Using the Internet as a Learning Tool

As most of us can attest, the Internet is a great medium to gain, distribute and share knowledge about just about any subject, and the aquarium hobby, guppy breeding in particular, is not an exception. There are a myriad of Internet sites dedicated to the subject of guppy breeding. Just use any search engine using the works "guppy breeding", "guppy husbandry" or "guppy genetics" and you will see that there are a good number of Internet sites posting useful information. Guppy Designer (GD), for example, has provided valuable information to the hobbyist, beginners and advanced, for the last three years on a paid subscription basis, although some parts of the site are accessible free of charge. Now, GD is coming out with an e-book. The International Fancy Guppy Association's web site is another source of information. International guppy clubs or associations are also a good source of information. The World Guppy Association has many pages in English now. European web sites like the Swedish Guppy Association provide useful and complementary information to that found on we sites in the United States (Also, check out their links page). In Asia, the Japan Guppy Association web site is unfortunately only in Japanese. The Korean Fancy Guppy Association is in English. There are also other web sites (like http://www.guppyinfo.de/) that provide useful information and that at the same time are intended to promote top quality product distribution throughout the hobby. Also we can't forget the friendly space of the forums dedicated to guppies around the world. These forums are much more interactive and are more frequently updated than regular site's pages. You can say these forums are "on the move". Most of us like the Internet and searching for information in the worldwide web is part of the fun.

This is the first issue of the Guppy Labs e-Bulletin. Our mission is to to present reliable technical, scientific and empirical information about Poecilia reticulata, from all/any parts of the guppy world and without any guppy politics. Our aim is to write articles and reviews that provide information that is timely, innovative, or hard to find, and that is relevant to the hobby. Our initial goal is to publish one bulletin every three months, or four times per year. We plan to archive all issues and make them available upon request. We may change out web host at some time in the near future. If you wish to make sure you receive every issue, free of charge, please register here. You would not want to be left out. Also, please send us your comments and suggestions.

Because this bulletin is organized by general topics such as history, genetics, nutrition and aquaculture, we will attempt to use our Feature Articles to "set the tone" for the flavor of the bulletin. In this current issue, we cover some of the basic in terms of technical information and historical perspective, as well as current events such as the World Guppy Contest 2003. Anyway, here is your first meal. Enjoy it like a Thai dish prepared with ingredients from different countries by two crazy Latin chefs. We hope that Guppy Labs e-Bulletin can become part of your Internet experience in search for guppy knowledge.

Sergio Chaim,
Editor
chaim@iconet.com.br

Enrique Patiño,
Co-Editor and Webmaster
chimbolo@comcast.net

The Guppy – An  Overview  of  Varieties, Strains  and  Standards

If you are not "into" guppies in a big way, you are surely wondering who the heck I am and why I should be telling you about these popular little fish. My name is Luke Roebuck and I am President of the Pan Pacific Guppy Association located in Southern California. Mike Reed asked me to write this article and perhaps a few more on guppies. I hope to provide a different perspective from the already published material as well as interesting reading material on the topic. But in the end, my real goal is to get some of you interested enough in guppies to consider keeping them and maybe even join those of us who breed and show them both locally and internationally.

Before we begin, here is a little bit of my background: You could almost say that guppies are "in my blood". I was born and raised on the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean, the home of the guppy. There, I started keeping guppies and other tropical fish when I was but five years old. I kept pet store guppies as well as wild guppies from the nearby creeks and raised them all in my backyard ponds and tanks. It was the beginning of a lifelong fascination and passion. I still remember coming home with my pants colored green with algae but a happy camper because I had a bucket full of "millions fish" (another name for guppies). At a local pet shop in which I spent a few summers working, I was exposed for the first time to show guppies that the owner imported from breeder Lou Wasserman in Florida.

Back in the hobby after a short college break, I have bred show guppies for seven years. I currently maintain over 200 tanks and 30 different strains of show guppies some strains of which are recognized at International Guppy Shows in Europe, South America, and Japan. I am an assistant judge with the International Fancy Guppy Association (IFGA) and along with my other duties as PPGA president, I currently maintain a web site for the club as well as my personal site (http://members.tripod.com/~PPGA).

Fancy guppies are second only to goldfish as the most popular of all pet fishes worldwide and are sold in pet stores and raised by millions of hobbyists in almost every country the world over. The leading countries for guppy breeding and new strain development include Germany, Japan, Singapore and the USA. A few other countries are quickly increasing in importance. In the last several decades, the guppy has been bred into many different variations, commonly known as "strains", that come in a plethora of colors and fin shapes. Guppies, have 23 pairs of chromosomes (the same number as we do!!!) chock full of genes. These genes and their manipulation by breeders are the basis for the seemingly limitless variations that make for the different strains and hybrids we see today.

