Tank

[gonna_b_no_1]

oooOOOoooo  I started with pure strains of guppies, and ended up getting alot of messed up fry (inbreeding?) and then I went with different males, and the fry I got ended up being some pretty weird ...but kool..looking crosses between blue tuxedo and yellow snakeskin.  This is my first "gen" of the mixes, I'm going to select a trio from those fry (who are similar looking and pretty) and breed those...and maybe in a few gens I'll have something that might just be impressive to look at or I could end up with some guppies that start to look more common.  

That is what I love about guppies in particular.  If you mix em up it's like getting a big surprise once the coloration comes in.

[GhostKnife]

How long does it take for the coloration to happen? I have about 25 fry (Guppies) and they all look like females??

[gonna_b_no_1]

I found it depended.  I had some fry born 1/2 black.  i had some that were 4 months old and only starting to color.  

What types/colorations do you have?  

I find the darker the parents, the earlier you notice the coloring.  Yellow parents, for example, had fry that didn't show coloring until they were larger (or I just didn't notice the yellow as much as the darker fry)

[gonna_b_no_1]

Sexing young fry is difficult.  Especially when they're tiny fry.  Wait a little bit, as they reach the 2-3 month stage you should be getting an idea on the sexes.  Odds that you had an only female drop are pretty slim...not unheard of, but slim.

[GhostKnife]

I have 3 male 2 are yellow and the third is a Tuxedo.

[mseguin]

I think it also depends on what kind of coloration it is. Black or dark colorations are the result of pigments, and can be partly manifested earlier, then fro example, the snakeskin pattern, which is usually partly pigmentation but large part scale and cell structure. But that's just my theory.

[gonna_b_no_1]

I know how hard it is to watch those fry, every day, and search for the first one who will have some color.  It seems like they will always look like these little sandy brown and never get any coloring at all.

I can't give you an age that the coloring will come in.  

This depends mostly on genetics, some strains get colour sooner than others.

For instance, my blue tuxedo fry had color almost from birth.

Rate of development makes a difference as well. If fry are kept in cool water with infrequent water changes and dry food only, they will mature at a much slower rate.  

Keep the heat around 72-74 degrees, vary their diet with bbs (can be bought in frozen cubes..or hatch your own!) and the powdered flake, and you'll notice them growing a little faster.
Any fry, be it ciclids or guppies, need clean water as well.  

I had the 29 gallon with about 200-300 guppy fry in it at one point and wound up doing a healthy 20% every few days.

[GhostKnife]

I have a bunch of black ballon mollie fry, also just got a bunch of dalmations,I was happy to see that
The first bunch are about 2 months old and I can just start to tell the sex,so I guess I will have to wait on the Guppies.

[gonna_b_no_1]

The dalmation fry, and I've only had one drop so far, are not too disimilar to the guppies.  I had one or 2 born completely black and the rest looked white.  I'm still watching to see them, as they grow, if they'll develop more defined spots or just stay the way they are.

[GhostKnife]

What do you do with all your fry?Do you supply any stores?

[mseguin]

That's one thing I like about the Endler's, I can usually tell them apart at abotu 1 month and the males have good colour by then.

[gonna_b_no_1]

Once and a while I'll bring some to the store I work at.  Other times I'll just sell a few here and there.  Brought some to the big ovas auction.  I don't have the space in my house (even with 20 tanks) to offer a constant supply of guppies to any store.  LOL  I recently sold off most of the ones I had, and kept a trio to breed.   Those fry, depending on the coloration and finnage, will either end up at work, or I'll sell them privately.

[darkdep]

My peeve... Why is our location info not a required info?

This will never be a requirement.  Although most don't have a problem with it, some might consider it a privacy concern.

[gonna_b_no_1]

you could add it (location) to your siggy  lol

[babblefish1960]

I dont see why this has to be a contest, and I don't think a tank's worth should be determined by other people.

