Visit Stan Shubel's Web Site

We had e-mailed Mr. Shubel the list of questions and he had agreed on us calling him at a certain time on January 8, 2005. When we called him, we talked for about 45 minutes and this is the transcript of our conversation. Mr. Shubel indicated that he is much better in answering specific questions, so this format for an interview was well suited for Mr. Shubel as well as for Guppy Labs interviewer.

Guppy Labs: Hello Mr. Shubel, good morning, or good afternoon as it may be the case in Michigan.

Shubel: Good afternoon

Guppy Labs: We have you on speakerphone and we are taping this interview. We will then transcribe it and publish it in a written form. Is that OK with you?

Shubel: Sure, that will be fine. Let me switch phones; just a second. OK, this is better. I printed out the list of questions you e-mail me, and have it here with me.

Guppy Labs: That is great. You then choose the order and how do you want to answer these questions.

Shubel: Yeah, I just go down the list starting with water. I have a baseboard heater that heats the whole room. I do not have heaters in every tank. I set that for 76 degrees Fahrenheit. So, my top tanks are right around 76-77 degrees and my bottom tanks are around 74-75 degrees. So there is a slight difference in temperature from the top to the bottom. The reason behind this temperature.you can grow the fish a lot faster at 80 degrees, but it cuts down the life span of the fish by several months. So they mature a lot quicker at 80 degrees, but they die a lot quicker too.

Guppy Labs: Since there is a temperature difference between top and bottom-row tanks, is there a particular strategy of putting younger fish in the top tanks and older fish in the bottom row?

Shubel: That is correct. The older males I have a tendency to put them down at the bottom because you have a degree or two differences in temperature and seems to be better for them. As far as the chemistry of the water, the pH is 7.5 out of the tap, and 200 ppm hardness. The water comes from a well. I don't treat the water with anything because it is just well water. The only aging I do is through a 25-foot garden hose.

Guppy Labs: Have you ever measured the dissolved oxygen of your well water as it comes out?

Shubel: No, not really. I am not to concerned about that. Once per week (I try to anyway), I drain about 30-50% of the water. And I add the water at about 75 degree. In other words, I mix hot and cold to achieve 75 degrees and add it to all tanks… As far as tanks size, I use primarily 10-gallon tanks. These are 12" x 12" x 20". I also use 5.5-gallon tanks. I fill the tanks up to 1 inch from the top.

Guppy Labs: Do you use anything smaller than that?

Shubel: The only smaller tanks I use are the containers I use for the females when they are ready to drop. These have no airstone, no plants or anything besides water.

Guppy Labs: So you don't provide any hiding places for fry?

Shubel: No, I guess I have conditioned my fish over the years.If a female eats her young, I kill them.

Guppy Labs: For the size of tanks you use, is there any particular strategy as to which size you use for the different sizes or growth phases of the fish?

Shubel: Generally speaking, you want to condense the food. So, you want to use a smaller container for the young when these are first born. And, of course, as they age, you transfer them to the 10-gallon tanks; at about a month of age. Before I used to have 15-g, 20-g and 29-g tanks, and I can grow the fish as big in a 10-gallon tank as I could in larger tanks.

Guppy Labs: So, after the fry are born in the small container, do you feed them at all in these small containers?

Shubel: Yes, of course; the fish are fed there. And then I transfer them to a 5.5-gallon tank, with a filter, of course. After a month, they are moved to a 10-gallon tank. I do concentrate the fish quite a bit. In a 10-gallon tank I may have 50 or even more fish. I keep 50 males in a 10-gallon tank at 3-months of age. Then I break them down to maybe 15-20 per 10-gallon tank as these get older. That way they continue to grow better. As far as filtration, I use corner filters, with a moderate to heavy flow of air. This helps with the dissolved oxygen, and also, the water turbulence makes the fish swim and helps develop the peduncle area, so that they can hold their tails up well. I use just marbles, and filter floss in the inside corner filters. I use a 1/8 hp Ghast blower and I've been running that for, I believe, the last ten years.

Guppy Labs: How often and how do you clean your corner filters?

Shubel: I used to do it on a biweekly or a monthly basis. Now, I just change the floss whenever is dirty.

Guppy Labs: So you just put new floss?

Shubel: Yes, I just put new floss in there. But I don't change the water and the floss at the same time; never do that! If I change the water one day, I wait a few days and then change the floss. You will upset the bacterial balance if you do that.