The road from wild guppy to fancy guppy is a long one. The wild guppy was first discovered by both German and British explorers in the mid nineteenth century and specimens were shipped back to Europe to be studied. It was only after many decades that the genetic potential for great and beautiful variation was uncovered. This led to the earliest Fancy Guppy Standards, formulated in Britain and Germany. In turn, these standards led to the creation of the first officially recognized guppy varieties - created by the British Guppy Breeders Society as well as the German Guppy Federation. Some of these early varieties still exist and remain popular today. These include roundtails, speartails, topsword, bottom sword, double-sword, lyretail, cofertail and robson. A more detailed description of the more commonly recognized shape variations of guppy will be discussed ahead.

Later, during the late 1940’s to early 1950’s, a German-born, American breeder Paul Hahnel (a cabinet maker by trade) encountered a mutation in his guppy strains which he used to give rise to the modern fancy-tailed guppy strains. His "veiltail" guppies took the fish world by storm and were distributed to European breeders who worked the strains and incorporated them into their standards to include the scarftail, flagtail, veiltail and deltatail forms.

The American Fancy Guppy Association was created in the 1950’s and refined guppy standards to a new level. With Hahnel’s as well as several other prominent American breeders’ veiltail and deltatail strains, the USA Standard was refined to recognize three main tail shapes of guppy that proved to be more popular in the USA. These were deltatail, veiltail and swordtail variations. These guppies were distributed around the country and, then, the world and helped to drive the refinement of similar new standards in Europe. The Europeans, being a bit more conservative, also maintained the standards for their earlier types, many of which are still recognized in Europe today but no longer in the USA.  It should be noted that the above mentioned  varieties reference only specific recognized forms of guppy finnage shape.  These different forms can in turn support a limitless variety of guppy strains, some of which are still being developed today.

Since those days the guppy hobby has spread like wildfire to many places, including Asia. In the far east, low labor cost coupled with the ideal climate created a focal point for the commercially bred fancy guppy. Breeders in Singapore like Phoo Phang Tin and others in that region took the large-tailed guppy and bred it into many new varieties. For example, Singapore was famous for some of the earliest known snakeskin varieties. (This variety has several parallel development sources in other countries as well.) By the early 1970s members of The Singapore Guppy Club were known to breed some of the finest guppies of that time. The breeders in SE Asia didn’t strictly adhere to the USA or European standards for form or finnage. Rather, they "followed the genetics" of their guppies to the first significant separation of the commercial guppy from the show guppy.

Japanese breeders took the guppy in the 1960s and made significant advances along their own paths. They developed the guppy into the highly colorful "glass and grass" patterned strains and created other of their own strains from imported varieties from the major breeding centers of the time. Among other modern improvements to the guppy varieties are the expensive longfin guppy strains that are prevalent in Japan and among far east private breeders. These I believe originated from German/Austrian longfin guppies known as Berlin guppies.

Today the commercial guppy exhibits relatively few improvements from its original quality in the 1970s (with the exception of a type known as the yellow micarif Strain). But the show guppy has been vastly improved with respect to new colors, size, increased body color and finnage shape. Today, there are more than 50 varieties with at least 12 different tail shapes recognized in Europe and Japan as well as five basic tail shapes and body color varieties recognized here in the USA. We have such familiar forms as the deltatail, veiltail, top and bottom swordtails, and double swordtails. Color types include gray bodied, gold bodied, halfblack, bronze and albino varieties.

With British guppy activity slowing, the European standards were refined and developed by the Germans and Austrians through the creation of the International Conference of Guppy Highbreeding ( IKGH). Later, the newer European Guppy Association (EGA) adopted the IKGH Standards and incorporated them into the European Union of Guppy Shows. Now all the European countries recognize the same standards and have common competitions in all the different countries for an overall European Championship. Recognized European strains include Vienna emerald double swords, tuxedo yellows and whites, flamingo reds, mosaics, snakeskins and cobras, albinos, pinks, Moscow and metal strains and more.

-Currently there are 12 finnage forms  recognized in Europe by the IKGH

1- Veiltail        

               

1 The caudal fin should have the shape of an isosceles triangle of 45 degrees coming off the peduncle.
2 The ideal length is 100% of the body length.
3 The edges are straight and even and the corners can be slightly rounded.
4 The slim dorsal fin first raise steeply upwards and ends pointed at the end of the first third of the caudal fin.

2 - Triangletail (Delta tail)

1 The caudal fin should have the shape of a triangle having 70 degrees coming off the peduncle.
2 Its length corresponds to 80% of the body length.
3 The edges are straight and even and the corners can be slightly rounded.
4 The dorsal fin first raise steeply upwards. It is wide and ends at the end of the first third of the caudal fin.

 

3 - Fantail

1 The caudal fin has gently curving upper and lower edges. It is widest at 75% of its length.
2 The rear edge is concave and its length corresponds to 80% of the body length.
3 The width of the caudal fin is 75% of its length.
4 The dorsal fin is rounded and reach the end of the first third of the caudal fin.

