SLIDESHOW:
I’ll start off by specifying that there are three fish photographed here. A female grass, and two of her male offspring. (F1) The male guppies are just a few weeks out of the fry stage, so very young. I put them in the same tank for photography purposes. When I came back to look at these photos, I noticed the female’s tail was clamped a bit. So I checked my fish room and her tail was fully opened. She appears to be completely healthy and was closing her tail because she was in 2″ of water and could barely turn around.
I got a line of these because I’ve been making an effort over the last year to add guppies that have bigger and wider tails. I think I saw these for the first time in the 1990s on Luke Roebuck’s website, and have liked them ever since.
I believe these would be entered in the blue / green bicolor category. The males have dorsal fins that are large and fan shaped, which isn’t in line with the flag shaped dorsals of the ideal IFGA fish. And the tails are a bit wide for IFGA. However, I think you could probably still enter these in IFGA without any major issues (from what the original breeder of these told me).
These are usually advertised as throwing both red and blue grass. But what I think is actually happening is that they’re all about the same, except maybe half of the offspring have extra red in their tails. The red males I have actually look blue when the lighting is just right. I’m planning on weeding out the reds and re-enforcing the blue traits. I’m not crazy about red guppies because they often look like a tomato red instead of a fire engine red.
One issue with the females in this line that I haven’t seen in ages — they can be aggressive or territorial. Oddly, they only act this way with females they are related to. I had to separate females to keep them from constantly fighting each other. But when I add say a regular snakeskin female to the same tank, everyone gets along. There must be some aggression just in this line, and it only comes out when confronted with other aggression. (i.e., most other female guppies would just move out of the way instead of nipping back). Back in around 2000, I had a female guppy that was very aggressive. I thought I’d teach her a lesson by introducing a female from another line, a giant female probably twice her size. That way the larger female would keep the aggressive one in her place. It didn’t work out as planned. They both locked jaws and swirled in combat, and I ended up separating them because they were not planning on quitting until one of them died. I have a line of black Moscow guppies and the females are aggressive, but not territorial, if that makes sense. It’s mostly food aggression. They attack flakes of food like they’re killing them. And in turn, they also quickly eat any fry in the tank as fast as they can. This is the main reason I’m phasing out these females. They are otherwise a really nice, hardy line of guppies. I have a line of black AOCs that will probably take their tank space. The aggressive Moscow females usually have those longer dorsal fins, which I actually like. But I can’t deal with that level of fry eating.
If I had to recommend the perfect guppy for someone starting out, this line of blue grass would be either my top choice, or one of the top choices. They are a really hardy fish. The females are large and colorful. You might be able win the female category at IFGA contests with these. I haven’t had any problems with these fish at all. They produce a lot of fry. And the males are very nice looking fish. This is the kind of guppy that when your friends and family visit (who all think you’re crazy for having so many fish) — they will remark that it’s a beautiful fish.
Terry Aley's Guppy Site 