16

What does a breeder of AZ guppies do with all the strains he/she creates? Produce more strains of course! Every time I finally get a strain stabilized I will start looking at possible out crosses that I can explore using the newly created strain. If you have just started creating your strains, every new phenotype you see is worthy of being stabilized if for no other reason than to use in future out-crosses. Over time you will reach the point where many of the phenotypes you see will fall into the category of "seen that, fixed that, have that on file". You will find that while AZ can present you with a large number of phenotypes this number is not infinite. Many genotypes can be expressed as the similar phenotype.

I make no judgments as to the attractiveness of a strain when choosing which strains to out-cross. I try them all! Many strains that I personally find downright ugly can often lead to stunning beauties when used in an out-cross. I often remind myself that ugly guppy parents can give rise to beautiful guppy sons. One of the first cobra strains I stabilized was a clear beaver gray phenotype. I used this "special strain" of cobras in multiple out-crosses while under the impression that there was something unique about the dark gray tail color which produced F1 and F2 individuals with very bright clear tail colors. At the time I called the colors "metallic". Thinking that I had "discovered" an AZ secret, I set about stabilizing pewter gray strains out of red tails and tuxedos to use in out crosses. It was several months later that I realized that the gray was epistatic (a gene that is able to mask the presence of one or more other genes). The cobra clear gray (with heavy melanin) was hiding the very bright clear red color I now refer to as Christmas red or cardinal red. Heaven only knows what colors the red tail and tuxedo strains were hiding. Although I now get a chuckle out of my earlier naiveté, had I not used this comparatively dull gray cobra strain early on in my breeding efforts who knows if I would have come to enjoy the process of AZ guppy breeding as much as I now do.

One breeding technique I have utilized with great success is to create and stabilize the same phenotype in both regular (gray) and albino body types at the same time. The basic approach of this technique is to use one regular and one albino parent for every generation. Subtle differences in color that can go unnoticed when only working with gray bodied males will show up more clearly in the albino siblings. The resulting two strains will be identical, only one is regular body type and one is albino. Let me show you how this technique works.

In Pool 12 we created a strain of "white albino snakeskin turquoise pistachio" that was unique in that this non-tux phenotype was produced from proven tuxedo stock. I speculated that the strain was an example of a "chromosome disorder" mutation. This strain is unique but to me not necessarily attractive. However, I often will deliberately use one "unattractive" (to me) strain in an out-cross just to see how AZ shuffles the gene pool possibilities. I am also curious to see what AZ will present to us when this strain is used in an out cross. The other strain I have chosen to use in this out-cross is the "cobra tux tiger multi electric blue" we created in Pool 11.

Here are the two phenotypes we are going to out-cross:

I have chosen to use a male from the cobra tux strain and a female from the albino strain. Using a cobra tux male will preserve the cobra body pattern in any new phenotype this out cross produces. If the F1 males are all cobra tuxedos then we can hypothesize that this specific white albino strain is epistatic in that it is hiding the tuxedo body pattern. If the males are all non-tuxedo cobras we will know the white albino strain is not hiding the tuxedo body pattern. Enough speculation. Let's put the pair into the tank and get started.

Here are the males this pair produced in the F1 generation:

Well, well, well, would you look at these guys? All three are cobra tuxedos. They all look alike so both strains used to produce this F1 were indeed stabilized. Mom's phenotype was non-tuxedo, yet she produced all tuxedo sons. Theoretically her phenotype is non-tuxedo but her genotype is tuxedo. What an atypical situation. Go figure.

To really explore the possible phenotypes AZ will present from this out cross we would need to mate every male with each female and take a look at all the F2 generations. Then we would mate many of the males in each F2 with their sisters to see additional possible phenotypes. This is what I usually do with the majority of out-crosses I dream up. However, I have learned that I can only work one phenotype at a time. I have to remind myself "Pick one, Don, pick just one at a time!". I select a pair from this generation to produce the F2 generation.

Here are the males produced in the F2 generation:

Very interesting. Regular cobras and one albino tuxedo. Just what is going on with that white albino strain? We will save the theories for another time. I want to demonstrate inbreeding using albino/regular pairs so I select the "albino tux tiger multi" male and mate him with one of his gray bodied sisters to produce an F3 generation. I should point out at this time that white albino strains seldom produce the white albino phenotype when used in an out cross with gray-bodied strains. Albino sons produced in F2 generations will be regular albinos. White albino is recessive to regular albino and usually disappears when used in an out cross. I know, I know, more than you wanted to know.

Here are the males produced in the F3 generation.

Three phenotypes are produced. Which one should I pick? My eye is drawn to the "turquoise aquamarine" tiger multi male. I pair him with one of his albino sisters to produce the F4 generation.

You can see that the albino male in this generation is a different color from the albino males in the F3 generation. The non-albino males "appear" to be the same color as in the F3 generation but my color utility says the color is now turquoise with very little aquamarine. I again select this phenotype to produce the F5 generation by mating one of the turquoise males with one of his albino sisters.

Here are the males produced in the F5 generation:

Here we see the darker turquoise color from the F1 and the albino male's color is different from the F4 generation. I stay with the chosen phenotype and mate the selected male with one of his albino sisters.

Here are the males produced in the F6 generation:

AZ produces five phenotypes in this generation including snakeskin's. I again select a male of the selected phenotype and produce the F7 generation.

Here are the males produced in the F7 generation:

In this generation we see three phenotypes. Again, selecting a male from the goal phenotype I pair him with one of his albino sisters to produce the F8 generation.

Here are the males produced in the F8 generation:

Here we again see five phenotypes. I really do like the darker peacock color but I selected the turquoise/aquamarine color as the goal color when I started this specific session so I again select one of the turquoise males and mate him with one of his albino sisters to produce the F9 generation.

Here are the males produced in the F9 generation.

In this batch the non-albino males all appear to be the same color, but we have two albino phenotypes. AZ got real cute and did not produce an albino female for me to use for the F10 generation. Sooooooo, I select one of the albino males and mate him with one of his gray bodied sisters to produce the F10 generation. The question is will this albino male produce turquoise/peacock blue or peacock blue/turquoise regular males in the F10?

Here are the males produced in the F10 generation.

Well, we seem to have the non-albino half of this strain stabilizing as "turquoise/peacock blue" but the albino half still needs some work. I select one of the non-albino males and pair him with one of his albino sisters to produce the F11 generation.

Here are the male produced in the F11 generation.

Cute AZ, real cute! No albino males were produced. On I go to the F12 generation using one of these males and one of his albino sisters.

Here are the males produced in the F12 generation.

Again, AZ is playing coy. Only three males are produced but I have a feeling these are the two strains we are meant to achieve this session. Selecting the turquoise/peacock blue male I mate him with one of his albino sisters to produce the F13 generation.

Here are the males produced in the F13 generation.

Looks like a repeat of the F12 generation.

We now have to separate the two strains. It takes only one generation to stabilize the albino phenotype by mating an albino pair from the F13.

Here are the males from the albino strain.

Breeding out the albino gene from the non-albino stock will take several generations. Since albino is recessive it can remain hidden within the gene pool for many generations. I was able to remove the albino trait in five generations.

Here are the males from this now stabilized strain.

These two strains are exactly the same except one is albino and one is regular. Simple, nothing to it. Ain't this game fun?

Here are the crosses made to create these two strains.