Guppy problems

[twinkles]

from what i've read it can genetic - most common

or from a vitamin deficincy, as babies or while pregnant.

Or more rarely from tb.

I've had a couple with bent spines, the first one i didn't want to cull but all her babies had bent spines too, so now if any have the slightest bend i feed them to the big fish

Can be hard to get rid of in a line of guppies, because often the fry look straight and fine until they grow up and go wonky.

[LYNDYLOO]

Will try and post a Pic this afternoon

This Crooked Back thing looks terrrible

My younger Guppies that are First Time Breeders are getting it too :roll:

[BikBok]

is my golden guppy above crooked?

she's the biggest female in the tank but I think she's ok, though her back is a slightly different shape to the others.

I can see through her and her spine looks nice and straight.

[twinkles]

hate to say it, but you should go through and cull all the ones that aren't perfectly straight. Otherwise they'll just continue having bent babies.

bikbok yours looks ok

[LYNDYLOO]

Bikbok your Guppy looks fine to me.

If you look at some of mine side on, sort of where the Body and the Tail meet, there is like a big lumpy bent bit in their Spine, bit hard to explain really.

Darn hard trying to get a decent pic of them to show you's, will keep trying though.

[twinkles]

here's an icky example of crooked guppies i just noticed, see pic 3 -

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Pe ... 423398.htm

[SamH]

*Shiver*

They don't want them to be feeders? Is that a joke?

I bred guppies when I first started out with fish and I had a couple with crooked backs (their Ma had one too) but the rest came out fine. When I sold my second batch the guy who bought them was more than happy to take the deform ones, for his Frontsa! :lol:

[BikBok]

here's an icky example of crooked guppies i just noticed, see pic 3 -

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Pe ... 423398.htm

eeek!!

I've seen worse at a LFS though.. it was hideous and I couldn't believe they left it int he tank for people to see.. i mean it was seriously deformed I wondered how it could even swim.

[JazzyJeff]

Phoar! Those pics are shocking!

[LYNDYLOO]

Those pics are exactly what my Guppies look like :-?

Some say it's from lack of Lighting, so I have now removed all of the Duckweed and Indian Fern that was covering the Top of the Tank.

I seem to be losing at least 1 a day to this

Really dont know what to do next??

Seems really weird to me, that I can successfully keep Discus and have them Breeding, but when it comes to Guppies, I cant even keep them alive :oops:

[Aquila]

I don't think its from lighting. I barely have any decent lights in my tank yet all the adults are fine, the babies are all born normal, and the fry are growing normal.

I don't know what the problem is for sure but i always thought in the past that it happened when guppies would overbreed/inbreed to much. It only takes one set of bad genes to start ruining the group.

[twinkles]

i've got tanks with very little lighting and the guppies are fine, as long as they get decent food there shouldn't be any vitamin problems causing it. Wonky guppies have wonky babies, so get rid of all the wonky ones and keep a real close eye on the rest, so you can get rid of any wonky babies before they are old enough to breed. Or sell them all as feeders, and start fresh with a batch of healthy girls and a couple of boys. How many have you got?

[LYNDYLOO]

Things is, they all seem to start off looking fine, then they start developing this Hunchback Syndrome

Even have a few Boys that seem to be not looking so good, looks like their Tails are too heavy for them if you know what I mean.

Have around 15 Girls and say 5-6 Boys.

They get Fed a combination of Bloodworms, Flakes, Tubefix and Tetramin Small Granules.

Lynda

[twinkles]

well then, if you're not particularly attached to them sell them off as feeders and start fresh.

It seems pretty normal for big tailed guppies to look like their tails are too heavy, so they swim on a funny angle, thats the reason i like nice short pratical tails.

[BikBok]

I don't keep any of the fry offspring.. save the very first female tux that was born coz she's cute.

But otherwise i don't want offspring interbreeding with siblings and parents and slowly reducing the diversity of the gene pool.

If I want another guppy I will go out and buy one otherwise I might end up with a drab looking bunch of guppies after a few generations.

Besides, I don't have room to keep all my favs.. so goodbye to my latest little cute snakeskin.. ;-( wish I could keep him!

[SamH]

Not on your fighters though Twinkles?

[twinkles]

nope, thats why i love my boy so much

<--

i had another halfmoon boy, whos tail was alot longer than Glint's and he looked like he had trouble swimming, and couldn't hold his tail flared more than a second or two. He lives at school now, don't want to breed fighters that can't swim properly. Better to have shorter tails that are strong, like the good stiff tails on plakats.

[skippy_49nz]

I'm completely basing my assessments on assumption but due to guppies being bred so far away from their natural state, I believe a LOT of inbreeding would be necessary to fix type and have them breed true.

Inbreeding and close linebreeding in itself is not a problem so long as you are prepared to cull mercilessly for any slight defects or undesireables. People do it with dogs all the time to get the different types of dogs. While the dogs live a harsh and testing life things seem mostly fine. Any which are not up to it get killed as pups rather than being a drain on the owner. When good intentioned pet owners get them and move away from culling those not completely perfect, then the close breeding doubles up the problem and things go downhill fast. Sadly many dog breeds are getting in this situation now. I suspect the guppys could be the same. Very close breeding of good fish doubles up the good traits as well as the bad so as long as there are few or no bad, you should get a more consistent line. I know a guy who was breeding a close family of dogs which were coming out almost as clones.