Way to go people, the "intimidation" was getting a bit much, especially for those of us who don't carry the "right" sort of fish as purported by the elitist among our ranks. Browbeating someone into a sense of shame for something they should be proud of is counter-productive, and quite frankly, hostile.

This is a fun hobby with much to learn from one another about what we do and don't know, and with communication such as is available to us here, the growing can be exponential.

This site is representative of a larger group of people with a common interest, creatures living in water support systems. Sure, we can't take our fish out for a walk, but they still bring us joy and pleasure, both in the responsibility of animal husbandry, and the "happy to see us" wiggle we get when walking past our tanks, no matter how bad our day has been. Even Attila the Hun's dog was happy to see him after a hard day's murder and mayhem. I'm sure his fish would have been happy too had he not been eating them.

I never saw the signatures as a contest or bragging rights, rather, they left me with a sense of where someone else's head might be fishwise, and an indication of who could also have expertise that could prove most fascinating.  

I personally do not choose to keep killie fish or Africans in my present tanks, yet I still find them fascinating and beautiful. We can see the much larger world in our living rooms in a vicarious fashion, something that would have been impossible for us one hundred years ago.

I do hope that everyone keeps their signatures.

Let's continue to share and keep the fish alive, and it might be nice to see more pictures of hobbyist's tanks, ponds, betta bowls......

[darkdep]

I don't think the sigs are a contest...I like seeing what people have.  It helps me personally get a headspace for the others on the forum, so when I have a question to ask I get an idea of who may know the answers.  Looking at sigs alone I see that pegasus breeds a lot of Africans; so that lead me to start asking him breeding Q's.  Others have SA Cichlids, which let me know who I could ask about those when I started there.  etc etc.  I also like seeing who the saltwater people are, so I know who I can ask when it comes time that I try that.

I find OVAS as a group decidedly UN-elitist as a whole.  It's the reason I joined in the first place.  I also don't see any "bragging" per se on the forums, ever.  I also agree with the comments where someone who is proud of a tank or a fish (WHATEVER it is) can display that in their sig, and good for them.  I think keeping any aquatic creature alive is a challenge and everyone should be proud of what they have accomplished.  I see the concept of livebearers brought up...I don't personally keep them, but it would be really dumb for me to think they were "lesser" in any way; I've never kept them and have no idea about the intricasies (sp?).  

We're not going to enforce any rules on signatures.  They are free to put whatever you want in there.  For those that don't want to read them, the new forum software in testing gives you the ability to turn display of signatures off in your profile.  That should make everyone happy.

My only suggestion:  For those with long sigs, consider using a smaller font size.

[babblefish1960]

I think a fortune could be made here for the club, for those of us whose eyes aren't what they once were, the club could sell ovas labeled magnifying glasses to make the teensy signatures legible :wink:

[pegasus]

My peeve... Why is our location info not a required info?

This will never be a requirement.  Although most don't have a problem with it, some might consider it a privacy concern.

some might consider it a privacy concern I don't buy that one second! What's the privacy concern in posting your town as location? For one , check the classifieds... Do they expect that we do our pick up blindfolded?  :roll:

When I divulge that I'm from Aylmer, it's for courtacy and btw, there is no pegasus in the Aylmer phonebook.

[mseguin]

Plus Aylmer is so far out in the middle of nowhere nobody would be bothered to drive out there to pester you :-)

[darkdep]

Notice I said "some" might consider it a privacy concern.  Being online is all about anonymity to some people.  There are certain people who might not want their town displayed for personal reasons (i.e let's say you're trying to escape from an abusive relationship).  

No, there is no "pegasus" in the phone book.  But if I read a few threads by you I can easily pick up your first name, which combined with a town I could use to get furthur info to track you down.

As me, Chris, I think everyone should post their location, unless they have a personal reason to do otherwise.  As webmaster, I'll never make it a requirement to participate.  Really, if I did, and someone didn't want to post it, they'd just lie.

I am not promoting that posting your location is a danger, I'm promoting that it is a choice.