Breeding AZ guppies is oodles of fun if you follow the instructions. Instructions? What instruction? Did you know that the little square booklet that came with the game has complete instructions for breeding AZ guppies? Yep, right in the section titled TECHNIQUES FOR BREEDING. This chapter briefly describes inbreeding and out-breeding. Examples of how to create a more beautiful German Tuxedo and a new kind of guppy are briefly, very briefly, outlined. The key word here is briefly. Someone was given the project of describing the principles of creating beautiful strains of guppies in as few words as possible. This person did a wonderful job. Let's see if I can explain the process in just a little more detail.
AZ tells us on page 10 that the guppies that are included in AZ are not "pre-settled". The guppies you get off the CD are repositories of genetic possibilities. They are genetic mutts or mongrels. A starting point for your breeding program. Let's say we have decided to create a Red Mosaic as briefly, very briefly, explained on pages 10-11. The instructions tell us to "select and do inbreeding many times with Red Tails and Yellow Mosaics to stabilize the characteristics". Well, let's start with Red Tails. Select a Red Tail pair from the Red Tail .fsh file. Here is the male I have chosen to father our first generation (F1).
I have decided to call this color "Christmas Red". Here are the males produced in the F1 generation.
Not one male looks like the father. Well, on page 11 this phenomenon is explained. "The F1 generation may not be close to your Ideal fish. But you should use them to make the F2 generation even if you don't like the F1.The F1 generation is generally mixed and rarely becomes the fish you are seeking." Tell me about it! Well, this color of red is very pretty, but we want a strain of Christmas Red guppies. Let's see what shows up in the F2.
Since all of the guys in the F1 look alike, let's select the one with the best VCP ratings to mate with his sisters, hoping for a brood that has at least one male that looks like the original male. Remove the selected male and all of his sisters to a .fsh file labeled "0 F1 no Christmas Reds" without the quotation marks. (Placing a zero at the beginning of the file name causes this .fsh file to appear first in your list of fish files for easy access as you begin the process of mating the selected male with his sisters.) The first female did not produce any males that looked like the original Christmas Red male we have chosen as our template. The brood was discarded. The second female produced this batch of males.
One male looks like the Christmas Red color we want to stabilize. (I could have mated the male with all of his sisters, looking for an even better batch, but I chose this second batch. Call me crazy.) Let's save this guy with all of his sisters to a .fsh file labeled "0 0 F2 Christmas Red male w females" and start to work on the F3. We are hoping to find a F3 brood that has even more Christmas Red males in it.
The fourth female from the F2 produced this batch which I chose to save as the F3. The other females produced broods with no Christmas Red males and were discarded.
Well, finally, two Christmas Red Males ! Let's save the one with the highest VCP ratings with his sister to a .fsh file labeled "0 0 0 F3 male w females" and start searching for the "right female" to produce the F4 generation.
The third female from the F3 produced this batch of males, which I chose to keep as the F4 generation.
Things are looking promising. I am at the F4 and the number of Christmas Red males is almost 100%. Can I be there? Let's save the best male (highest VCP ratings) with his sisters to a .fsh file labeled ""0 0 0 0 F4 male w females" and start the process all over again to find the best F5 generation. The first female tested from the F4 produced this batch of males, which I chose to save as the F5 generation.
Darn, double darn. Here we are at the F5 and we still have two males that are not Christmas Red in the mix (and they are a shade of red not previously seen). Oh well, you know the drill. Save the best male with his sisters to a .fsh file labeled "0 0 0 0 0 F5 male w sisters" and start the search for the best brood for the F6 generation.
The fifth female tested from the F5 produced this batch of males, which I chose to save as the F6. All other broods were discarded.
Here we are at the F6 and the darn strain is still throwing off color males at us. (I am starting to consider returning to the F2 generation and starting over.) Is there hope for this particular strain? Will we find the one female down the road that is homozygous for Christmas Red? Oh well, patience, patience. Again, we save the best male with his sisters to a .fsh file labeled "0 0 0 0 0 0 F6 male w females" and start the process of looking for a good F7 generation.
Things are not going smoothly with this strain. I mated all six females with the male and this is the best brood I came up with to save as the F7 generation.
The strain is still throwing off color phenotypes at us and we are at the F7 ! (A return to the F2 is still possible.) You know the drill by now I hope. Save the best male with his sisters to a .fsh file labeled "0 0 0 0 0 0 0 F7 male w females" and start the process of finding the best brood for the F8 generation.
The forth female produced this batch which I save as the F8 (and this was the best batch).
I am determined to stabilize this strain as Christmas Red. I will persevere! I will not be denied! Once again, we select the best male to produce the F9 generation.
The best brood saved as the F9 had these males in it.
The other broods had off color males in them and were discarded. Yep, we are at the F9 and still getting non-Christmas Red males in the batches. Is there hope? Since there are only 3 males in the batch I suspect that I am dreaming to hope that this brood will finally produce all Christmas Red males. Onward to the F10 generation. (I hope you have the file saving technique figured out by now.)
Here are the males of the F10 generation.
Well, lookie what AZ gave us this time as the best batch, one Christmas Red Male and twelve females. Cute AZ, real cute. Using this male we go on to the F11 generation.
All the other females threw batches with off color males, which were discarded. AZ is playing games with me, trying to throw me off the chase (telling me to return to the F2). Ha! I want this strain and I want it now! Well, let's see what this guy and his sisters will produce as the F11. After all, he has twelve sisters. One of them has gotta be "the one".
Well, well, well. The first three females threw batches with off color males, but female number four produced this batch.
Let's call this batch F11 and be done with it.
The first female tested from the F11 produced this batch of males.
I know, let's choose this batch as the F12 ! Are we there yet?
The first female tested threw this batch of males.
Do they all look like Christmas Reds to you? THEY DO TO ME! I think I will call this batch "lucky 13". A random pair is selected to produce the F14 generation. Yep, we have reached the F14.
F14 males:
By George, I think we've got it! Let's pick a random pair from this F14 generation and see if we have finally stabilized this strain.
The F15 males:
Let's take a chance and label these guys and their sisters "Christmas Red stock". At this point I test the strain by taking one pair and repeatedly mating them using TransWarp. If all the males produced look alike every time, the strain is fixed. This strain passed the test.
The records of my efforts to stabilize this strain are shown here in my "Items folder".
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