Saltwater Fancy Tail Guppies - Breeding Successfully

[CulturedAquatic]

We are not sure if this has been done before, but we have, after spending over 2 years, been successfully able to breed what was once freshwater fancy tail guppies in a completely (1.024 SG ) saltwater environment. We have talked to several “experts” and cannot get any confirmation this has ever been done. Please share with us any leads you may have so we can assist others.

What is really cool, is we have place about 1/2 dozen of them in one of our coral propagation system. They all seem to hang out on the top (surface) of the top. Once in a while, not often, they do swim down in the water column. In the breeding tank, they are able to swim to the bottom. At first we thought it might be a buoyancy problem. It probably is more of a current problem than anything else. More work is needed to find out how to get the guppies to swim down to the substrate in a reef environment … maybe they don’t like the pretty colors. They have been swimming and eating fine for over a month now in the reef environment. Throughout the entire process, they have not lost any color. When comparing them to the freshwater ancestors, one cannot tell them apart. In fact, most people we showed never even notice the water contains salt until they notice the Turbo Snails (another experiment), cruising around the tank.

We are in the process of getting them analyzed to see if they have been genetically changed. As you all know, freshwater fishes don't drink water, but now these guppies have to or they'll die. Speaking to Eric Borman briefly at MACNA 2007, he was not sure and said he would be interested in knowing the outcome. We still have the freshwater counter parts we started with, so comparison should be pretty straight forward.

This is just one of several experiments we are working on. We’ll post more as our other experiments come to a completion. Hopefully this is an advanced another topic, but if not, we won’t be upset if it gets moved. If there is a better place to publish this kind of work, please let us know.

[ShannHell]

Do you have some pictures? Are you planning on trying to sequence the genome? I would imagine that is going to carry a hefty price. Or are you going to just try to look at particular markers and see if they have changed?

[ralphie16]

Originally posted by CulturedAquatic
We are not sure if this has been done before, but we have, after spending over 2 years, been successfully able to breed what was once freshwater fancy tail guppies in a completely (1.024 SG ) saltwater environment. We have talked to several “experts” and cannot get any confirmation this has ever been done. Please share with us any leads you may have so we can assist others.

What is really cool, is we have place about 1/2 dozen of them in one of our coral propagation system. They all seem to hang out on the top (surface) of the top. Once in a while, not often, they do swim down in the water column. In the breeding tank, they are able to swim to the bottom. At first we thought it might be a buoyancy problem. It probably is more of a current problem than anything else. More work is needed to find out how to get the guppies to swim down to the substrate in a reef environment … maybe they don’t like the pretty colors. They have been swimming and eating fine for over a month now in the reef environment. Throughout the entire process, they have not lost any color. When comparing them to the freshwater ancestors, one cannot tell them apart. In fact, most people we showed never even notice the water contains salt until they notice the Turbo Snails (another experiment), cruising around the tank.

We are in the process of getting them analyzed to see if they have been genetically changed. As you all know, freshwater fishes don't drink water, but now these guppies have to or they'll die. Speaking to Eric Borman briefly at MACNA 2007, he was not sure and said he would be interested in knowing the outcome. We still have the freshwater counter parts we started with, so comparison should be pretty straight forward.

This is just one of several experiments we are working on. We’ll post more as our other experiments come to a completion. Hopefully this is an advanced another topic, but if not, we won’t be upset if it gets moved. If there is a better place to publish this kind of work, please let us know.

Have you done any work with black mollies? I have several of them breeding in my saltwater tanks for over a year now.

[Travis L. Stevens]

I've done this with guppies before but they were eaten by my Royal Gramma before they had a chance to release babies. The females had their gravid spot and had grow large, but alas it was too late. I don't have any pictures of it thoug My preferred fish for marine acclimation and breeding are Sailfin Mollies. I do have pictures of those if you would like to see them.

[ShannHell]

I would be interested in some pics if you have time to post them

[CulturedAquatic]

Have you done any work with black mollies? I have several of them breeding in my saltwater tanks for over a year now.