Guppy Labs: So, do you think that doing it this way, there is enough "good" bacteria in the water to colonize the filter quickly? Is that the idea behind this method?

Shubel: Right!

Guppy Labs: Do you use plants with any of your tanks?

Shubel: No. I have a couple of tanks with water sprite but most all my tanks are completely bare, with no plants or anything in them. I like the looks of plants in the tanks, but it is not practical. I've tried different charcoals, the wooden charcoal and the activated charcoal. These are useful. They clarify the water. But after a day or so, the charcoal fill up. So, it is not effective any longer. I find that marbles to be just as effective. As long as you have the bacteria balance right in there, these work just as good, with the filter floss.

Guppy Labs: And the marbles are more for weight that anything else?

Shubel: Just to weight the filters down.

Guppy Labs: Have you tried something like lava rock for weight?

Shubel: Yes, but it is not necessary to be honest with you.

Guppy Labs: Do you regularly check the water in your tanks for Ammonia, Nitrates, and things like that?

Shubel: No, no. I have done that in the past. But, you know, when a disease pops up, most of the time, the water parameters are within range. It is not the water conditions that cause the disease. I have this cocktail I make for almost any disease. I use SuperVelvet Plus, QuickCure and salt 12 drops of each plus a tablespoon of salt for 5 gallons of water. I mix them all together and I usually do not require a second treatment at all. That takes care of most diseases. For Gyrodactylus I use triphan (sp?). For nematodes I use panacur.

Guppy Labs: Sounds like you do not use many antibiotics.

Shubel: No, they are not very effective. They are effective the first time around, but after that, they are not to effective. I've got them here. Don't get me wrong. But I don't use them much.

Guppy Labs: The next set of questions are of the "general Management" category. We touched on some of them already..

Shubel: Yes. As far as sexing the fish, I usually do that after one month. You can actually sex fry at 2-days of age. You just use a bright light and pick up the gravid spot on the females. But I like to leave the males and females as long as I possibly can before I separate them. But I do separate them all the time.

Guppy Labs: Do you leave even a couple of females with the males, maybe one or two?

Shubel: No.

Guppy Labs: Is there any difference in the size of tanks of rearing density between sexes?

Shubel: I keep 15-20 males in a 10-gallon tank, but keep up to 50 females in the same 10-gallon tank. I normally set the breeders at 4-5 month-old. But I have waited for up to 8-9 month-old. All my females are virgin until I am ready to breed them.

Guppy Labs: And that could be up to what age?

Shubel: Up to 11 months of age.

Guppy Labs: Do you encounter problems like females being egg-bound if you wait that long?

Shubel: Yes, that happens sometimes, and it is a factor to consider. But normally I only wait that long if I mess up, and don't get them set up in time. Normally I set them up around 4-5 months of age.

Guppy Labs: Thank you very much for taking time to answer questions Mr. Shubel. What about feeds and feeding?

Shubel: The dry food I make up myself. I've been making that up for about 25 years now. I feed live bbs twice a day, and frozen adult brine shrimp about 3 times per week. I normally feed the dry food first when I get up in the morning, and about 20-30 minutes after that I feed the live bbs. They are fed a couple more dry food feedings a day. Before closing down at night, I feed the dry food and live bbs as in the morning. The reason behind that is that they are hungry to start with, and they eat most of the dry feed. Then I really stuff them with the live bbs.

Guppy Labs: And you do this for all ages?

Shubel: Yes, for all ages. But I cut down the amount of food as the fish get older. But that is about it.

Guppy Labs: Do you cut down on the feeding of the older females as well?

Shubel: No, the females continue with normal feeding. For the males I cut down a bit. If you don't, they can sometimes get too chesty. Right now I have fish that are between 3 and 4 months of age and already have 7 point bodies on them. Some are big!

Guppy Labs: Sometimes feeding live bbs can be a concern for disease. Do you take any particular cautions or care for this in any way?

Shubel: You are talking about disease with the brine shrimp?

Guppy Labs: Yes!

Shubel: Yes, I ran into a huge big problem here a few months ago. I had some brine shrimp eggs that were bad. I lost, I think about 1,500 fish. There was nothing I could do about it; I could not cure it. I got rid of that bad batch of brine shrimp eggs and I have had no more problems since. Everything has been going good. It was just a bad batch of eggs; that is all. Some people put chlorox in the hatchery, you know, like 6 drops per gallon or something like that. That seems to help them. There is a lot of junk in the shrimp eggs.

