Articles
Here are some articles that are taken from Guppy Tales, the GAGC newletter.
Click on the links below to go the article on this page.
Tough Gets Going When the Going Gets Tough
News You Can Use
Receiving Fish
Breeding for Color
What Secret Stuff Do You Use?
Tough Get Going When the
Going Gets Tough
By Jim Gourlie
Sounds like the call of the Marines or one of our countries fine Defense Services. But I would like to borrow this Trade Mark and apply it to the Guppy hobby. We all encounter hurtles on the way to the perfect guppy. It would be naïve to believe all will be at peace within our fish rooms.
We are to encourage one another to raise the best fish we can. If am ever asked by a beginner in the hobby about what it takes to raise a guppy to show size, I will tell them the following. Regular water changes, regular filter changes, feed baby brine shrimp daily, buy the best dry foods you can and buy the best guppy stock you can. After that know that you will have challenges that will affect your fish room. But by doing the above you will immediately eliminate a good deal of the problems that you may incur on your pursuit of that Best of Show.
Know that at times, no matter how careful you have been or how fastidious you have made your self in raising your fish, you will encounter a disease, pathogen or water problem that you just could not plan for. And while you hope these events are few and far between. Know that they will occur. And when they do, don’t lose hope. Get tough. Fight the good fight. Attack those problems head on. Don’t give up. You put a lot of time, effort and skill in raising those show stoppers. Be humble. Ask for help. See what other breeders are doing. Do research. Know when to hold them and know when to fold them. Do the best you can and pray. Just like life.
SHOW YOUR FISH!
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News That You Can Use
By: Chuck Maczko
Receiving new fish into your fish room
Never, never put anyone else's water into your fish tanks. It may contain many different kinds of pathogens such as bacteria, parasites, worms, and other nasty creatures. Obviously, these are not the kind of additives you want to put in your tank. It could wipe out an entire fish room. I know, I have been there and done that. Use a net and dump the newly arrived fish into your net and let the net drip its contents into your sink. Then carefully drop the fish into its new home. Try not to let the net drip into the new tank. This will go a long way in keeping those bad guys out of your tanks.
Tank Cleaners
The best all out cleaner is Clorox bleach. Remove all filters and add a ½ cup of bleach and let it set for a couple of days. Bleach kills basically everything. It will kill bacteria, parasites, the eggs and larva of worms etc…
Some breeders will leave an air stone in the tank while the tank is disinfecting. Drain and rinse them very thoroughly, taking great care to clean and rinse the outside of the tank as well as the inside. Once the tank has been rinsed, let it dry out completely before using it again.
What Causes Cloudy Water?
Answer: Bacteria! Bacteria can suffocate your fish or weaken them and make them susceptible to diseases. As much as possible, disease should be prevented not medicated. What’s the cause of too much bacteria? There can be numerous causes such as too much dried food fed at once, way too much frozen brine shrimp fed at one time, or an overloaded or non-working filter. Increasing your aeration always helps to reduce cloudy water. Ammonia, which is the big by-product of cloudy water, is a highly poisonous gas which can come from the guppy’s waste or the other items just mentioned. Ultimately, frequent water changes are a must and reduction of feeding and less fish per tank can go a long way in preventing cloudy water.
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Receiving Fish
By Jim Gourlie
Anyone who has ever sent away for and purchased a trio or more of guppies knows the anticipation and excitement of waiting to receive these fish. Patience is a must though if you are in the Northern states. The breeder that you purchased the fish from, if he or she is reputable at all, will usually wait till the weather is in the shipper's favor to ship the fish to you. Many of the breeders will insert a heat pack made especially for shipping fish to keep the fish from getting cold. Some breeders will ship the fish in a box and insert that box into another insulated box. A good breeder will make every effort to ship the fish so that they are alive and well at the delivery. All fish are bagged individually and double bagged.
Almost all breeders will ship with an Overnight Service. Many times the breeder will use a waiver of signature so the fish can be delivered with out someone there to sign for the fish. A waive of signature is not usually done for the fish shipped to cold weather climates.
Once you have checked the fish in your possession, check the box for any signs of major damage or penetration of the box itself. Carefully open the box and examine the fish. They should be alive and well, with no visible signs of disease. The fish may look a bit thin due to not being fed for a couple of days or so as breeders tend not to ship fish that have recently been feed as the waste from the fish can contaminate the water they are shipped in.
Let the bags of fish acclimate to the room’s temperature. Then carefully open the bags and pour out half the water. Replace that water with water from the tank the fish will be introduced to. You may wish to slowly add the water over a period of time, say 15 to 30 minutes. Once you have completed this process, dump the bag full of water into a net and then transfer the fish to the tank.
Add a prophylactic like Melafix, or half a dosage of Quick Cure or other medications to limit the chance of disease. A word of caution: go easy on the medications as the fish may be a bit weak from the trip. Never add the fish to a tank that has already had fish in it until you have quarantined the fish for at least 5 days or more. Add some fish vitamins as well. Give the breeder you purchased the fish from a call or e-mail and let them know the fish arrived safely. Then enjoy the fish!
