I wonder why they call a strain of guppies “Old Fashion”? I mean, is it because they have been around for too long, looked out of fashion when compared to the latest of strains that has appeared in the guppy world and as such be termed as “old”?
I try to make sense of the term Old Fashion Guppies and I feel that these beauties still have a place in the guppy world and are much prized all over the world. Call them old fashion or New Age guppies, they are still guppies that pack a punch in terms of coloration and vivacity.

The picture that I have posted above is of a pair of Old Fashion Albino Mosaic guppies. The picture above was taken at the 2008 guppy competition. Don’t gag on the name as these guppies do contain within themselves a myriad of genes and to produce these guppies from scratch would clearly need an individual with patience of steel.

I really am not too sure why the Old fashion guppies are named as such but from reading various sources of guppy information, I found out that they are believed to be of Southeast Asian and Japanese origin. Most believe that these guppies are called “Old Fashion” because they have a body pattern which is more typical of the wild guppy than todays lines.

However, according to one breeder, this guppy strain have tail patterns that tend to stay within the green, red and black colors. I believe however, that the “Old Fashion” guppies is distinctive than the rest of the strains not due to their tail patterns but rather because of their body patterns. It is in their body patterns that you see close resemblance to the wild type. The wild type guppies have so called “patches” of colour and some of these patches show more sheen than the other patches. These “irregular” shaped patches is distinctive in the wild as well as the delta tailed Old Fashioned guppies.

Some guppy enthusiasts believe that the term “Old-Fashion” is a name given by Japanese breeders and they believe that the strain has direct relations to the Viennese Emerald Green Double sword and the more typical pattern is closer to the wild guppy in its polychromatic variability than most modern strains. The term Polychromatic is used to described “light that exhibits more than one color “and when we use the term in relation to guppies, I hold the view that it used to relate to the guppies body that contains more than one color. This is especially observed in the wild color types and the Old Fashion guppies. It is interesting to note also that the old-fashioned gene is strongly Y-linked. You could then in theory develop all kinds of Guppy strains with the Old Fashion gene when you take into account that the tail color can be X and Y linked.

To me, the Old Fashion guppy is an interesting strain and is a strain that has a huge potential for development. If you are someone willing to take the challenge, I am always interested to interview you on your experience keeping and breeding the Old Fashion guppy.

Happy guppy keeping!

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

In this post, I am gonna share with you guys my experience with a strain of Guppies known as the Japan Blue Guppies or also known as the Aquamarines.

Out of a line of Galaxies, it happened that a Japan Blue guppy came out from a batch of young. It became the first strain that I managed to fix. My thoughts is that the Galaxies were crossed with the Japan Blues to improve the Galaxy’s iridiscents and sheen. If I am not wrong, the Japan Blues characteristics are quite dominant and I guess some breeders might have figured out that they could improve another line’s colour and brilliance and in this case the Galaxies by out crossing them with the Japan Blue strain.

Why are they called Japan Blues, you might ask.

Most people say that the fish was developed in Japan, hence the name. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were actually bred in Japan. My perception of the Japanese in fish breeding is that they take what they do seriously and be quite meticulous when it comes to the details of doing things and achieving their objectives. I am not saying that other nationalities lack this sort of punch but the Japanese have shown that they can produce good fishes.

Anyway, let me tell you more about the Jap Blues. When I first got the male Jap Blue from the Galaxies, I managed to cross it with its sister which happens to be a female Galaxy. The resulting F1 turned out to be approxiamtely a 50-50 ratio of Jap Blue males and Galaxy males. From this batch, I chose a Jap Blue male and crossed it with its sister and continued doing this. By F3, I managed to fix the Jap Blue line. All the Japan Blues that came out from here onwards looked quite similar in terms of colour and size. Most however, did not have a good dorsal size and shape and this is one area that could be worked on if I had enough tanks and space.

One interesting thing to note is that there were no physical or colour difference between a female Galaxy guppy and a female Japan Blue guppy. I find this really interesting and was wondering whether the Japan Blue guppy characteristic only shows in the males and not the females, thus explaining this occurence. I suspect that this could be the case as the female Japan Blue guppies really looked identical to the Galaxy guppy female in terms of size, shape and colour. Simply amazing.

The finnage of the Jap Blues are average in my standards. One characteristic that needs to be improve is the size of the dorsal. Nevertheless, selective breeeding efforts did pay offa s can be seen in the picture below. I managed to improve the dorsal fin to a certain extent. Improving a few fishes finnage is one thing, getting the whole batch looking that way is another. That is why the challenges of Guppy breeding keeps me coming back to this hobby.

Let me conclude, I find that Jap Blues is a hardy line and breeds prolifically. They grow to a large size and is one of the easier strains to keep. It will make a good strain to start with as it is not as demanding as the other strains that might be a lil bit picky in terms of providing them the best kinda conditions.

Do give the strain a shot if you happen to come across any.

PS: I have found a Jap Blue line with blue body and pink tails. More about this guys. I am outcrossing them to another strain to see what happens. Stay tuned!!!

Ishykiel

The pictures that you gonna see are of my prized Galaxies that I originally received from an American Guppy Breeder Frank Chang about 7 over years ago.

I was enthralled when Frank told me that he still have some Galaxies to spare for me. Previously, he said that he had none to spare. U can just imagine how I felt when he agreed to sell these jewels to me.

I received the gups in a styrofoam. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the first ever shipment of guppies were in my hands. Slowly and carefully, I opened the box and saw a trio of the Galaxies in separate bags. One trio of guppies and 1 dead female. Sigh, I hope that I wouldn’t lose the other 2 and yes, from that 1 pair of Galaxies, I still have the strain in my setup, all alive and kicking…oops swimming.

I cant recall, which generation of Galaxy I now have in my tanks. But if there are 4 broods per year, that adds up to 20 plus generations in my tanks and this is the 6th year I am keeping them. Wow. Something unthinkable 5 years ago.

Well, I should also thank the other breeders for helping me maintain the strain while I was away from Gups for a while. (Many things can happen in 5 years plus guys)

The pictures that I have posted are of Galaxies in the 5th generation. The above picture shows a Blue Galaxy. This is the result of me outcrossing this line with a Blue Grass Line, also from Frank. It is indeed a challenge to get Blue Galaxies and I gave up halfway as I did not have enough tanks. Now, however, I have decided to pursue this objective again. I am currently sourcing for a nice Blue Grass Hi Fin Line that might just help me to achieve a line of Blue Galaxies with a nice Blue colour and good finnage.

This strain breeds true but somehow or rather, I had a line that threw out Japan Blues. Interesting right? I was shocked myself as I didnt expect Jap Blues to come out from Galaxies and guess what, I was even able to fix the Jap Blue line. I would talk more about the Jap Blue line in the next post. However, I have lost the line. Nevertheless, it makes a nice story to tell you guys of the Jap Blue line and my experience keeping them. Maybe….just maybe, some of these fishes are still out there in the rooms of some breeders because I remembered some breeders managed to get these from me before the line died out on me.

I will tell you guys more about these Galaxies of mine soon.

~Ishykiel~