4 - Scarftail

1 The caudal fin has a rectangular shape and its length corresponds to 80% of the body length.
2 The width of the caudal fin is 40% of the body length.
3 The fins front part is rounded.
4 The minimum length is 60% of the body length. the minimum width corresponds to the body height.
5 The slim dorsal fin first raise steeply upwards and ends pointed at the end of the first third of the caudal fin.

 

5 - Double swordtail

1 The caudal fin has an oval basic shape with sword-shaped extensions of the upper and lower fin rays.
2 The length of the swords corresponds to 100% of the body length.
3 The outer edges forms an angle of 30 degrees or more.
4 The part between the swords can be colorless and reach maximum 40% of the body length.
5 The slim dorsal fin first raise steeply upwards and ends pointed at the end of the first third of the caudal fin.

6 - Top swordtail

1 The caudal fin has an oval basic shape with a swordshaped extension of the upper fin rays.
2 The length of the sword corresponds to the body length and the sword come off the body axis at a 15 degree angle or is parallel to the body axis.
3 The basic oval part of the caudal fin can be colorless and reach maximum 40% of the body length.
4 The slim dorsal fin first raise steeply upwards and ends pointed at the end of the first third of the caudal fin.

 

7 - Bottom swordtail

1 The caudal fin has an oval basic shape with a swordshaped extension of the lower fin rays.
2 The length of the sword corresponds to the body length and the sword come off the body axis at a 15 degree angle to the body axis.
3 The basic oval part of the caudal fin can be colorless and reach maximum 40% of the body length.
4 The slim dorsal fin first raise steeply upwards and ends pointed at the end of the first third of the caudal fin.

8 - Lyretail

1 The caudal fin has the shape of a lyre.
2 The basic shape of the fin is round and should not exceed 40% of the body length.
3 The outer fin rays corresponds to 80% of the body length and the tips are bent from the body.
4 The dorsal fin first raise steeply upwards with a slightly upbent tip the end of the first third of the

9 - Cofertail

1 The caudal fin looks to the shape as a mining spade.
2 The upper and lower fin edges first draw away from the body and are then parallel.
3 Its length corresponds to half the body length. The height reach 80% of the fin length.
4 The dorsal fin is pointed and ends between the beginning and the end of the first third of the caudal fin.

10 - Speartail

1 The caudal fin has the shape of a spearhead.
2 Its length is 80% of the body length, the height reach 80% of the fin length.
3 The dorsal fin first raise steeply upwards and resch with a slightly upbent tip the end of the first third of the caudal fin.

11 - Roundtail

1 The caudal fin is round with a diameter of 50% of the body length.
2 The dorsal fin is rounded and reach the end of the first third of the caudal fin.

12 - Pintail

1 The basic caudal shape is round with a diameter of 40% of the body length. The central fin rays are extended to a pin and correspond to 100% of the body length.
2 The slim dorsal fin first raise steeply upwards and ends pointed at the end of the first third of the caudal fin.

 

Meanwhile the USA scene was not idle and the AGA gave rise in the 1960s to the International Fancy Guppy Association (IFGA). At that time the USA was widely recognized as the hub for guppy breeding advancement with the development of large-bodied guppies and huge flowing finnage that exceeded body length. This was unheard of in other countries at that time. Recognized US color classifications  included approximately 29 different classifications. These include such colors as red, blue, green, purple, black, red albino, snakeskin, multicolors, etc. as well as corresponding half black varieties with similar tail coloration and single as well as double swords. These are now commonplace in the show hobby. The IFGA currently maintains a web site at the following address:http://www.ifga.org  This is also a great place to start your internet guppy experience as well.

Commercial strains common to the hobby worldwide today include flamingo, tuxedo, cobra, blue diamond, micarif as well as whatever new nomenclature comes out of the large scale breeding farms in the orient. Most of the countries that have had their own guppy breeding societies have come to recognize and favor the wide tail shapes we have developed here. However, over the last 30 years the precise standards of each region have been kept fairly separate and closed. With the coming of the internet, this has recently begun to change.

Recently an idea was born in Japan and Germany to bring together all the world’s standards and to attempt to create a common standard for true international competition. Those who proposed this recognized that it would be a major undertaking demanding many years of work since each breeding region had gone its separate way over the last several decades in its breeding programs.

The internet has also brought together guppy breeders from distant areas to discuss and share ideas as well as exchange strains carrying valuable gene pools. This undoubtedly will enhance the development of newer and more exotic guppy strains in the future. I, myself, along with several other friends and acquaintances worldwide have embarked on a program of education on worldwide guppy strains and show characteristics to the general hobbyist domestically and internationally. This is done with the aide of our guppy web sites in which we post valuable information on the state of the guppy fancy today.

Within the above mentioned guppy forms there are countless individually recognized pure breeding show quality strains with specific colors and color patterns.  Each individual color pattern or strain type has their corresponding strains as well as individual breeder lineages.  New ones are being developed all the time by local as well as international breeders. Guppy varieties can seem complicated to some but to us who know the species it is just a way to separate the complex pedigrees and create some recognized way to describe and categorize the genetic marvel that is the guppy.  We still have much to do in order to create some international recognition for recognized breeder strains worldwide. 

