# Interesting Guppy genetics...



## brobinson (Jan 21, 2012)

I've been selectively breeding Petsmart originating Tequila Sunrise guppies with the snakeskin trait, and at maturity culling smaller delta tails. I either give male and female culls away to teachers, or occasionally freeze and flush the badly mutated fry. I'm at the point where even females are displaying light snakeskin, relatively bright orange-into-red patterns, and 8 months ago, introduced a male delta (large tail), grey with bright purple on his dorsal and tail. I've had mainly Tequila Sunrise females, Tequila Sunrise males, and 5 Tequila Sunrise-with-the-booze-on-fire burning-alcohol trait on the tail. 

But, these last 4 drops, I culled (to a 10g tank) all of the fish that had no color or pigment by 2 weeks. Without fail, all 15 of the males I culled had no color, and only 6 of the 19 females have even a single spot on body or tail. This tank is outside, in my unheated garage, and water temps have hit 58. Yet they all are as active as the unculled stock @76, and I noticed newborn fry yesterday.

Is it remotely possible to get wild-types this thrownback in 1 generation after this long, even with a successfully bred father and female stock?
:chair:


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

You don't really know the strain's history do you? There could be a wild type or endler's recently bred into the line for hardiness. 

What happens when you warm up a pale one? Could it just be a late bloomer or absence of something in the food? Unless you treat both groups the same, you can't be sure it is genetic. 

I do think that if you put "fancy" guppies in a wild-like environment, it will select towards wild type in a few generations. Things like birds eating the brightest ones.

One of these days I'll read my guppy book.


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## brobinson (Jan 21, 2012)

I initially had 3 females, 2 males, when I got my first 10g tank. they all bred true to Tequila Sunrise for about 3 years. Then, I came across a female with snakeskin, isolated her in a 1g betta tank next to the 10 for 8 months, culled the fry until 5 months (when she stopped dropping) then added her. She was the last female that I added. It's been over a year since I added any new guppies, and as for heating the culls, it's been in the 60's and 70's w/water temps from 75-80, still no change, except that I've noticed shoaling and much more active flaring/mating/early gonopodium development. 

I think I might have accidentally bred a wild strain. I kinda hope so, so that I can observe their preference regarding color. I'd love to have a snakeskin/Tequila-sunrise/purple-fringed/green-tinted scales strain.


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## Sorafish (Sep 15, 2011)

Gray on the body is a dominant color. If you breed a Gray body to a gold body, you will get more Gray bodies. I'm not entirely certain if this applies to snakeskin, but I know if you breed a moscow or a 'Tuxedo/hb' to a snakeskin, it will overpower the snakeskin. This makes me think Snakeskin is a recessive gene.

Also, both Purple and Green were selectively bred from Blues. 
Red appears to be a dominant color, but I'm uncertain of this.
Read up on these articles:
http://guppydesigner.com/index.php/philip-shaddock

For a deeper look into the genetics. Some crosses have been experimented with already, so its really interesting to see people's results.


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