Visit Gen Hideshima's Web Site

Gen Hideshima is a leader of Japanese guppy scene and also known as an original creator of famous modern strains of these, Platinum Solid Redtail ( a.k.a. El Dorado ), Medusa and modern German Yellow Tuxedo. He's a witness of 2nd big wave of guppy vogue in Japan from middle 1960's to early 1970's. He has been very very actively involved in Japanese guppy world as breeder, chair person of contest , owner of several guppy shops and running internet auction. So, now we have 100% guarantee this is the first time ever anyone has interviewed Mr. Hideshima outside of Japan, and we are proud about it.

Guppy Labs: Mr. Hideshima, we are really exciting today. Now, please introduce yourself.

Hideshima: I was born in October, 1953. Now I am a 51 years old who has been in hobby for 38 years. Since the middle of 1960's, I have been cooperating with Noboru Iwasaki and Yoshiki Tsutsui under our master the late mr. Katsuo Izumi. It was a rise of the new era of Japanese guppy world, also the beginning of modern Mendelian guppy genetics. I myself am created known Japanese strains. Please let me introduce some of them.

El Dorado is my most representative creation in early 90's. Here is the whole story...When Schimmelpfennig Lyretail was imported from Germany in 1990, my friend Hiroshi Sugino crossed male into female Old Fashion from Thailand farm. Most of F1 of this cross result were defective delta caudal but few of them turned to be nice triangle delta. Sugino gave me these nice caudal males, so I did cross them into my Mosaic strain, that how the first El Dorado was born.

Medusa is my another creation which looks very similar to Galaxy but genetics is completely different and actually it's still uncovered. We have argument and several theories. My friend Yoshiki Tsutsui and some others suspect Medusa male may be YY male.

As far as the process of birth of modern German Yellow Tuxedo, there is a story to share with you...Since the original pairs were imported in 1969, the strain had been maintained by complete inbreeding. In 80's, there was a serious problem of continuing of strain. All the females became sterile or even if they were fertile, only could drop few fries. It was a real critical and almost extinct situation. And more worse, there were only 4 breeders in whole Japanese country.

We had to overcome this problem . Anyway I did cross male German Yellow Tuxedo into female King Cobra. After that, I also used Singapore Pineapple guppy (Golden Yellow Tuxedo). Because of these cross, strain could avoid the extinction in Japan. And this new reborn line became the genesis of current modern Japanese Yellow Tuxedo.

Guppy Labs: Thanks for sharing precious experience from beginning ! O.K., now could you please introduce about your guppy shops and some details?

Hideshima: I own the company Atelier G group (http://www.guppyshop.com). It is including 2 guppy shops, cooperate 1 shop with Noboru Iwsaki, and 1 internet shop.

Each shop keep maintaining 100 - 280 tanks. We mainly breed and sell longfins (Swallow, Ribbon, Super Sailfin, Super Sailfin Ribbon) and Albino. Also we keep maintain some very old strains like classic Tiger, classic Leopard and Glass Grass. Here are my reliable young chiefs of each shop, Taro Ueno and Yoshiyuki Takeda.

Taro Ueno

Yoshiyuki Takeda

Guppy Labs: How about the maintenance of tanks ? It must be a lots of task...

Hideshima: Yes, in fact it is. We use both udergravel filter and sponge filter plus water sprite. The average water temperature is between 22 - 24 centigrade degrees through the year. ph is 7.0 - 7.2. We change water once a week about 1/3. and wash whole tanks & filters once a month.

Guppy Labs: How about your daily feeding schedule?

Hideshima: We feed 3 to 4 times a day . We feed live baby brine shrimp twice, and our merchandise dry flake food Cocktail 7. Also we feed clean tubifex worm three times a week.

Guppy Labs: How do you raise fries and how do you select breeder pairs, also how do you maintain your line breeding ?

Hideshima: At the first, we use breeding trap for collecting fries. It is useful for saving tank space. We separate each sex when fries are 1 and half month old, then select the best breeding group 5pairs when they are 3 month old. If we do not have enough tank space for doing this, we just pick the best 5 pairs without separate each sex , then rest of fries are culled.

And only my own favorite strains, I do line breeding. At the first, I collect fries from the same parent pair or pairs, then divide all the fires into 2 or 3 , then let them keep going as independent lines each other. After some generations, each line start to show a slightly different characters. So we pick the best fish from each line, then cross them constantly.

Guppy Labs: Please tell us about your favorite guppy.

Hideshima: Well, ( laughing), my most favorite guppy is show quality Red Mosaic Delta. It is really special guppy for me and actually is very classic Japanese strain. Caudal has beautiful multiple color - red, black, white, yellow, dark navy, green and pink. Very beautiful. It is not easy to have done the perfect work on caudal pattern thus I'm so fascinated. Perhaps it is hard for you to believe that I breed Mosaic guppy for 34 years.

Guppy Labs: How about the contest that you are running ?

Hideshima: Currently my friend Noboru Iwasaki and me hold Guppy Beauty Contest on May 3rd every year. We use our own standard from our association ' Guppy's Japan'. The contest is held for only 1day from 10am - 5pm. We have to have done everything within this short time and we wish we have at least 3 days like other countries. We also sometimes have entries from foreign countries, Taiwan and once from US.
We would like to have more of them as regular entries.

Show guppies tend to be mostly delta and few sword. We do not see many longfins entries like before in present contests against the actual population of longfin breeders. It is because to create and maintain high quality longfin especially Swallow need extra time, tank space, skill and patience.

Guppy Labs: Please share with us your plan for the future ?

Hideshima: O.K. As far as guppy Mendelian genetics, we are now in still entrance of it since past 50 years. We can use it as the quickest and the most convenience tool for breeding program. But in the future, I myself wish to observe more each part and details, not only just single gene theory of X and Y.

Guppy Labs: As a leader of Japanese guppy world, please give your message toward readers of this bulletin. Thank you so much for today !

Hideshima: I'm very interesting to discuss with breeders around the world of our passion toward this amazing fish. I'm currently doing business with Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand dealers. Please feel free to contact us any time. Here is our phone number.

Guppy Factory Atelier G: (042)521-3868

Medakakan Part.2: (042) 571 - 4430

Guppy Lab: (048) 477 - 6555