The best opportunity we have ever had to expand and improve the guppy hobby is through the internet. Most major guppy clubs and organizations have a web site and are linked directly or by proxy to each other. A good day’s web surfing will show you pictures of most of the current guppy varieties and familiarize you with the state of the guppy hobby as it exists today.  Start with my site at if you like and feel free to e-mail questions to me while you

Enjoy the world of the fancy guppy

Luke Roebuck
http://www.members.tripod.com/~ppga/

 

History Of The Guppies In Germany

The first live Guppies reached Germany in the middle of December 1908. One of Germany's most famous importers of these days, Mr. Carl Siggelkow from Hamburg, imported 25 (Guppies from La Guayra a port-town near Caracas (Venezuela). A problem was, that the first import included only 3 males. These males had a total size of 22mm and their main color was greenish-yellow. Some black spots and stripes could be found on the body. Furthermore there was some red and blue in the back of the body near the caudal.

It should not take long and some days before Christmas the first 12 Guppies were born in Germany. This first information could be found in an article of a very old German tropical fish magazine called, "Blaetter fuer quarien- und Terrarienkunde", in 1909. This article was written by one of Germany's most famous fishbreeders Mr. Johann Paul Arnold (1869-1952). From this time the Guppies started to win the heart and the interest of the fishbreeders in Germany. Lots of imports followed and just in one year (1909) three new populations from Barbados, Venezuela and Trinidad were coming to Germany. The famous English Captain J.A.M. Vipan from Wansford brought these to Germany. Even early in 1909 one fish-breeder from Breslau (old German town, today Poland after world war II) reported on a young Guppy-male which started showing some kind of a lower sword. He already imagined that maybe in the future Guppies could be bred with swords like Xiphophorus helleri. He should keep right, but lots of years after his first description.

1910 Mr. Seidel from Hamburg reports in an article of his club "Ludwiga" about a first mutation of "uppersword-Guppies". Until these days people always thought one can only breed lower swords like Xiph. helleri. One of the most historical dates was the 22. november 1910. On this day the "Hymphea''-club in Leipzig, made the first guppy-show in Germany ever. The aim was to introduce the different import-variation to the people. In the following years lots of articles were published which all included descriptions of swordtail-developments .

The first Guppy show after the first world war took place in Beuthen and was organized by the local club called "Hajas". Since 1910 "Hymphea" -Leipzig was one of the most important clubs supporting the Guppy-hobby in Germany. 1920, members of the club developed the first kind of point system which was ever made. This system included 50 points which could be reached. But people could not imagine what should happen a lot of years after that. This first point system was used by a lot of local clubs all over Germany until the early thirties. About a first true developed Doublesword-Guppy, information go back to 1928. Mr. Rothe from Leipzig showed this first male on a club evening.

The early thirties were the years were the "Gold-Guppy'' appeared, which is today called in Germany Gold-Guppy (Japan=Tiger). Experts already discussed in these years who was the first breeder. Sure is only that he appeared somewhere between 1925 and 1932. Some people have the opinion that the first Guppy of these color are from Sweden, others say Germany. Maybe there was some kind of a parallel mutation in both countries. If you look in very old magazines, you can find these fishes with names like Poecilia reticulata var. fredlini or P. reticulata auratus. Several times it was used for "Blond-Guppies" (Japan=Gold), too.

During the second world-war people tried to keep the hobby alive and organized in Berlin a show which was called "1. Reichguppyschau". For this show a new point system was created which based on 100 points. One of the creators of this system was Dr. Hans Breider, a very famous geneticist. He published in this time a first book about genetic on Xip. helleri and maculatus (Swordtail and platies). He was very famous until the early eighties.

1950 the first Albino-Guppies came to Germany. Mr. J. Rueckert from Frankfurt / Main got this fish 1949 via Dr. Proewig from New York. He describes them like a "Gold-Guppy" with red eyes and white dorsal and caudal. The first international Guppy-show in Germany took place 1954 in Hannover from the 2.-6. September. This was the year and place were Mr. Paul Haehnel an american born in Dresden (Germany) gave the whole Guppy-scene a new breeding-direction. He showed in Hannover the first "Veil tail" (Faecher) Guppies in such a perfect way nobody had seen before. He got the title "Guppy-King of the old and new world". Today there is no Guppylover who does not know this name.

The show was a big success for the hobby. Breeders from 5 countries showed Guppies in Hannover. 3000 visitors were watching the show in 4 and 1/2 days, newspapers brought big articles with photos, even on TV there was a 10 minute special report about the show. The organizers first had the idea to make a working circle about Guppies after the show. But the success was so big that they founded a special club for Guppies. On February the 15th. 1955 the" Deutsche-Guppy-Gesellschaft" (DGG) was founded. That was a historical date for the Guppy-hobby in Germany and in other countries. On January the 2nd. 1956 a working circle was founded in the German Democratic Republic. It was 1961 on the 8th. International Guppy Show of the DGG were the first longfinned Guppies appeared. The Berlin breeder Heinz Krueger showed Guppies with all fins (caudal, dorsal, etc.) very long developed. A first description appeared in the DATZ/1964 (page. 232) by Mr. Willi Keil. This article included furthermore a first photo of the so called "Berliner-Guppy".