Guppy Labs: The next category of questions refers to the particulars of the strains you work with. We are sure we could spend all day talking about it. We leave it up to you on how you want to approach this subject, since you have the list of questions with you.

Shubel: You know, I've been breeding these fish for almost 50 years, and some of the lines have been around for over 40 years. So, I really couldn't give you any history other than that, you know! I breed primarily reds, blues, and I've got four lines of greens I am working with now. I also have blacks, purples, HB blue, HB red and HB purple. They are all pretty good! Some of the lines are breeding 100% true, or as close as you can get with guppies. Of course, there is some variation in some of the other ones. I keep the drops separate. In other words, I do not mix the females all together. I tag each time as the fry are dropped. Then I take the best fish from those to continue the breeding. I do a sort of inbreeding/line breeding technique. I usually inbreed for 3-4 generations, and then cross to a related line. In this way you get something like the hybrid vigor. But, of course, these are not true hybrids because they are related fish. I keep 3-4 different lines of each color.

Guppy Labs: Mr. Shubel, what do you mean by separate lines? Do you consider a drop from a female its own line?

Shubel: No, you don't. Some people think that if they get a trio, with two females, they have two different lines. In reality, what they have is more fish of the same line. What I do is select the females that drop the best quality fish, and those are the ones that I continue to line-breed with.

Guppy Labs: What do you consider a good female? What percent of a drop has to be of a good quality?

Shubel: Well, I like the fish to be upwards of the 90th percentile anyway. Now, not every fish in that percentile has to be of show quality, or best of show quality, I should say. But all fish should be pretty good, you know!

Guppy Labs: Is it rare to get females to drop in what you consider upwards of the 90th percentile?

Shubel: No, you can definitively get that. But you can also definitively see the difference between females. When setting up the females, I try to have some variations in the tail shape. Most of the females are what you would call delta shape tails, and a few of them have a slight shark tail. When I set up a breeding program, if you would, I put a couple of females with a delta tail and a couple of females with a shark tail, or somewhat of a shark tail. I normally use 4-5 females and usually 2-3 males per breeding set up. If I get an exceptional male, I use just that one male, of course. But it has to be truly exceptional. You know, a lot of time I send fish to a show, they win best of show and they are not even good enough for me to use for breeding. In other words, the breeders I have at home are better that the ones the win best of show!

Guppy Labs: So, you select your breeders when they are almost full-grown?

Shubel: At 4-5 months, guppies are not full-grown, but you can tell what the colors and the shape of the dorsal and caudal is by that age. For some lines, some of the guys have to breed them at 2-3 months, and they can even get the females pregnant. That is a hard time to set them up, really, because you don't really know exactly what you've got in 2-3 months.

Guppy Labs: Some people say that shark-tailed females give you the best delta tail males. Is that true?

Shubel: Not necessarily.

Guppy Labs: What about the size of the fish? Do you think that shark-tailed females will produce the largest fish?

Shubel: No! and I am always leery of people that set up this hard and fast rules, ..If you do this or do that, you get this, because it never quite worked that way for me.

Guppy Labs: How best tackle the rest of the questions Mr. Shubel?

Shubel: I am very selective in picking out the females. I spend more time in picking up the females that I do the males. With the males you can see the various shapes, sizes and colors they are. The females, I try to have them with thick peduncle. I would rather have a compact female than a long or elongated female. I choose females with a good color in the caudal. I don't really care for the clear-tailed females. I have not had good luck with those. So the females I use have some color in the rays, or rather spread and even tails. I don't use females that have a portion of the tail missing. I like females with nice even tails.

Guppy Labs: You mentioned compact females..

Shubel: If you look in a tank of 30-40 females, I choose those that are compact. These have thick peduncles and good tail size. These are the ones that I generally use for breeding.

Guppy Labs: Mr. Shubel, you gave us a list of strains you are working with. Is there anything new or in the works in your fishroom?

Shubel: Well, just the greens. You see, for years, I used to sell greens and provide greens to other breeder; I never fooled with them myself. When I crossed two of my blue lines, I would get greens. You see, I run four different lines of blues. When I would cross some of the different lines, I would get occasional greens. About two years ago, I decided to produce greens myself. Now, I have quite a few greens. These are nice fish, really.