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BREEDING FOR COLOR
By: Jim Gourlie
Let’s first acknowledge that the color of a show guppy is only one part of the fish that is judged. Judging 101 classes will tell you, among other things, that size, shape, condition, symmetry and deportment are all critically important when pointing out a fish. But color can be a great tie breaker on the show bench. Consider two competing purple fish. One is faded drab and dull purple and the other fish is an intense iridescent purple. All things being equal, the fish with the intense iridescence will win. Try not to just breed for size. A large transparent orangey/pink fish will not usually compete against a bright tomato red medium to large fish.
If you are raising half-black yellows, make sure you are breeding for a yellow tail and dorsal. Washed out, dull, almost pastel colors will not get as many points. It can take a lot of size on a fish to get close to making up for those dull colors.
Make sure you are raising the fish under lighting conditions in your fish room that mimic the various lighting conditions at the shows. Many breeders will use a combination of soft white, bright light and some incandescent light to simulate show condition lighting. This is especially important it you are raising blues, greens and purples. Guppies with these colors have been known to switch colors or change shades under different lighting conditions. If you want to give your fish every chance of showing true color under all light conditions, it is important that your fish are bred under those same lighting conditions.
A note on green guppies, and blues to a lesser extent: Green fish may look green in your tanks, but show up blue/green or even turquoise at the show. So try to breed for an intense and dense green. It could be a bright spring grass green or a more evergreen color. Either way, it must show up green on the show bench. Watch the blues to make sure the color is not fading to a blue/green color. Remember, the fish must have a good intense color that has density. It must be colored all the way through the fish’s tail, with a matching dorsal, and through the body if possible.
In the solid colors, breed for one color with no streaks of a secondary or lighter shade of the same color. Half-black fish should be just that: black. The IFGA has said that the fish’s body must be a shade of black. But I can tell you, on the show bench if the judges are faced with two equally pointed fish with the exception of the fact one fish has a true half-black shoe polish black body, while the other fish has a charcoal gray/black body, the shoe polish half-black fish will win.
Bicolor fish are just that: 2 distinctively different colors or 2 shades of the same color. Breed bicolor fish for good color distinction so that there is no question of what the secondary color is or if the secondary color is actually a different shade of the same color. When breeding for color make it ultimately easy for the judging team to distinguish the true color of your fish. By doing this, you will have gained an advantage on the show bench and the admiration of those who wish to breed to that standard.
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So What Secret Stuff Do You Use?
BY: Jim Gourlie
Believe it or not this is an actual question I get more often than you know. It’s as if I, and God knows that I am not the best of the breeders, have some magical wand or formula to make guppies whimsically become super show fish. It could be no further from the truth. I am just like you. Always looking for a better way to produce great fish or use better products that will help me get there.
So with the possibility of destroying some thoughts that I have some super guppy secrets, I will simply throw out to you what I use and what I do. Please note my disclaimer: This is what I do. It may or may not work for you. All you can do is try to see if it can work for you. First, let’s talk about products. I use Amquel to treat my water. It has been a great help in getting rid of chloramines and chlorine. I also use Nova Aqua which has helped to increase the slime on fish and reduce damage to bodies and tail.
As a preventative I use Garlic Guard from Seachem. Say what you want about garlic, but it has nutritive and healing properties that are good for humans and fish. I have used a fish dewormer called Fenbendazole. It has done a good job of killing the worms and it needs to be either mixed with fish food or included in a beef heart mix to get into the fish. But once in fish it does take care of the worms. Use it every 3 months or so after you feed every other day for 3 days. One product I wholeheartedly use is Professional Strength Mela Fix. It has really helped with fin splits and tears. Is it successful all the time? No, but it has worked at least 40 to 60% of the time for me and that is better than 0%. As a by-product, it helps to reduce tail burn and other bacterial and fungus out breaks.
For disease in general, I will use Quick Cure as general cure. It is strong so be careful on the babies with it. It can kill them. I use, probably more than anything, as far as medications go, Sulfa IMP. It is by the FishyPharmacy.com. It is a composition of 4 types of sulfa drug that are time released at different time frames. It has helped clamped fins, gotten rid of columnaris and has helped again with bacterial infections. I have also used 3 to 4 drops of chlorine bleach per 10 gallon tank if I have a disease that is just not responding. It is usually my last ditch effort. No ph or dh is adjusted for.
My water is aged in large 50 gallon plastic barrels with a bubbler in each barrel to keep the water churning. I try to change water every 1 to 2 weeks with water changes in the 5 and 10 gallon tanks amounting to 50% water replacement. Little tanks get an 80% water change. Filters are currently one large plastic box filter from Lustar. I try to change filter floss, which is pillow fill from Wal-Mart (cheap stuff) every 4 to 8 weeks. Light in the fish room is florescent with cool white bulbs and bright white bulbs. I try to reproduce the light that will be at the fish shows. I usually feed 3 to 5 times a day with Mostly Stan Shubel’s dry food along with baby brine once a day. So that’s the magical formula which is really, I hope, just good commonsense.
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