1963 in Erfurt (German Democratic Republic, GDR) the name and organization of the working circle in the GDR was changed into a special working group for Guppies, which was a new member of the big "Culture-Association" (Kulturbund) of the GDR. Between the "Kulturbund" and the DGG, a special deal was made on the 23.August 1964 in Berlin. The aim was to work together and exchange fishes and experiences between the two different political Germanys. In the next years a small group of the DGG left the club and founded a new one which was called GFG and was staying basically in Berlin. Mr. Horst Schimmelpfennig was very early getting a member of this club. 1975 both clubs DGG and GFG decided to come together and created a new club, which was the DGF (Deutsche Guppy Foederation e. V.) 1981 the European clubs came together to find a new way to work international together. The IKGH and the IHS were born. The IKGH is an institution which has the task to coordinate show-dates, organize the European - championship and spread the Guppy-breeding all across Europe. Together with the IKGH, the IHS (lnternational-Highbreeding-Standard) was created. To judge europewide in a similar way, it was necessary to have an international-standard. Until 1981 each country used his own standard. In 1986 and 1991 the IHS was improved (updated). New breeding experiences made this necessary from time to time. The following years other meetings of the IKGH updates the standard and organization problems.

Claus Osche
osche@dgf-guppy.de
http://www.dgf-guppy.de/
http://www.guppy-art.de/

World Guppy Contest 2003

The World Guppy Association (WGA) and The Guppy Breeders Club of Brazil (CCG) honorably presented, for our enjoinment and pleasure, their second co-production: The Forest & Beach Party at Santos!!!

Take it easy wives and girlfriends. The only females we judged were the guppy ones…

The Place

Since Valdu Carvalho heard that WGC 2003 was to be held in Brazil, he became determined to bring it to his hometown, Santos. Santos is located close to Sao Paulo, the biggest brazilian city. Santos has all the facilities and enjoys the advantages of a large tourist center in the Atlantic Coast of beautiful Brazil.

Photo from http://www.grupomendes.com.br/

So Valdu got the key to the city with help of Santos City Hall. Well, ...the key to Santos Orchid Park. Located in downtown Santos, the park is a sample of the native Mata Atlantica forest, which the Portuguese found when they arrived to Brazil in 1500.

The 3 pictures above were taken from http://www.colegio.unisanta.br/sites/santostur/orquidario.htm

The people

This is Ömer “WGA” Gülmez, president, secretary, judge, web page programmer, sponsor, typewriter,  etc, etc, etc, in short he is the WGA. He doesn’t waste time talking too much just works hard fueled by dozens cans of guarana. Guarana is the most popular brazilian soft drink, it is made with the natural extract of a stimulant plant from Amazon. Can you see how much Ömer looks tipsy!  The best souvenir I got from this show was assist him at judging, Danke!!!

No matter where you see the word “guppy” look around and you’ll see Luke Roebuck. He is another guarana addict and lover of day by day brazilian food with plenty pepper. No gringo at all...

Here is Frank Chang. See what happens to a pizza lover after taking a typical brazilian lunch, almost a ball with fins, sorry, arms...

The one talking with the arms like a good italian is Rodrigo Ziviani, president of  the CCG, the man who brought both WGC to Brazil. The other wearing green T-shirt is Valdu Carvalho who brought the WGC to Santos,arranged the place, the hotel, etc, etc... Back behind them, you can see Milton, the treasurer, at work… literally looking for the money. It’s a picture of the auction in the loud Brazilian style.

	Now you see Luke Roebuck and Kleber de Oliveira. Kleber is the president of The Sao Paulo state section of the CCG. Rodrigo,Valdu and Kleber lost the hair worrying about the show, without their persistence we should not have this show. Thank you very much !!!
	This champion taking the trophy from Rodrigo’s hands is Edson from Ribeirao Pires. He is the most experienced member of CCG, owner of an eclectic taste for guppies Edson keeps the best brazilian guppy gene bank.

Here are Ömer,as usual working hard, Luke and Frank wasting a talking, all they sited how say the best brazilian tradition for welcoming a guest. Standing are the natives. The first guy is Michel Bruno, this guppy addict drove 1000 miles to support this show, he arrived 3 days before show beginning for don't loose anything, he bought the most expensive fish auctioned, and last but not least, he also had a guppy tattooed in his hand just for do not forget what he was doing there. The second one is Alexandre “Dauax” Bonfim who not only took most pictures you see here but also took many trophies, he bred the 3^rd best fish in show. Adriano Rios is the  third man,  he bred the stricking red/white  red bicolor you see at pictures section.  The 4^th is Daniel Makishi, concerned for don't lose any of his acquisitions he build a true fishroom at his hotel apartment. Then you see Rodrigo and me.  

