don't show much at all. Are the fish from the same batch of fry.I can see a couple of males in the photo's could become an interesting strain if you had some related females to work with.

Much more economical to insulate and heat the whole room.

Happy to give help and idea's if anyone wants to build a fishroom. Mainly on keeping costs down!!

Get hold of some micro worms.They shouldn't foul the tank as quickly as the powdered food.At about a week old they should be big enough to start feeding on their first brineshrimp. A trick I used to use for getting my fighter fry onto flake is to add a few guppy fry of the same size.The fighter fry will start to copy the guppies.

Iduncan In the wild guppies are much different to look at than the ones available in petshops. Males are about 2.5cm and the female around 4cm. By giving these fish good food and living conditions it should be possible over time to make them larger.Tail and colour would be a different story.Depends on if you are talking true wild guppies or ones that have reverted back to wild type over time. We have a few wild populations of guppies around Rotorua (not Mosquito fish) that can be mistaken for wild guppies, and I have often wondered if it would be worth trying to use the wild very clear tailed guppy females to fix strains easier.I would have to try a very controled experiment perhaps over summer so I can keep them outside away from my fishroom and other strains.Would take a few generations to see if it would work out alright.

Roninboxers I haven't seen albino's in NZ.I would like to.They aparently can be a bit tricky.It would require a bit more tankspace to run a strain like this but would be worth it. As one idea Cross a red albino male into a grey body normal strain female.All offspring will be grey body but will carry the albino gene.By crossing the offspring females back to the orrigional male(prefferable) you will get approximately 50% albino.If you can cross one of the better male offspring back to the mother.As long as the grey body strain you used to start your sister strain was reasonably consistant you should be able to use this new strain for back crossing every few generations. If you no longer had the orrigional male to cross back to his daughters you will need to cross siblings but with this you will only get 25% albino's. This is a vey similar way to what I run my gold body H/B yellows which is also recesive.

I will get hold of some photo's of my males verses females to explain what I mean by shape.Yes it is more of a simplification but in a roundabout way is true.It is an X chromosome dominant gene that enables the males to develope large Delta and flagtail.Without this gene male guppies would be sword or doublesword.The gene fills in the gap. In saying that it would be silly to totally forget the female as to colour and the male for shape.But it is much easier to start a new strain if the female is what I call neutral and shows little or no colour.

(1) How much variation of colour and tailshape do you have. (2) are all the fish related (3) What do the parents look like comared to young (4) what do the females show colour wise, are they clear (5) can you supply a picture or 2 of the fish. Don't think guppies will follow the Mandelian theory completely.You could fix a strain in 3-4 generations or it could take 10. Fixing a strain can take a while depending on what you have to work with. A basic idea is that the females pass on shape and males the colour.If you have a few clear body females they are what you can call neutral, and are much more likely to carry the colour of the male mated with them.The female performs an important task also if you want Delta tail shape, another words choosing the right female with a good triangular shape to the tail is just as important as choosing the right male. It really isn't that difficult.As long as you have a bit of knowledge on what genes are dominant and rescessive the only other thing you need is tankspace and patience.Make sure you separate females as early as possible from the young males until you decide which ones are going to be your choice of breeders.Try to use only one male as often as possible to his sisters daughters and grand daughters at least until you have stabalised your new strain to some degree.On my strains I use at least 2 males in case one is infertile.