I don't know the fish genetics behind it so I won't go into that. In order to fix the problem, owners would probably need to be ruthless in their assessment of their fish and any fry and keep culling any with bent backs and so on until they stop appearing. Even then, as other people own them they too would need to be prepared to remove the less perfect specimens from the gene pool. As long as every Tom, Dick and Harry has guppies, I can't see there being enough diligence to cure the problem. Perhaps buying from well established breeders who are aware of the problems in their lines and willing to take steps to correct them will help reduce the problems. The new owner would still need to be prepared to cut out the weaker fish.

[phoenix44]

please please, do some research on google scholar on inbreeding and the effects on genotypes and phenotypes.

past practises of culling dogs (that were bred from wolves) have lead to breeds such as labs and bulldogs etc. labs are now prone to joint and bone disorders and well.. bulldogs need to be artificially inseminated. tiny dogs are prone to low blood sugar... the list goes on.

In order to "fix" your genetic problems - you need to introduce new blood so that there is greater genetic variation and diversity. that way more dominant traits take over the lesser uncommon traits.

with fish - most people do inbreed them; but even the most pedantic breeders will try sourcing new blood for their lines if they can.

(hypothetical) Think of a situation where someone breeds a guppy for its red eyes - finally gets a spawn of pure red eyed babies (by crossing back and what have you) and it just so happens that the gene for red eyes also means that the fish is almost completely blind. the generations prior to this would have produced some normal eyed offspring, most of which would have carried the gene for red eyes. there is a good chance that the red eyed babies from the black eyed guppies are not blind. culling the black eyed babies only mucks up your only chance of having a semi normal guppy. (the rrrr gene {red eye, eye disorder} would only be carried by the fish that are being selected for, while the RRrr (black eye, with red eye genes not expressed are fine).

now im not too concerned about guppy genetics to be honest - the odds of an aquarium strain making it in the wild are too slim - but you should not cull any thing based on a phenotypical trait, cause all you are doing then is narrowing the genetic pool, and then your strain of fish will all be susceptible to the same problems, so 1 infection could ruin all your years of hard work.

[Aquila]

Also 'culling' doesn't always mean 'kill'. Sure with bent backs this is the best choice (or for instance in a group of birds who test positive for bird flu) but more broadly/accurately 'culling' just means to remove from the gene pool you are using to breed the line.

[twinkles]

agreed.

i've had the occasional one pop up thats not perfectly straight, and it goes straight into the angels tummies

Another thing that makes a difference is having at least the parents, and even better some other fish in the tank. Only the fastest and healthiest survive, if they're too slow at birth they're gobbled up fast. I'm really strict about only selling and breeding the healthiest, i figure if i'm going to breed guppies there's no point breeding unhealthy butt ugly things, better to cull alot to start with and get good healthy lines. Giving away or selling any with defects only serves to worsen the problem, because you can't stop guppies breeding and most people buying them from petstores will end up giving away or returning their defective babies in turn. The more people start breeding nice healthy gups the better, with more of them out there people have the option of buying healthy fish. Some petstores lately seem to only have mutant guppies, i've seen tankfulls with no straight ones at all

[twinkles]

sorry i meant i agree with skippy over culling.

aquiliam - i think with guppies culling unhealthy ones should mean killing, how else do you make sure they don't breed?

pheonix - yes widen the gene pool as much as possible, to lessen the chances of a whole strain having a particular problem, but the main problem lies in people breeding for colour/tail shape over everything else. If people are selecting breeders firstly for health, then looking at the colour, we'd have much nicer guppies

[Aquila]

sorry i meant i agree with skippy over culling.

aquiliam - i think with guppies culling unhealthy ones should mean killing, how else do you make sure they don't breed?

pheonix - yes widen the gene pool as much as possible, to lessen the chances of a whole strain having a particular problem, but the main problem lies in people breeding for colour/tail shape over everything else. If people are selecting breeders firstly for health, then looking at the colour, we'd have much nicer guppies

I don't disagree with killing unhealthy guppies...i was just saying that the word culling doesn't JUST mean to kill them. With guppies, yes there are no ways to prevent them from breeding unless u keep them with the same sex only or keep them by themselves. I agree with you that greater care should be taken in trying to propagate good lines but unfortunately there will always be the common aquariumists that keep 2 females to 1 male in their aquarium (like they are advised to do) and this will cause the perpetual breeding of average guppies.

In regards to dogs, 'culling' these days does not mean killing the puppies (unless they are seriously sick)...except if u are are some dodgy farmer who just doesn't want puppies and is too cheap to have his dog spayed. Breeders cull their champion lines by only breeding from the best individuals and then spaying/neutering the remainder and selling them as pets.

You have to face the fact....unless you bought the leading breeding pair of animals off a breeder, you are ALWAYS getting the culled individuals. Otherwise they wouldn't have sold the pet to you and kept it as a breeder. The only thing you can do about it is hope that the animals has at least 90% of the great genes its parents had and then try to improve on that through your own breeding.

[Morcs]

So any word on the problem?

I just had a female give birth yesterday, I have about 40 fry, and shes still big, fat, and pooing stringy black poo...

[skippy_49nz]

My dog example stands. Bulldogs are no longer anything more than pets and look at the trouble they are in. Working labs look nothing like their show and pet cousins and are far healthier because they are bred for function. As someone suggested, put some hungry fish in the tank and only the strongest and best will survive. Unfortunately natural selection has been at work with this for many thousands of years to arrive at the wild guppy. How can we expect to "improve" on this? By breeding away from the wild, we are effectively breeding towards less fit for survival. There are no easy answers...