I am amazed that I have muddled through thirty "pools" in this series of articles concerning my adventures and observations breeding Mother AZ's guppies. You can thank (or blame) Izzy and Mirra for the whole concept. Izzy asked one simple question (how do I stabilize a strain?) and my very detailed reply (Mirra says detail is gooooooooood) became Pool 1. I looked back at all the tomes I had written exchanging ideas with other breeders and decided to go public (Izzy said "I've got lots of space on my site!"). Although thirty pools seems to be an outrageous number of articles on this subject, we have only skimmed the surface (yep, there's lots more to rummage through). Many of the e-mail questions I receive become the topic of yet another pool (if you ask a question I will try to explore the circumstances). Ashley recently asked, "What's the deal with the orange, red or yellow grass phenotypes? They are so illusive. They seem to disappear the more you breed them." I had no idea what Ashley was talking about. Problems with the grass tail pattern? At my request Ashley sent along family pictures of the males from two F1 generations of two out-crosses she had chosen to explore. I had an idea what the problem might be but I needed just a little more information. (What were the phenotypes of the parent strains?) I asked Ashley what the parent strains were and she replied "I'm pretty sure they weren't from grass parents, although I don't remember what the original parents were." Ah ha! "They weren't from grass parents". Now I knew exactly what "the deal" was with these two specific out-crosses. Mother AZ was trying to lead Ashley down a road to nowhere. Since Mother AZ has led me down countless roads to nowhere I feel it my duty to expose Mother AZ as a tease and tormentor of virtual guppy breeders everywhere. Gather around now; let me describe for you a few more of Mother AZ's unpredictable predictable behaviors. (My wife says Mother AZ is kinky.) In pool 30 we out-crossed a clear multi strain with a tiger multi of unknown parentage. The F1 generation's phenotypes were grass and grass multi. Although we out-crossed clear/clear multi with tiger multi the F1 males exhibit grass and grass multi phenotypes. What? Why? (Mother AZ loves to pull this surprise out of her bag of tricks.) Well, to tell you the truth I don't have a clue how to properly explain this situation. The "cut to the chase" "bottom line" reality here is to pay no attention to what you see in the F1 generation other than to appreciate their beauty (or lack thereof). If both strains used to produce the F1 generation were stabilized homozygous strains then all of the males will look alike (they will all have the same phenotype, but believe you me, their genotypes are not the same). Many, many times these F1 generation males are spectacular. (If I had the desire to add more phenotypes to the "Guppy Gallery" I could add several hundred additional phenotypes using these guys.) If one/both of the strains used for the out-cross were stabilized heterozygous strains then you will see more than one phenotype in the F1 and these too have the potential to knock your eyes out (or make you sick to your stomach). You will also find equally unique phenotypes in F2 generations. (I think of them as "now you see `em, now you don't" phenotypes. I've never taken a pic of those guys so I can't provide a specific illustration. Sorry.) I've learned to look, enjoy and ignore any phenotype I covet in F1- F3 generations. I know that I could "sorta" stabilize the guy's phenotype by using back-crosses but this is seldom my goal. My theory is that if Mother AZ can produce the phenotype in the F1-F3 generations then sooner or later she will show them to me again in F4 (and later) generations. I'll work with them from that starting point if/when Mother AZ ever decides to show them to me. Let me show you what I'm talking about. In the F1 generation shown above I selected the grass multi male to father the F2 generation. In each succeeding generation I selected one of his sons that looked exactly like him to produce the next generation. Here are the F2-F5 generation males produced in this wild guppy chase. My experience tells me this chase could go on forever. Mother AZ keeps showing me the phenotypes she is willing/able to let me have, but I keep insisting on chasing a phenotype she cannot/will not let me have. I took this cross out to the F14 in order to demonstrate for you how futile this chase proved to be. I also set up a fourteen-generation back-cross using the F1 "grass multi" male as the dad for all fourteen generations. The results were the same. (I can accept a strain that is heterozygous for one/two other phenotypes, but this "grass multi" gene pool is a "four for the price of one" deal. This is far too complex for me to bother with.) What I can stabilize out of this gene pool are the tail patterns "grass heterozygous for clear", "tiger multi heterozygous for tiger" and "clear" if I were to start using a different, non-grass multi, male at some point after the F3 generation. That's the way it is. I accept the situation, deal with it, and bow to Mother AZ's program. To chase homozygous grass or grass multi from an out-cross that started with clear and tiger as the basic genetic components will not prove successful. (If you brought clear and tiger to the prom, Mother AZ expects you to leave the prom with clear and tiger. If you want to leave the prom with a different phenotype you will have to find a way out via a side/backdoor.) If you want to create different colors of the grass phenotype I suggest that you start with one of the basic grass phenotypes you will find in the albino, redtail, cobra, mosaic and tuxedo strains. The easiest grass phenotypes to initially stabilize are the grass phenotypes that pop up in F3-F4 generations within the redtail, albino and tuxedo gene pools. If you work with the yellow mosaic and cobra gene pools you have to overcome the potential "heterozygous for tiger/leopard" tendencies of those groups, but they are relatively easy to find and stabilize (work with grass guys that show up by the F3 generation). If you choose to work from the bluegrass gene pool you have my sympathy. Let me show you my basic approach to creating "grass" tail patterns in various colors. I dug around in my .fsh files and found "cobra grass canary spice" and "redtail clear Christmas red" (stabilized in pool 1). Both of these strains are what I consider to be "basic strains" that Mother AZ will allow you to easily stabilize as homozygous phenotypes. Here are males from the two strains being used in this out-cross. If you remember (I'm sure you do), this strain of "clear Christmas red" (stabilized in pool 1) carries a recessive gene for "red orange". This strain is not heterozygous for "red orange", this strain carries the gene for "red orange" which usually appears when the strain is used in an out-cross. I thought this added color would add a little variety to the out-cross. Since I want to preserve the cobra body pattern I chose a male from the cobra file. Had I wanted the same tail pattern without the cobra body pattern I would have selected a male from the redtail file. Here are the males produced in the F1 generation of this out-cross.