Guppy Labs: What about other tail shapes?

Shubel: I've had the deltas, and veils, and of course, I've had the super-wides, you know, the 90 degrees or better. I've had those over the years. But I don't have that many tanks. I only have about 100 tanks. So, I can't deviate to much from the normal, show-quality fish. I mean, I like all sorts, don't get me wrong. I like to look at them. But I do not have the tank space to work with them.

Guppy Labs: Mr. Shubel, I was going to ask you if you had any good tips as far as a quarantine protocol when you bring fish into your fishroom. But sounds like you've been working exclusively with your own lines for a long time.

Shubel: It is good to separate the fish in a tank by themselves... at least for one week. Sometimes I get fish back from a show, and they look good when they come back. But 2-4 days afterwards they come down with something. Treat them with QuickCure or even some antibiotics if you want to when they first come in, and let them sit for bout a week and see what they look for you introduced into your tanks.

Guppy Labs: Mr. Shubel, is genetics important in your breeding practices? Is understanding of genetic linkage, such as X-linked or Y-linked alleles important to you?

Shubel: I work with the phenotype, in other words, with what you see. For example, with the blue females, I took the females and put a flashlight at them. I could pick up a couple of them with a different color, with a lighter blue color or sort of a greenish tail. Those are the ones that I developed the greens with, by doing it that way. I could tell the males, obviously. So, I pick their sisters that showed the characteristic of the color I wanted.

Guppy Labs: Anything else you care to discuss Mr. Shubel?

Shubel: Well, a lot of people don't keep virgin females, and I do. I have for all the years I've been breeding guppies. Some people say that is not really necessary, but a lot of them come back to me a couple of years later when their stock goes to pot. If you tank breed the fish, eventually the strains will dissipate. The younger, most vigorous male, with the smaller tail will catch the female. Some breeders say they don't keep the females virgin, and when they set the females with the male they want, well, the male may be sterile and the female will continue to be impregnated with the inferior quality male. And if I want to do a cross, the virgin females will ensure that the fry I get are of the cross I want. It has worked out really well for me.

Guppy Labs: Mr. Shubel, I've read a recent article in a scientific journal that indicates that males that are kept without females have a tendency not to be interested in females once these are introduced into the tanks with males. What is your experience with this issue?

Shubel: When I set up a breeding situation, I put the males in the tank first, so that they establish control of the domain or whatever you want to call it. Then a day later I introduce the females.

Guppy Labs: Have you ever done it the other way around.

Shubel: Yes, but sometimes the females will pick on the males tails if you do it that way. Like I said, I try to keep things as simple and practical as possible, and avoid unnecessary stuff.

Guppy Labs: What advice would you give to a someone new to guppy breeding?

Shubel: I would advise them to pick a strain or a color that is easy to breed, like the reds or blues or something like that. Some of the halfblack fish can be a little difficult, the blacks as well. Separate the young fish at a practical age. Separate the males and the females. Feed them well. Change water and filters as necessary. That is about it. It is pretty simple, really. Some guys buy my fish and next year they are champions. That has happened for years,...But that is no big deal. It is good for them and the hobby. The main thing is to get the interest in the fish, and they can develop their own stuff form there...

Guppy Labs: When you sell fish, do you sell virgin females?

Shubel: What I try to do is set them up a week or so before I ship to male sure they are hit. The main thing is for them to get babies in their own water. That is a big criteria right there. Once the babies are dropped in their own water, they should have no trouble at all. One thing I recommend, when you get fish, don't float the fish in the tank. The fish have been in these bags for 24-48 hours and sometimes a week. Get them into your own water as long as the pH and temperature is close. You can always go warmer, and a couple of pH points is no big deal. Get rid of the bag water. You do not want that water at all.

Guppy Labs: What is the best age to ship fish?

Shubel: 2-5 months of age. Younger fish adapt better to new conditions. I've had fish shipped to Mexico, which got hung up at the border and took 6 weeks to get there. I shipped 4 trios and lost 2 fish. The guy said the fish were thin, but healthy.

Guppy Labs: Thank you very much for your time Mr. Shubel. I don't know if you have had a chance to read over our bulletin.

Shubel: Yes I have and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Guppy Labs: We will make sure you get a copy of the bulletin each time it comes out. We appreciate your time very much.

Shubel: No problem. Any time!