Guppy

COMMON NAMES: Guppy, Millions Fish.

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Poecilia reticulate. SYNONYMS: Numerous, the best-known being Lebistes reticulates.

DESIGNATION: Tropical (but may be kept in coldwater aquaria indoors).

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION: Widely distributed north of the Amazon and introduced into many tropical and subtropical areas, and even southern Europe, as a means of biological control of malarial mosquito larvae.

SIZE: In cultivated strains, females may attain 6 cm (2.5 in) or more. Males are smaller (but getting bigger as new strains are developed). Wild populations are considerably smaller than cultivated ones.

WATER PREFERENCES: Guppies will tolerate a wide range of chemical and temperature conditions but prefer soft or slightly hard water with a little salt (one teaspoonful pergallon/4.5 liters) and a temperature regime between 21-26°C (70-79°F).

DIET: Will take a wide variety of dried, live, freeze-dried and deep frozen foods. Some vegetable matter is advisable.

BREEDING: Guppies are among the easiest aquarium fish to breed, especially when kept in groups where males outnumber females. Being a live bearing species, fertilization is internal. Females then retain the eggs internally until they hatch out as fully-formed fry four to six weeks later. The fry only weigh as much as, or slightly less, than the fertilized eggs from which they develop. This type of live bearing is known as OVOVIVIPARITY. Females are able to store sperm packets and use them to fertilize a series of egg batches over a period of time. This characteristic, which is shared by the other members of the subfamily Poeciliinae, makes it possible for females to produce a number of broods of fry following a single mating. It also explains the frequent occurrences of apparent 'virgin births', where a female kept away from a male will continue to produce fry repeatedly for many months.

DESCRIPTION: The Guppy is an inherently variable species in the wild. This has been exploited over the years to produce a bewildering array of colors, patterns, size sand tail configurations.

This ever-renewable ability and potential for infinite variability constantly yields new types, making the breeding of specialized forms of the Guppy an activity every bit as complex and demanding as those encountered in Koi and Goldfish culture. A small selection of some of the Guppy types will serve to give just a hint of the range of currently available varieties. Particularly since any fin characteristic can occur in any combination with a color characteristic.

Colours: Albino. Bicolour, Blue. Copper, Crescent, Dark Blue. Gold, Half-black, Lace, Neon, Pingo, Red, Vari-coloured.

Fins: (i) Long-finned varieties: Delta,Fantail, Flagtail, Triangle, Veiltail. (ii) Short-finned: Lyretail. Pintail. Roundtail,Spadetial, Speartial. Swordtail (Bottom,Double and Top).

Although these names may vary between countries, their message cannot be ignored. The Guppy is an extremely versatile little fish which is likely to undergo even further development in years to come. Just when you begin to think that things have gone as far as possible, something new comes along, like the tiny, short-finned, true-breeding and extremely beautiful variety known as Endler's Livebearer. The fish variety can tolerate high level of salinity.