Yep, the "red orange" color shows up in half of the F1 males. Knowing that the phenotype of the F1 males give no clear road signs as to where an out-cross might lead I selected a random male from this batch to produce the F2 generation. (I decided to let "chance" dictate my choice. "Chance" chose a red male.) Here are the males in the F2 generation. I chose the red male to produce the F3 generation. Why? The other grass males in the batch are "grass orange" and "grass canary spice" just like their grandfather and their uncles in the F1 and will probably turn out to be heterozygous for "some shade of orange clear" in later generations. The "grass red" male is a different shade of red than his F1 uncles and his dad and he just might lead to a homozygous strain. The other guys are not grass. Their sons might be grass (due to Mom), but will probably lead to a "heterozygous for clear" end result. Here are the guys in the F3 generation. These guys look sorta "tropical" don't they? I chose a red male to again produce the next generation. I had to find the "right sister" in this generation. The first three females produced a variety of colors. Sister number four produced this batch of F4 males. Not bad for the F4. However, I have learned that the F4 and F5 generations will usually let me know if the phenotype I have chosen to chase is going to prove homozygous or segregate into possible "heterozygous for" possibilities. I start paying attention at this stage of the chase. I had to use three sisters from this generation to find an all red batch. Here are the males sister number three produced in the F5 generation. Cool, looks promising. The first female selected from this batch produced this batch of F06 males. Close, real close. "Clear red" continued to show up in the F7-F8 generations. The F9 generation contained only "grass red". I took the strain out to the F10 generation before I considered the strain stabilized. Here are the males in the F10 generation. This strain is labeled "cobra grass Christmas red" and filed away for future out-crosses. Here is a male from this strain matured to ten months of age. This out-cross is what my mind considers a "simple basic" out-cross. You can create many colors of grass guppies exhibiting all the body patterns using this approach. The more basic colors you stabilize the more "non-basic" colors you can create by out-crossing your various color strains. To illustrate this procedure I again dug around in my .fsh files looking for strains that might lead to some interesting colors and selected these two strains to out-cross. My plan was to mate albino with non-albino to create two strains (one albino, one non-albino) for your viewing pleasure. Why was I not surprised to find out that Mother AZ had plans of her own? Here are males in the F1 generation from this out-cross. Hummmmmmmmm. These guys looked like hot coals in a campfire glowing in the tank. Although they looked similar to the "grass cranberry" color used to produce their phenotype there was a difference in the shade and under color of the tail. However, as they were F1 males I knew better than to consider stabilizing this "new" color as a homozygous strain. A random pair from this batch was chosen to produce the F2 generation. Here are the males in the F2 generation. Not bad, the enhanced spots on the albino males were a nice touch. The non-albino males were again "grass cranberry". I chose an albino red male and a non-albino female to produce the F3 generation. The color of the albino males is very nice. However, where did the gene for black overcoat exhibited by the non-albino male come from? I produced a F4 generation to see what Mother AZ had up her sleeve. Again, black overcoat non-albino males were produced. I continued on to the F6 generation and Mother AZ produced only black overcoat non-albino males. Well, this out-cross was of no use to me for this illustration. (This is usually the case no matter what the cause. Nine out of ten out-crosses I explore lead nowhere.) However, I was curious as to where the gene for black coat was lurking. I out-crossed the "grass cranberry" with a few more albino strains but the gene for black overcoat did not reappear. I then out-crossed the "albino grass blood orange" with several non-albino strains. Black overcoat appeared in the F3 generation every time. Conclusion? This strain of albino guppies carries the gene for black overcoat. Even though the albino males do not express the phenotype they can and do pass the gene along to their non-albino sons. I also tried the experiment using only female albinos and they too passed the black overcoat gene along to their non-albino sons. Mother AZ has shown me another trick she has up her sleeve. It would be nice if some of her tricks included the colors "royal purple" and "go light green". Now there are two tricks I would like to see Mother AZ pull out of her hat. Meanwhile, back in the grass tank………… Splish Splash in the Grass