cold water guppies ?

[designguru]

Hi all, I'm just newly registered here, and found this site from information on http://pub64.ezboard.com/fboroniaaquari ... =969.topic, where pagasus NZ had a link to you.

I have some cold-water guppies that I've had for a couple of years, and I mostly give the babies away to the local pet shops. I wouldn't mind to get into breeding some of the more beautiful ones, but suspect i would need to invest in a water heater for that type of carry on ? and, i was wondering what size and how many tanks i would need to get into breeding for selling locally?. I heard some people put the fry into alga jar size containers ? is that big enough ?? will i need to get out a small mortgage to finance lots of tanks ? inter-breeding isnt a good look, so surely you'd have to keep all the sisters , brother, mums and dads seperate so they don't **(&(*&( with each other.

There doesnt seem to be much information on cold water guppies, does anyone know of some info about them? I have a cold-water leopardskin and have had some beautiful males with fantastic colours. They breed well too.

but, are they just tropical guppies that breeders have dropped the temperature on ? How did they get turned into cold-water guppies in the first place.

I have to keep the room temperature snuggly for them in the winter, otherwise death is iminent.

thanks, curiously yours, angie.

[Caryl]

Hi angie. I could not get your link to work. As far as I know there is no such thing as a true 'cold water guppy'. Guppies can live in cooler waters than a lot of tropicals so many say they can be kept in cold water. "Cold" refers to the average room temperature in a well insulated house. These are just guppies which have been raised in cooler temperatures.

Have a look through the threads here talking about line breeding guppies. This is where you breed mothers to sons etc to get good colour strains. Incest seems to be desirable in guppies

A heater is usually suggested for guppies and you will need a reasonable sized tank to breed them if you leave the fry in with them (but they usually get eaten) plus tanks for them to grow up in. Too small an area slows their growth. Depending on how many you plan to raise you can have a few, or many tanks.

[Alan]

I have to keep the room temperature snuggly for them in the winter, otherwise death is imminent.

Doesn't this say it all.

Where did you find them.

I presume they are the gups that are seen in the shops that are smaller in size than the normal guppies, and have black spots.

I gather that these have actually reverted back to the wild form from uncontroled breeding.

For line breeding, yes, to do that properly you will need a bank of tanks, and a book to keep notes and an ink pen for writing on the tanks what they are.

Then you are only just starting, ask Peter McClead (spp), from Rotorua.

I'm sure he'll reply to this thread, as he loves his guppies,

and is one of the few breeders that I know that is trying to do 'Line Breeding" properly.

Welcome to the FNZAS site, we don't bite very hard here, got no teeth.

Enjoy.

You don't say where you are from??

Alan

[Ira]

I presume they are the gups that are seen in the shops that are smaller in size than the normal guppies, and have black spots.

Those aren't guppies, those are leopardfish. Different species than guppies and ARE coldwater, unlike guppies.

[Alan]

If I wanted to say leopard fish, I would have.

I breed them and do know the diff.

In fact I have quite a little family of them coming on at the moment.

The gups I refer to are like wild guppies and similar colouration,

but as I said smaller and have black spots on them.

To me they would be catorgarised as feeders.

Alan

[Peter McLeod]

Linebreeding Guppies and other fish is a very rewarding hoby if you have the pacience and tankspace.You will need a minimum of 6 tanks for each strain to do it properly.

I have found temperatures between 22-24 degrees is the best range.Below this the fry tend to be small and do grow hapily but probably won't reach their full potential.Above 26 degrees I have found problems with infertility and also female to male ratio with very few males.

I started my H/B yellow strain off with one nice female I found in a petshop.I did this mainly because with the fy I could be sure they were already related.Most of the fry were yellow with some being black.By breeding the cleanest tailed yellow males with the cleanest yellow females one generation and dad to his duaghters if there were no good males in the next it wasn't long before I had fixed both the black and the yellow with some gold body yellows also comming out as well.Three years or so later I have 3 different strains from one female.

I would not say the fish are perfect and I have seen fish in petsops much better but at least the fish are consistantly that colour and I can work on improoveing different features of the strains over time.

Even if your tanks are small and you only have space for 3-4 fish in each the males and females need to be kept separate until you are ready to choose your future breeders.The main Idea is quality not quantity.Young potential breeders could be housed in a display tank if you wish but keep the females away from all males especially males that are not related.