 

The Judging System

The entries (pairs only) were classified by male’s tail shape,body basic color and body/tail color.

Acceptable tail shape classes were:
1. Veiltail*
2. Triangletail – Delta tail*
3. Fantail
4. Scarftail
5. Double Swordtail*
6. Top Swordtail*
7. Bottom Swordtail*
8. Lyretail
9. Cofertail – Spadetail*
10. Speartail
11. Roundtail*
12. Pintail*

Among all 12 classes recognized we had 8, signalized with “*”, represented in the show, plus longfins (Ribbons and Swallows) and Endler’s wild type. (For an overview in a shorted version of this standard take a look at Luke's article above)

The recognized body basic color classes were:
1. Grey *
2. Gold (in Japan it is called Tiger, Bronze in US)*
3. Blond (in Japan an US it is called Gold)*
4. Blue
5. Pink
6. Albino*
7. White
8. Silver
9. Crème

Among the accepted body basic color classes above, there were entries of the 4 bread and butter types signalized with “*”, plus some lutinos.

We experienced a little change in the classification of entries adopted in past WGC’s regarding body/tail color. I think it was due to a lacking of diversity in brazilian entries, which were the most numerous. Entries were sometimes placed by strain instead real body/tail classes.

Inside each class the fishes were judged by this 100 point system below:

	LENGTH	SHAPE	COLOR	POINTS
BODY	8	8	12	=28
DORSAL	5	8	10	=23
CAUDAL	10	20	14	=44
VITALITY/DEPORTMENT				=5
Total				=100

Table taken from Japanese Guppy House Page by Yasuhiro Mori.

Another changes I found between the standard explained at both links and the real judging were that: (1) the body length that the standard is now looking for is 28mm , and (2) the ratio between body to caudal length for triangletail/delta tail is now at 10:10.

Although only males were judged, absence of female or if she does not match the male (if judges think that they aren’t from the same strain), the whole entry can be disqualified. When present and “acceptable”, the female is grossly judged as very good, good, satisfactory or adequate, reducing the total points given to the male in 0, 3, 6 or 9 units, respectively.

After all entries were judged by all 5 judging teams, the average was calculated for the 3 middle notes given for each pair, and they were classified among each class. The best of show, standard winners and best of Brazil/Europe/US were chosen without another judging just ordering by average total points.

This time all entries were also judged by IFGA standard to allow us see the differences between both judging systems. The fact is that the IFGA judging system is much faster than used by the WGC. But, at my personal and not so experienced view, if the points for each trait and for each fish are not recorded in paper or another media there is some tendency for introduction of what I should call “judge eye bias”. I mean that, at least for myself, after taking the first look at the bench there are some fishes that catches my eyes so I’m concerned/afraid about judging the left ones looking for their faults instead their good traits to justify my first impression.

From now on, no matter what point system I’ll use to choose my breeders, any time I have doubts about which fish is better, I will do like Jack, the London’s butcher. I will judge piece by piece and produce some evidence in writing..

The Official Results and Photo Gallery

Because show results and many fish’s photos were yet published in the web I’ll only point the sites were you can find then. The WGA’s home page about this show is at http://www.world-guppy.de/english/neues.html  There you have access to a short article on WGC 2003, gross results for both judging systems, and detailed results for WGA standard judging and some photos, all in English language. The CCG official home page of WGC 2003, in portuguese, is parked at  http://www.ccg.org.br/wgc2003.html and its software translated version can be seen at http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ccg.org.br%2Fwgc2003.html&lp=pt_en&tt=url. Also for “self explanatory” pictures visit:

http://www.ccg.org.br/peixesdoshow.html,

http://www.ccg.org.br/peixesdoshow2.html,

http://www.ccg.org.br/peixesdoshow3.html

 

I would like express my gratitude to CCG which allowed me use their pictures to produce this small report;  to the organizations and companies which supported us, for the breeders who sent their beloved “sons and daughters” to this no return visit to Brazil – Don’t worry we’ll keep then with our best care – and to the foreign and native friends I could finally see face to face.

MUITISSIMO OBRIGADO!!!

Sergio Chaim, CCG
chaim@iconet.com.br

Alexandre "Dauax" Bonfim
alexandre@ccg.org.br

Feeding Guppy Fry

"It is all about feeding good quality food frequently, and maintaining adequate water quality"

When thinking about the proper set up and protocol for feeding guppy fry (one drop of about 50 fry), think of it in terms of individual fish taking food in. In other words, think of it as food intake, not food offered; there is a big difference. The objective is to offer the fry the right number of individual bite size portions, several times every day, regardless of the type of food used. Uneaten food should be removed from the system, not just the bottom of the tanks, by any means after 20 minutes. Ensuring that fish eat well (and fish can eat a lot), without unnecessarily polluting the water they live on, is key to achieving optimum rearing conditions. Having to effectively deal with the excreted organic load is enough of a task. One should avoid accumulation uneaten food in the culture media (water). Basic stuff, right?

