Crossing Two Red Strains

Charles Pratt

This is a brief photo report on crossing two strains of red deltas. I have a nice wide tailed red strain (strain 1) that I have had long enough that I am not entirely sure of its origin. The body color is gray. However, the color suffers from too much black mixed into the red. IFGA judges sometimes refer to this as a "dirty red".  I want to clean this up by removing most of the black. The males also tend towards having a disproportionate amount of the caudal below the center line of the fish. The females do have a really nice shade of red, and it is a better red than in many strains. Here is a photo of a male and a female from that strain:

Strain 1

I really like the bright body color of this male, but for show purposes it also has too much of colors other than red in the body. I also have a nice red strain (strain 2) from one of the top breeders of IFGA guppies. Here are photos of a pair of these.

Strain 2

This male has a very clear red. The tail is better balanced than that of the first strain, though not as wide. The female does not have the deep red of the first strain. The body color of these fish is gold, and it is common knowledge among guppy breeders that you can get rid of the black in a strain of reds by breeding to a gold line.

Below are fish from the F1 generation of this cross:

I actually discarded many of the fish from this cross. Notice the lack of color on the lower part of the caudal peduncle Neither of the parent strains showed this but a high percentage of the F1 were a shiny white there. I kept only the two males that had some red in that area. I am left with two males that look very much alike. I am pleased with the shape of the dorsal and the width of the caudal. They are strong vigorous fish. But both of the males I kept are gray, and still a dirty red. I have kept quite a few of the females, and am pleased with them. Many of them look very much like the mother, gold body and a light red in the tail. The two above are among the few that are gray and show some black in the caudal and dorsal. It is interesting that the top female in this photo has a red color very similar to strain two, and the bottom female a red very much like strain 1.

I am now collecting young from the F1 generation, and looking forward to seeing the F2 generation. I believe young from the gold females will produce some interesting fish.