Male guppy nightmare - advice needed

[BlueJax]

Hi guys,

I just bought a stunning male guppy for my breeding project only to find that he is missing his gonopodium! He is still happily chasing females and moves his ventral fins out of the way to allow his non-existant gonopodium to get by (i.e. he has no idea it's missing).

What I want to know is: Will it grow back?

Also do you think I should complain to the shop that I had to pay full price for a dud male?

I look forward to your replies!

[wataugachicken]

i think you should either trade him in for a different male, or just keep him anyway. don't complain to the store, they won't know what you're talking about. use this as a lesson in carefully inspecting fish before you buy them.

[BlueJax]

I called the shop, they were happy for me to swap him for another male.

Happy days!

Just goes to show ya never know unless you ask.

[Pallen81]

yeah, i hear uk fish can't get it up.

[mvigor]

Last year I grew a marvellously beautiful male who turned out to be verifiably sterile. It sucks.

[wataugachicken]

i just have to ask because it's been bothering me - exactly what part of your situation is a "nightmare"? read about the bad things that happen to other people and their fish (exploding tanks, brown water, rotting fish-flesh, 5-day power outages) and you might reclassify under "minor inconvenience". . .

[mvigor]

Well, in my own case is was a reasonable let-down that I couldn't make more that looked like this guy. Bright sunset fading from orange to yellow with leopard spots...awesome guppy.

[Malefic23]

Just a little side note, often this part of the fish gets damaged by nipping, and even more often, the breeder snips it on his "unique" guppy genetic strain to keep people from breeding their own.


A lot of the very very colorfull guppies are hybrids of two specific strains, and don't breed true. To breed more of say, the sunset guppy, you might need a moonlight female and a tequilia male. All the fry would be sunset guppy fry, but if they breed with anything the fry are mutts.

Google the web for "guppy genetics" and you'll find all sorts of helpfull webpages about breeding pure strain guppies of many sorts.

[BlueJax]

Hehe,

Yeah ok maybe not a 'nightmare' as such, but still pretty annoying if you've bought the fish for the purposes of breeding and he can't actually breed.

It wouldn't surprise me if he'd been snipped by the breeder before sale to be honest. If I had a line of these guys I wouldn't want anyone else to have them either! (Although I'd never be so cruel, obviously, before you all start sending hate mail...)

Bring on the 'Home Fish Cloning Kit' I say! Such a waste of good genes!

[Kyohti]

Yeah, I could never get the colors I wanted out of breeding my guppies... but most of the ones I got were petshop purchases and were probably mongrels in their own right. But then again it's insanity to me to buy a breeding trio of guppies for some $20-30. They're pretty.... but come on! They're guppies!!! :P

Anyone else have the annoyance of purchasing a fantastic fan-tail only to have it die because it gets sick or injured and can't recover because of the extra strain of just dragging that BIG pretty tail around? O__o;;

[BlueJax]

Yep.

[BlueJax]

I totally get what you mean about guppies dragging their tails around cuz they're too big.

That's why I'm only looking at roundtails and swordtailed guppies for my little breeding project. Can't stand to see a guppy that can't swim properly cuz it's tail is too big.

I'm wondering if I can produce a tiger body, red-double-swordtail male.

It's good to dream. :rolleyes:

[BlueJax]

How do I upload a picture of him?

[Blueiz]

How do I upload a picture of him?

Did it work?

[Malefic23]

Heh, at this point, my guppies have bred with endlers livebearers, and have turned into real mutts. I've got a stable breeding population in my 30 gal, and a larger population in my 125. The 125 has an arrow, which makes them feeder guppies, but I've noticed the arrow allways catches the males with the big tail displays first. That bright flag of color that slows down their swimming makes them a tasty target.

The exceptional mutts that look really striking, I try to pull from the main tank and put in the 30 gal. The dull boring ones that breed in the 30 gal go back into the main tank to get eaten. I've been doing this process for a year, and I still don't have a 30 gallon full of showcase guppies. I think they just mongrel too widely. But it keeps me busy...

[Shagmaster]

yeah, i hear uk fish can't get it up.

LOL Thats wrong:)

[Kyohti]

Yeah... in order to have good guppies, you'd practically have to BUY good guppies at the 'good guppies'... aka ridiculously expensive... price. :P