Mollies are found in freshwater and brackish water, so to get them to go to full ocean water is not that hard. I'm not putting you down or saying it's easy. Also if you go to LFS, you'll see some carry saltwater mollies.

What I did is to take a freshwater fish that will live about 30 minutes after being placed in saltwater and convert them to "full salt water". After getting them to live in a marine environment, the next goal was to get them to rear young. We have had several births and the babies have grown up and have also given birth.

I'll post some pictures once I get some time.

[ralphie16]

Originally posted by CulturedAquatic
Mollies are found in freshwater and brackish water, so to get them to go to full ocean water is not that hard. I'm not putting you down or saying it's easy. Also if you go to LFS, you'll see some carry saltwater mollies.

What I did is to take a freshwater fish that will live about 30 minutes after being placed in saltwater and convert them to "full salt water". After getting them to live in a marine environment, the next goal was to get them to rear young. We have had several births and the babies have grown up and have also given birth.

I'll post some pictures once I get some time.

no no your right, it IS very easy. they are quite easy to convert to marine and reproduce like crazy if conditions are right.

But just like your guppies, they are true freshwater fish, even though they can be converted to brackish and marine environments.

but all that aside, what is your point of trying to breed guppies in saltwater? how would there be genetic differences at this point?

[billsreef]

Guppies are well known to withstand brackish conditions, so that's not suprising. In fact one of the problems with many of the Asian imported guppies in the trade is that they are raised in saline conditions and suddenly thrust in FW when they come here without acclimation.

[Steven Pro]

Somewhat like Bill, I have heard of the rumors of Asian breeders rearing their guppies in NSW and that has been blamed for why they tend to do so poorly upon importation here in the US.

[shrinky]

Am I missing something? What is the point of this?

[ScarabRa]

Originally posted by shrinky
Am I missing something? What is the point of this?

not that i dislike guppies, but i would use them as a feeder for a sun polyp coral or other meaty eaters. Otherwise i cant imagine why you would want guppies.

If you really want a freshwater fish in saltwater, I like Mono's (Spelling)
they tend to get more yellow coloring when in saltwater.

I believe bumble bee gobies will go in 100% salt too, but need to be slowly aclamated.

[JetCat USA]

Originally posted by ralphie16
...........But just like your guppies, they are true freshwater fish

That is incorrect, Mollies are Poecilia sphenops, they come from the coastal brackish and marine waters of South America.

[davidryder]

Originally posted by shrinky
Am I missing something? What is the point of this?

Well it's interesting to say the least. I have actually tried to acclimate guppies to SW with no success... albeit I acclimated them in a very short amount of time. Sometimes the point of something is simply to learn

I would be interested in some pictures. The only downside of this is the size of guppies would leave them open to being prey to a vast number of marine species. If you were really committed, you could try rearing the largest of each batch to attempt to make a larger more suitable guppy.

[JetCat USA]

heck if you could get them to tuff it up in the flow and swim at all levels a tank full of bright colorful SPS and fancy guppies would be a sweet sight.

[ScarabRa]

Originally posted by JetCat USA
heck if you could get them to tuff it up in the flow and swim at all levels a tank full of bright colorful SPS and fancy guppies would be a sweet sight.

yes there are some nice looking guppies, dont they normally swim at the top anyways?

[JetCat USA]

as a compromise with my second wife she turned one of my 55s into a FW system with fancy tail guppies, stealing my brine shrimp to feed them regularly the produced prolifically and I'd guess she had at one time several hundred in there, they were all over the tank, but they might of just not had a choice , it was also planted and they liked hanging out in the 'weeds'

[FMarini]

Not sure about fancy tailed guppies
but a group in Hawaii (raingarden ornamentals) has been rearing/raising salt water guppies as a food source for bulk produced banggai cardinalfish.
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/seagrant...ish-Final.pdf.


as far as getting the guppies analysed, i'm not sure what you'll find at the genetic level, actually I'm not even sure a full gentic map of guppies is available, so it might be hard to compare your salt water adapted guppy to a non-saltwater adapted "regular" guppy.
My guess is you'll want gross path done, w/ some histochemistry and focus on the gills, gut and any organ used to secrete and osomregulate salt.

