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