# Other Aquarium Forums > Freshwater Fauna > Livebearers >  Cross breed different guppies

## morikeeper

What would the offspring be like? Breed a male fancy guppy with those normal dull colored female found in drains. Will the carps contain strain
from their dads that will make them beautiful, or they look half black/colored. Just curious and a little noob here.  :Smile:

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## hwchoy

a fancy guppy is nothing more than selectively bred guppies. the longkang guppies have reverted to their wild state. In case you do not know, guppies are from latin america and all guppies in our longkang are descended from once-fancy guppies. some are possibly introduced for mosquito control but most of those are actually mosquito fish from the _Gambusia_ genus. so when catching female "guppies" in the longkang, make sure they are actually guppies and not mosquito fish.

most likely what will happen is you get a huge injection of wild genes into the highly selected fancy guppy gene pool. you will get offspring looking somewhat like the father but with reduced trait (smaller fan tail, shorter dorsal fins, more mixed colours, etc).

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## natureAddict

you probably get the whole spectrum of the rainbow - a wide variety of colors. not as handsome as the father because usually we are not as pro and diligent in maintenance and feeding. if you are not too particular you can keep a colony, ie 3 or 4 generations in one tank. cull ie give away, whatever thats not handsome/pretty. are you japanese or singaporean? if here, i can recommend c328 - recently i bought some very beautiful males - electric red/ green sword tail. have fun

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## jhseah

The possiblities are endless. :Shocked:

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## morikeeper

Guys thanks for providing such wonderful insights. I'm a local here.

Actually it was like this. My friend got a problem with his koi pond. Because inside his pond got full of longkang guppies which tends to clog up a lot of space giving him headache  :Knockout:  They are all dull and black, which can't be seen until you throw in the koi pallets and you can start to notice violent activities in the pond  :Knockout: . So he scoop up thousands of them and gave them to his friends/aquariums. But the thing is not everyone of them were captured, so naturally some escaped and continue to breed. The population is almost like back to square one. 

So I'm thinking of a solution maybe by releasing some exotic males into it, hopefully the populations will breed into some newer type of offsprings that might be able to help add colors to his pond.

I'm also the one who is responsible for causing the state to his pond. Last year I throw in a packet of longkangs which cost me $2. The situation got so bad that within a year the water got so dense that it now has more guppies than water.  :Opps:

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## natureAddict

unless you selectively breed ie, picking the best from the crop and breed them, you would probably end up with 'longkang' fish again. you could alternatively add in a guppy predator yet koi friendly.

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## morikeeper

Is there any predator you can recommend? I think it should be desirably bright in color, able to surface to water frequently, as later on it can be easy to catch. His pond area is bigger than a normal bedroom.

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## EvolutionZ

arowanas?  :Razz:

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## Interestor

> Is there any predator you can recommend? I think it should be desirably bright in color, able to surface to water frequently, as later on it can be easy to catch. His pond area is bigger than a normal bedroom.


 
IT,ST sure gone within days  :Grin:

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## morikeeper

I see arowanas... how fast can they be, can they catch up? I've seen guppies dodge kois attack (suckings), and skimming across the surface like lightning. 

There could be as mush as 8000 guppies. Just wonder if the aro can finish in time.  :Grin: 

But I don't think aros come cheap. Also it might not do it's job chasing guppies instead taking a snack on koi pallets. Not much knowledge on aros...  :Grin:

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## natureAddict

aros sound exciting. small and common breed can cost about $20 or lesser maybe. i have come across $10 at pasir ris. aros are very fast, especially if you give them space and stimulus. i think the best way to enjoy and find out about it is to buy one

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## Shi Xuan

Hi,

Wild females have little/no traits for colors or fins and you will get offspring that don't resemble the male that you use for breeding. Some of the traits are sex-linked and require both genders to carry the trait for the offspring to show it well. sword tails for example, require both parents to carry the trait on their sex chromosomes to produce offspring that show the sword, so if you want to improve the color/fins, use fancy females that carry the traits that you want. 

Shi Xuan
 :Smile:

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## morikeeper

May I know which types are fancy females (any names)? Does blue grass, moscow blue females qualify?

As for the aro idea, it's not yet to be discussed with my friend. Went his house last week, scooped up a lot of guppies (all 5cm long). His face looks black  :Opps:

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## natureAddict

5cm long guppy?? you got a GIANT guppy breed going on there bro!!! but if he has 8000 guppies, whats a few to him?
those fancy names does qualify; but its good to buy them in pairs or sets (whatever the shop sells). then you know the off spring is gonna be like them

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## EvolutionZ

he can become a guppy feeder merchant!

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## Shaihulud

Maybe it is a mosquito fish or gambusia if it is colourless, carp will eat small fishes so they must be breeding furiously. Suggestion to get a predatory fish might be useful, a small species snakehead like the gachua is fast and won't get large enough to hurt your koi.

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