# Any Ideas on color of guppy fry?



## balloon molly (Oct 25, 2009)

HELLO! 
I recently bought 4 guppies (1 male 3 female). The male was breeding with one of my yellow/red tailed females. The male was a green snakeskin. After around a month she released her fry and now they are two weeks old ( Some of my fry actually have gravid spots already!) Anyhow they are colorless some being yellow bodied and others gray/black. This is my first time breeding guppies. Any ideas on what color they'l be,
Thanks
Happy fishkeeping!:fish:


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

At this point, no idea. Guppies can store sperm for something like 3 batches of fry, so you can't know the father positively until about 4 months after you buy a female. Likely your male is the father of some of the fry, but not all of them.


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## balloon molly (Oct 25, 2009)

So she could have multiple colored fry? She still looks pregnant after her birth so maybe she was pregnant from another male, she gave birth to those and now shes pregnant with the green snakesking guppy male? Sorry if that doesn't sound clear... When do you think they will produce color?  Thanks


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## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

If it is anything like the genetics I learned in my high school biology class then you have many color choices. The fry could carry several genes, but basically it boils down to that they could have the color of the parents or the grandparents. The parents colors are much more likely, but the parents could be carrying a recessive gene that could be passed on to the new fry. If both parents are the same color, you will get the same color fish however.


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## balloon molly (Oct 25, 2009)

O, alright, Thanks!


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Well, to be more precise, if you cross two guppies, the results depend on what genes those guppies are carrying. Thoroughbred guppies have very limited genes, so you get something looking much like what you started with when you breed them. So, in that sort of case, crossing two guppies that look alike can result in fish which look like them, especially if they are siblings. 
When you cross two unrelated fish, however, and of two different color types at that, then you wind up dumping a huge number of new genes onto your pallette, and could wind up with almost anything. You should expect a wide array of colors and patterns from these fish. From those, you could pick a favorite and try to establish your own breeding line of fish which look like that. How to do that? Well, there are entire books written on that little subject.


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## balloon molly (Oct 25, 2009)

Alright Thanks! At first I just wanted some guppies, but when I found out they were livebearing fish just like my mollies and platys I wanted to breed them so I started out with those four not really caring wich the male breed with.


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