In my opinion, one cup (~220 ml) of water is enough volume to hold 50 newly born fry for a couple of days, maybe even a week, provided one had adequate water, in quality and quantity, and the proper rearing system. What one would need is a continuous supply of clean water at an exchange rate of 5-10 full volumes per hour. How you provide a continuous supply of clean water at that exchange rate is another question. Water flow would have to be stopped at feeding times, for 10 minutes or so, 4 times a day. Increasing the photo period to 14-16 hour may also help.

Compare this first scenario described above to a second scenario. This second scenario involves placing 50 fry in a 5-gallon (17 L.) with a corner airlift filter. Visualize how the newly born fry and the food particles are going to become distributed in the volume of the container; maybe even sucked in by the corner filter if it is left on. Think of it in terms of food access to the fry in the 5-gal tank. If you feed newly hatched brine shrimp (bbs), for example, these 50 fry are going to consume more and in less time if placed on the small container. Finding bbs in the 5 gallon tank is much more difficult for the fry, since the food particles as well as the fry are present in much less density. I am not saying it can't be done. I am just saying that it is more time consuming and often yield sub-optimum results. With this approach, you are likely to end up increasing your maintenance requirements in the form of siphoning waste, cleaning filters and replacing water. 1,000 newly born fry in 5-gallon may be the optimum fry density for feeding purposes. How feasible these rearing densities are in practice, and what sort of systems are better suited are the real questions.

What I know is that maintenance and system upkeep is taxing enough having to deal with the load of guppy excrement produced by growing fish. I live in Seattle, Washington (USA), where we have temperate climate nine months out of the year. Using a 5-gallon tank for 50 newly born fry is not the most efficient use of my limited space. But in order for me to switch to raising guppies at higher densities, I need to better understand some basic processes and adopt (or adapt) some basic techniques. This series of articles on guppy husbandry will attempt to deal with the basic processes of recirculating systems and water treatment technologies.

We think the secret to raising quantities of quality guppies is in the feeding regime and in the systems' design, particularly the waste removal system, however small the system may be. I have seen how some top guppy breeders keep certain species of plants (like java moss) in their fish tanks with no other additional aeration or filtration. I also have tried this method for raising fry for 2 weeks. This hydroponics method works very well in keeping adequate water chemistry parameters and is extremely useful in reducing maintenance requirements under certain conditions. I had 125 Coral Red albino double swords fry in 1.2 gallons (4 L.) of water for over a week feeding bbs. I didn’t use any other form of filtration besides java moss. I just changed ~95% of the water once per day. It worked great in terms of growth and survival! It would be interesting to see what rearing densities could be achieved by the different variations of this general method of using plants as purifiers and oxygenators. Maybe someone could write an article on their experience using these “hydroponics” methods.

We are currently using inexpensive plastic containers to develop prototypes for small-scale recirculating systems. We are also looking at ways to couple hydroponics methods to recirculating system technologies. Operating such systems can also add more dimensions to our hobby, and ultimately help us in raising more and better guppies in our limited space.

I will write a series of articles about our experience using small scale recirculating systems beginning with the April 2004 issue of Guppy Labs e-Bulletin. We will look at the workings (mechanical and biological) of a small, but somewhat sophisticated system that you can build yourself and that could fit in your closet. Look for these articles in our next and future issues.

Enrique Patiño
chimbolo@comcast.net

Genetic Variability in Guppy Breeding

J. Håkan Turesson

(This article was first published in the The Swedish Guppyletter in March 2002)

Genetic variability means that there are different variants of genes present within a population or an individual. An individual fish has only two copies of each gene so it can of course have a maximum of two variants of a certain gene. However, the population or strain of fish can have many different variants of each gene. If not all the different variants of genes are inherited to the next generation of fish, the strain has lost genetic variability. In fact, all strains of guppies that a guppy breeder keeps pure from incrossing will lose genetic variability over time. Does it matter? One objective of guppy breeding is to be able to show a strain with many fish that resemble each other as much as possible. In some old articles of guppy breeding you can read that the fastest way to get a uniform strain is to inbreed the stain as much as possible. That is – to breed closely related fish to each other for many generations. The advice is correct; it works if you want a uniform strain as soon as possible. But there are also well known and very disadvantageous effects of close inbreeding. These are decrease of vitality, fertility and disease resistance. To some extent these effects can be reduces if the breeder always select the very healthiest and fertile animals for parents of the next generation, but not entirely.

Lost or reduced fertility for example is a very typical and common effect of inbreeding that most breeders have experienced. The strain can be low in fertility for some generations and the suddenly stop to reproduce at all. The low disease resistance of highbred strains is another common problem that many good show strains suffer from. If the breeder that give or sell you fish recommend stress coat, salt, formalin, potassium permanganate and a wide spectrum antibiotic for the guppies to survive in its new environment you may start to think that something is wrong. This is not how it should have to be. Yet another unwanted effect of loss of genetic diversity is that the breeder cuts the branch he sits on. That is, genetic variability is a prerequisite for selective breeding. Is there is no genetic variability there is no longer any meaning in selective breeding. The questions are then. How much variability is lost in every generation and how long can we keep a stain pure from incrossing without severe effects? The  answers are depending on a number of factors but two very important ones are how many fish you use for breeders per generation and how skewed the sex ratio is.

