Guppy AIDS.. Diseases.. or just Defects in the Gene Pool..?
by Bill "Pegasus NZ" of New Zealand

Many of us.. not only here in New Zealand, but it seems throughout the world, are having problems with Guppies wasting away and developing bent spines along with other problems. This is more prevalent today that in earlier years... which leads me to believe it is not what we seem to believe. The scaremongers and those that could not define an explanation for this were soon to attach various names to the problem, including Guppy AIDS.. and Wasting Disease.

Like many, I don't have a one-hundred percent qualified answer to this problem, and can only tell others about my own situation.

About a year or so back I had cleared my tanks of most of my general fish and decided to concentrate on Guppies. I still have a few Angels.. (retired).. plus a few Gouramis, but nothing of great interest. Up until this point I didn't own a single Guppy of any description, and when I "did" finally purchase some, I made absolute sure that they were from good stock and were breeding true. There were two pairs that captured my interest.. one being a Blue Phantom type, which has a rather nice blue body and a flowing cloudy blue to white delta tail and fins. The other pair was (what I would call).. a Half Red Flamenco, which has a half red body with a flaming red delta tail. I have others.. but these are the ones I decided to concentrate mainly on. Strict isolation was given to these fish, and fry were removed to individual tanks as soon as sexable, as I needed virgin females. Both pairs have produced some nice fish, but unfortunately I lost the Flamenco female after she gave birth to a heavy brood. This fish became so thin after the drop that she seemed as though she didn't have the energy or will to get back into condition.. despite the best of conditions and food.

So then I was stuck with a male Flamenco.. but no female.. but fortunately the drop she made were all pretty close to form, and all the males produced had flaming red tails just like the male, and the females were all much like the original female.. so all in all I wasn't too upset about losing the main female.

Now around this point is where I “think” all the probs started, for up until around three months ago I didn't have a single fish with any deformity or illness.

I had decided to cross this lone Flamenco male with a random female that my son bought on one of his LFS trips. This was a decent looking female with a large sound body and shape, but mainly was just the basic greyish green that the common Guppy has, and had some basic colouring in the tail, some of which was red. The offspring from these looked fine for the first few months, but then I started to notice a few that had started to develop the bent spine and a small number had begun wasting away and had died or were culled.

The Phantoms were kept within their line, and as of yet, not deformities of any kind. The Flamenco offspring strain have gone on to breed with the virgin females, and again, no probs.

So.. what have I learned?

It is my belief that all this talk of Guppy AIDS and the Wasting Away Disease is all just that, talk and a myth. First off is the fact that this so called AIDS is not contagious as far as my test have proved, and the wasting could be a number of factors, including heavy births that have stressed the female out to a large degree.

I truly believe that these problems are “inherited” ones that are passed on through the gene pool by the “female” and “not” the male. The fish we have today are the direct descendants of a long line of mixed bag Guppies, among which were possibly some highly bred strains that took years to perfect. The breeders overseas have one goal.. and that is money. In order to make that money they need to produce fish with outstanding looks and quality. The purchaser at the end of the chain has no clue whatsoever how these fish were produced.. or what hidden genes (good or bad).. are hidden inside these beautiful looking fish. Often in fish breeding something can be pushed to one side in favour of a seemingly more important factor.. in other words the virility and longevity of the fish is sacrificed in order to give the public the outstanding looks that they have now become to expect.

What can we do?

Simple answer is to get the best stock you can, and from a reliable source if possible. From here, you are on your own, as the seller may have no knowledge of how the offspring might look or fare. Allowing those deformed fish that you may have - to breed will then just add to the countries problem. so again, the answer is simple. Cull every fish that shows the slightest sign of a bent spine or wasting.. as there is “no cure” and no matter what you do, the end of the line will lead to the same result, the demise of the fish plus more defects being fed into our stocks If there is the “slightest” chance that one of these deformed fish has bred, then isolate it if possible and dispose of it and its offspring as soon as possible. It may be hard to do. But it's the only way if we are to eradicate this major prob we have. Again, in my estimation this is not a disease as such, but just a bad set of genes, that one day the breeders will find, and hopefully remove from our breeding lines.

Next project, A few weeks back I spotted an “All Black” Guppy in among some of the young fish. It is a young male which is developing really well, and is totally black apart from a bright yellow outline around his flowing delta tail.

Will keep you posted.

Still have more questions about disease in the humble Guppy? Need more information? Swim on over to the forum!