Guppy genetics - when does it go wrong?

[dresdendollx]

Okay, so I have 3 midnight blue coloured guppy males and 3 'leopard print' guppy males, I then have 3 females (a few of them have perished as of late)

Question -

All 3 guppies have dropped fry. By the colouration that is starting to appear, they are from the midnight blue males.

I'm not doing any specific breeding atm, but when do guppies begin to turn out with bad colouration/features? Is it a couple of generations down the line??

I just dont want my babies turning out looking like wild fish....

[fighter boy]

define bad?

as far as im aware i think guppies are good to be cross bred over a space of 6 or 8 generations with out any real deformities, hough dont hold me to this nor ask me where ive heard his from.

as far as colouring. I dont think ive ever witnessed or heard a case of a generation of guppy that has been left with no colouration directly aused by cross breeding.

[Peta]

not sure myself, I found a baby in my red Chile guppies that had a crocked spine - and that's from the first ever spawn in my tank... .. I caught him the other day and threw him in as snack to my betta males tank, seems he might be to fast for snack food, saw that he was still in there hiding in the java moss tonight.

Edited April 12, 2010 by Peta(&Eric)

[Terribletegs]

It really all depends on exactly what strains you are talking about and what genes are involved in creating those traits. It can take only one cross to 'ruin' a strain completely, that doesn't mean the fish will be colourless/'wild type', just that you've negated years of breeding towards creating the specific traits of the specific strain.

Seeing as you don't know the names of your strains I assume they probably won't be pure strains anyway. Cross away! You might get something really interesting. :(