Number of breeders

Let us forget about the sex ratio for now and concentrate on the number of breeders. It is here important to understand that the breeders are only the guppies that actually give offspring. If you raise 200 guppies for every generation and chose the best male and the best female for breeding the number of breeders are two and the genetic population size two. If you raise 200 guppies for every generation and set two males to 20 females, but take only the litters of fry from the first two females dropping, then you have four breeders and your genetic population size is four. Thus in both examples your population size is 200 but your genetic population size is very much smaller. There is a simple formula that can tell you how much genetic variability that is lost per generation depending on the number of breeders used. It is: 1/(2*n)  Where n=number of breeders in the population. So for example if two breeders are used    1/(2*2)=0.25 (=25%) of the genetic variability is lost. If you use four breeders 1/(2*4)=0.125 (=12.5%) of the genetic variability is lost. For ten breeders the result is 1/(2*10)=0.05 (=5%).

If you instead want to know how much of the genetic variability that is conserved per generation it is 1-1/(2*n).The result for the examples of two, four and ten breeders as above will of course be the opposite of what was lost and is 75%, 87.5% and 95%.

It is now easy to calculate how much genetic variability that is conserved after a number of generations (g). You can repeat the calculation for each generation or use the formula: (1-1/(2*n))^gIt now starts to look a bit complicated so I give some examples again. After five generations with two breeders (1-(1/(2*2)))⁵ =0.237 (23.7%) of the genetic variability is conserved. With four breeders 51.3% of the genetic variability is conserved and with ten breeders 77.4 % of the genetic diversity is conserved.We can see that with more breeders more genetic variability is conserved, which is what we aim for. But how much genetic diversity can you accept to lose and what should you do about it? The last question is easiest to answer. The only possible way for a hobby breeder to increase and restore genetic variability is to outcross its guppies to unrelated or remotely related guppies. Most good breeders realize this and outcross their strains from time to time. Still outcrossing is partly a drawback in the breeding program and should not be done more often than necessary. Let us for example say that you accept to loose a maximum of 50 % of the genetic variability from one outcross to the next. We can use the last formula above to calculate the number of possible generations with different numbers of breeders used (different genetic population sizes). The result is presented in the table:

           

Genetic population size	number of generations
2	2
4	5
6	8
10	13
20	27
30	41

From this calculation we can see that if you accept to loose half of the genetic variability you can only breed for two generations with two breeders before incrossing. This means, that you have to incross once a year. If you instead use 30 breeders per generation you can continue your breeding program without incrossing for over 40 generation or about 20 years! This is theory and in reality all hobby breeders are limited in tank space and may not be able to use 30 breeders per generation. The table shows how much better it is to use more breeders and to use 10 or 20 breeders per generation should be possible for most guppy breeders.

Sex ratio

Everything said above, about number of breeders and genetic population size, assumes that you use an equal number of males and females per generation and that all fish get about the same number of offspring. In guppy breeding it is often the case that you use a different number of fish from the two different sexes, usually more females than males are used. The effect of an skewed sex ratio is that the genetic population size will be smaller than your number of breeders and the more skewed the sex ratio is the smaller the genetic population size become. The genetic population size is here called the “effective population size” (n_e). Depending on your number of males (m) and females (f) used for breeding it is easy to calculate the effective population size. It is: n_e=(m*f*4)/(m+f)        

If you fore example use five males and five females the effective population size, n_e, is (5*5*4)/(5+5)=100/10=10

If you use two males to eight females the effective population size is (2*8*4)/(2+8)=64/10=6.4 and if you use one male to nine females the effective population size (n_e) is (1*9*4)/(1+9)=36/10=3.6If you choose 10 breeders, you could take 5 males and 5 females then the effective population size is 10 (n_e=(5*5*4)/(5+5)=100/10=10). If you take instead two males and eight females, the effective population size is (2*8*4)/(2+8)=64/10=6.4. If you use one male to nine females the effective population size (n_e) is (1*9*4)/(1+9)=36/10=3.6. So, even if you choose the same numbers of breeders, the effective population size is smaller the more skewed the sex ratio is. The effective population size, not the actual number of breeders, determines how much genetic variability will be transferred to the next generation.In table 2 below are these and some more examples of number of males and females and the resulting effective population size (n_e) given.

 

No. males	No. females	No. breeders	ne	No. Needed to conserve 50%
1	1	2	2.0	2
1	2	3	2.7	3
1	3	4	3.0	3
1	4	5	3.2	4
1	5	6	3.3	4
2	3	5	4.8	6
2	4	6	5.3	7
2	5	7	5.7	7
2	6