Planted Tank of mine

I started this Blog so that I can share with all who are interested in Guppies the exploits in my the Guppy hobby and now people, I have a Guppy room. It is something which I had always wanted since young, a Guppy Room to keep my guppies and breed them for traits that would make them special.

I have been breeding guppies for as long as I can remember. It was way back in 1992 actually. My first tank was a plastic Guppy brand tank and guess where I got my first guppies? From the local fish shop of course. Nope…not the longkang (Malay word for small drains or monsoon drains) as I believe that the longkang guppies are far from the sophisticated Fancy Guppies that swim with the grace of angels.

Anyway, to keep the long story short. I hope that you enjoy the stuff that I have uploaded here. Please leave your comments whenever possible and don’t forget to email me here. Also, if you want to know more about guppies or would want to get in touch with me. I will share with you whatever information that I have learned and gathered over the years. It never fails to make me happy when I have more people becoming friends from something as simple as Guppies.

Just if you were wondering on the picture above, it is a 5 feet planted tank that I have right smack between my kitchen and living room. I have spent countless hours doing that tank and had started trying to setup a planted tank way back when I couldn’t find a simple CO2 canister and fertilizers for the plants. I never gave up and the industry actually caught up with me and now you can actually do up a planted tank fast once you know what to do, what to get and where to get it. I am quite “blessed’ to be a hobbyist in Singapore as the local fish shop here in Singapore do stock up the equipment needed for me to be successful in this hobby.

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