In the previous pool I was able to create eight stabilized strains and passed up the opportunity to stabilize two more. My goal was to isolate and stabilize one blue strain and I was able to stabilize six blue strains: grass washed denim, grass denim, grass aqua , clear washed denim and clear jade. However, I am still not impressed with the phenotypes produced. No guppy really jumped up and sang "I'm too pretty for this tank, too pretty for your eyes, too pretty for my fins…" (sorry, I get carried away). I want a strain of guppies that will qualify as "eye-candy".
As soon as I saw the jade phenotype in batch three I knew I was on the right track. (My handy dandy color utility says that this color is turquoise but I prefer to call it jade.) This "jade" phenotype is not particularly attractive but I have learned that this color can lead to some very attractive guppies.
Since I am paddling around Mother AZ's gene pool hoping to bump into the color cobalt I decided to out-cross the clear jade strain with the grass denim strain. Since these two strains are stabilized we are no longer mating guppy mutts but purebred guppy strains. (Sorta like out-crossing two colors of purebred poodles.)
Here are males from the two strains for your viewing pleasure.
Here are the males in the F1 generation produced by mating a female from the jade strain and a male from the denim strain.
Look familiar? These guys look just like the "clear washed denim" strain we stabilized in the previous pool. Go figure. With a sigh of relief I note that they all look alike. Yep, the two strains used in this out-cross were indeed stabilized (ever try to high five the monitor?).
I selected the first male and female in the .fsh file to produce this F2 generation.
Now we see two guppies that just might qualify as eye-candy. The peacock blue and the grass turquoise are both much more attractive colors than any we have so far seen. I want to work with both males. Decisions, decisions. Which one should I work with first? Let's go with the grass turquoise first. Mr. Peacock Blue will still be there when we return to him next session.
Selecting Mr. Grass Turquoise, I mate him with one of his sisters to produce this batch of F3 males.
Grass jade shows up. Now, let me explain something to you about grass jade (my handy dandy color utility says this color is nile green. Works for me. Jade for clear, nile green for grass). "Grass nile green" on any body type is one of those colors/tail patterns that to date has eluded me as a homozygous strain. The color/tail pattern always seems to occur only as a package deal, always heterozygous for something else. This may be an opportunity to finally nail down a homozygous strain of the "grass nile green" phenotype. Therefore I will continue to chase the turquoise. Did you follow that? I want "nile green" so I will chase turquoise. (Have you been paying attention?) Watch what happens.
Selecting a turquoise male and one of his sisters I produced this batch of F4 males.
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