Pretty Pink Guppies

In this post, I am going to talk about some pink guppies that I manage to get hold of from a local fish shop in Singapore. They have been appearing in the fish shops on a consistent basis and I think the breeder is a Guppy farmer here in Singapore.

In my opinio, the above guppies are a cross between Japanese Blue Guppies and the the Red Grass strain. I might be wrong but if I have my reasons to actually state the above.

One is the observation that if you look closely at the Caudal fins of the pink guppy, you will see scattered black spots that are very characteristic of the Grass strains and reminiscence of the Red Grass guppy strain.

Another possible cross is a strain which I would just refer to as the Red Delta strain that is a common sight here in Singapore and is bred in big numbers here in Singapore Guppy farms.

The above is just some speculation and observation. I might be wrong, really wrong and I would really appreciate it if anyone who has had some experiences with these guppies help to enlighten us a bit on the genetic makeup of this fish and how it was developed.

-Ardy Ishykiel-

This time around, I would like to share with all of you pictures of my Metal Yellow Ocelot Guppies. These small sized fishes seems to be more popular with the Japanese guppy breeders. A few sites that I visited proved the case.

Here in Singapore, the smaller sized guppies, I feel are not as treasured as their bigger tailed delta cousins. Most of the “mini” sized guppies are kept by planted tank enthusiasts as inhabitants in their carefully crafted planted paradise. Some Singapore breeders do keep this fishes but seldom do show them in competitions.

I observe that small sized guppies seems to appear more colourful than their bigger sized cousins. That got me thinking. Are guppies like LCD telivisions?

You know, when you go to an electronics store and you approach a sales person about buying an LCD television and he says that if you get bigger televisions, the color will not be as vivid as a smaller sized television. I figured that this theory could be working true for guppies as well!

Anyway, we know that bigger does not always mean better. (Which might be true for cars nowadays, especially with the gasoline prices increasing.)

Due to their small size, these guys are hyper and pack a ton of energy. They remind me also of the cartoon Atom Ant. These guys are very active buggers and swim real fast. In relation to that, I notice that they are more able to impregnate the females. The females being bigger in size and being slower swimmers can hardy get rid of the males that try to do their best to help the species multiply.

As such, if you were to keep Ocelots, please do have a proper ratio of males to females. The ratio of 1 is to 1 would be good and the maximum ratio would be 2 males for 1 female. These guys chase the females like crazy and you would be doing your female Ocelot guppies a favor by not stressing them up with hyper male Ocelots that just don’t know when to give up.

The females give birth to about 30 fries and they breed often. You can end up with a lot of Ocelots if you allow the sexes to mix. I therefore would suggest that you separate the male Ocelot guppies and the female Ocelot guppies. Just select the male Ocelot guppy of your choice and a large stocky female to ensure that you will have the next generation of Ocelot guppies to carry on the strain.

For short tailed guppies, they show close resemblance to the wild type guppies. I figured that this has given an advantage to the short tailed strain of guppies. Being closer related to the wild type, they are more resilient and hardy. Therefore, if you are looking for a strain of guppies that is easier to care for and fit your busy schedule, you would want to try keeping these short tailed beauties.

Being easier to keep and to a particular extent easier to breed, I would recommend these guppies to a beginner and planted tank enthusiast.

Happy guppy keeping!

Ishykiel