[hahnmeister]

Yeah, I dont get the point either... Bull Sharks can swim in freshwater too... as well as Salmon... so Im not sure what the point is exactly. Feeders?

[honda2sk]

Originally posted by JetCat USA
That is incorrect, Mollies are Poecilia sphenops, they come from the coastal brackish and marine waters of South America.

your almost right. they also occur in central america and all the way up to mexico too. they are freshwater/brackish water fish, not saltwater.

[shrinky]

Even as feeders I don't quite see the point, if you really wanted to you could toss freshwater guppies into saltwater with no ill effect, if in fact, the point is to feed relatively soon.

I have kept freshwater guppies before, and like anyone else can tell you, one male + one female will equal an unending supply of babies. Unless a reef keeper wants that kind of proliferation in their tank, they would definitely need to manually keep the population down.

I didn't mean to be so harsh in saying what the point was, but again, aside from the mention of it being interesting (which I do not dispute) - it does seem pointless and dangerous (although not very) to essentially forcibly change the animals' ecosystem requirements.

[A.T.T.R]

steps to getting mollys into salt water... grab fish.. throw in salt water. about 25 percent live

drip acclimate over 3 or 7 hours. 50 percent live

do it over a few months.. most live


i had some mollys and guppies in my work tank since the other fish and coral eats the fry

now as for guppies they seem to need a slower aclimation ( few hours to a day)

[wayne in norway]

Well the vast, vast majority of mollies in the trade are hybrids anyway. Some natural molly species are only good in fresh, others are pretty much happy all the way thro to full strngh saltwater, and live in and around estuaries, presumably venturing out into saltwater as and when it's required - to feed in seagrass beds, things like that. And the molly hybrids seem generally to have acquired the 'flexible' water tolerant genes. If you look at a molly physiologically one of the things you'll notice is that the gill rakers are like those of a marine fish rather than of a freshwater fish. Typically the only water mollies can't handle are very soft ones.

The nautural envoroment of guppies is similar, and maybe even more varied in a single species. They are certainly found in estuarine enviroments, and seemingly can venture into full strengh saltwater. No genetic change required.

[liveforphysics]

I put guppys and mollys in my fuge when I'm cycleing a new tank. I set the SG around 1.019, then toss them in. They look pretty rough for a while, but generally about 80% survive and appear normal after a couple days. Then I raise the salinity up to normal reef levels, and they always seem to do fine. I've also had figure 8 and green spot brackish puffers do fine in marine tanks.

Another fun off topic story is a friends saltwater goldfish. He had just made the switch from agressive fresh to salt, and like many new to salt, he was attracted to the idea of an agressive FO. So, I talk him into at least putting all his old plastic freshwater decorations back into the tank so the fish have a place to hide and feel more natural.

He would find great fun in buying a bag with a couple dozzen feeder goldfish, tossing them in and watching the puffer and trigger devour them. One little goldfish was chased, and ran right into a castle decoration where the other fish couldn't reach him. We thought all the goldfish had been eaten, but checking back on the tank a couple of hours later, there was that goldfish, rapid gill movement, still tucked inside the castle and very much alive.

I was pretty impressed, so we netted the castle, extracted him carefully without the puffer or trigger getting him, and tossed him in the sump.

Last I saw, he was quite a bit larger, and still living in that sump. He keeps the salinity lower than a reef, but definately above the salinity of a fish's blood, which means the fish has to be either filtering the salt away somehow to get water, or adjusted to higher blood salinity maybe? (doubtful). No idea why other goldfish we put in the sump were dead in an hour and this guy lives and grows. Perhaps he is a slightly different species which just happens to look like a goldfish?

Is this common for goldfish?

[Jamokie01]

Your guppies did not undergo genetic changes just because you acclimated them to saltwater.

[Ooulophilia]

I always keep guppies in with my seahorses - the fry provide a very welcome food source - I learned this many years ago from an experienced seahorse breeder, so needless to say guppies have been bred in SW for many years.