BOB'S ENDLER guppyfish!

[wayne6442]

I have been looking forward to this day after Bob revealed that he had found some little fish resembling Endler's.

Today I have the honour of getting my first look at these little fish, about a dozen arrived today along with some crabs ( Bob's crabs Don't go there!) and my second lot of Zeb's:cheerful:

These little Endler/ guppyfish are absolutely beautiful, my observations so far are:- I AM USING MY BLACK BAR ENDLERS FOR COMPARISON!

The male fish does resemble an Endler male both in size and shape The colour of these males is a wonderful electric blue with some purple,orange and some black spots just behind the head, they tend to have a plain rounded tail.I have one male with a longish white dorsal fin the other two have plain dorsal fins .

The females look to have more colour than the endler females, with a nice bluish sheen on their bellies, they are about the same size as my endler girls but they could be very young and may grow bigger as they get older.

I tried to get some good pictures of them tonight but they are still very skittish in their new tank so I will attempt to get more tomorrow when they settle down a bit. I have three rotten pictures to show my apologize for the Bad

shots" it's the camera not me":stupid: The colours in these shots don't represent the true colour of these fish pic's taken at night. ENJOY!

[ineke]

Awesome little fish Wayne:encouragement: But darn I thought we had got rid of Bob's crabs and here he is spreading them round again:victorious: Sorry couldn't help myself

[Squiggle]

They look stunning Wayne, very cool stuff indeed, can't wait to see what you do with them :encouragement:

[ninja]

Are they native, scuse my ignorance?

[Squiggle]

Not native but wild, they were released into the wild years ago & Bob found out where to collect them :encouragement:

[newbreed]

With gupps, when you let them cross breed freely they will revert to wild colouring and patterns after a few generations. These have great colours you could really have fun developing a strain from them. They remind me of a batch that a gent on another forum told me about. They were located in a pond for over 40years and they looked like these, great blank slate to start with. Love gupp genetics. :cool-new:

[ninja]

Oops, bad person, releasing into the wild!!!!!!!!!!!!

But they are nice. I don't suppose they do too much damage??

[ineke]

Are they the same as the little " mosquito " fish that we see in lakes. They look like a wild type guppy and are released to keep Mosquitos under control

[Squiggle]

Yeah, according to Bob these were released during the war(not sure which one) to control mozzies larvae & therefore malaria too. Also Endlers aren't guppy's, they are in the same family but not the same species, it's like saying a Platy & a Molly are the same fish or a silver dollar piranha :victorious:

[ineke]

That's when it gets hard when they interbreed with each other:encouragement:

[wayne6442]

Oops, bad person, releasing into the wild!!!!!!!!!!!!

But they are nice. I don't suppose they do too much damage??[/QUO

You can blame the Government of the day /and the American military for these fish being in the wild in the first place. The were originally introduced into our waters to combat the mosquito problem during the Second World war. Our natives (eg Pacific Blue eyes) have since proven to be far superior.

I have seen a few populations of wild "guppyfish" ( to beat censor!!!) over the years, but to my memory none have been quite like these. Isolated pockets are bound to produce something different over time.

I will be splitting this shoal some time in the future. keeping some original, and using some to cross with my Black Bar Endlers. MORE TANKS NEEDED! unfortunately not going to happen !!!!

PS we have to assume that they are guppyfish as the scientific proof needed to prove otherwise will take a long time to complete.

Mosquito fish are another pest that was introduced about the same time.

[Squiggle]

Exactly, pure Endlers, which these look like, are hard to find & should only be line bred for colour variations, people cross them with guppy's to get tail variations & radical colour variations, like pintails or tigers. Pure Endlers are no longer in the wild from their native areas, they have been completely collected out :encouragement:

[wayne6442]

Oops' date=' bad person, releasing into the wild!!!!!!!!!!!!

But they are nice. I don't suppose they do too much damage??[/quote']

You can blame the Government of the day and the American military for the introduction into our waters of these little fishes.

they were introduced to help combat the spread of malaria mosquitoes during the second world war( our natives like the Pacific blue eye and other surface eating natives are far better) The mosquito fish ( gambusia) were introduced about the same time. These fish can be found in most streams in Australia today, so technically are classed as pests.

The fish that Bob sent to me today can be presumed to be Guppyfish ( beat censor) and not Endlers. It stands to reason that isolated populations of these fish can sometimes throw up something a little different than the norm so looking forward to seeing what will happen when I breed some to my black Bar Endlers.

DOUBLE UP POST CAN MODS REMOVE PLEASE

[newbreed]

You're in for a breeding challenge either way. Will be great to see what results you get. I am glad I am not the only one who always seems to find another reason for yet another tank. They are great looking fish.

[ineke]

It's almost a pre requisite for this forum to have MTS:encouragement:

[Baccus]

They are pretty and I am willing to bet that they are a few generations of guppy x endler hybrids possibly going backwards and forwards a few times between the dominate parentage. I have some Guppy's that came about from wild Guppy's (again probably guppy x endler in their parentage some where) and when these are bred back to modern fancy Guppy's you do tend to get a full bodied metallic sheen on the males with possibly a couple of black side spots or black dots in the tail. So far with these offspring I have had fluro yellow males and pale blue males, even pink. So the possibilities are endless when crossing these creek fish back to either endlers or fancy Guppy's.

[KillieOrCory]

They look interesting. I for one when I receive a few will be keeping them as a separate colony and not try to cross them with anything. I think they are interesting enough to keep as they are :)

[Baccus]

Yeah, I keep my endlers separate to my guppy's since it was so hard to even get endlers where I am to begin with. If anybody get the English fish keeping Magazine called Practical Fish Keeping there was an interesting article explaining why wild guppy's carry less colour than the fancy domesticated ones. The article should also be available online.

[mr_c265]

I've got some too and i am even keeping them separate to my supposedly purebred endlers, i will eventually be doing full comparisons between the two and comparing them to other literature to work out what is and isn't the go.

Anyone that is crossing them with ******* should take care and if they ever resell/pass on the fry, please tell people that they are not purebred.

[Baccus]

Agreed that any out crossing of fish should be noted and all buyers made aware of the cross, this applies to all pets kept not just guppy's. My preferred local pet shop has just shot themselves in the foot by putting two separate endler lines in the same tank blackbar and tiger, while also allowing a couple of female endlers to get into another tank housing a male guppy. NOT happy, since I supplied them with the endlers and now they will keep selling them all as just one species of fish. People are going to end up with a hodge podge of supposedly pure endlers especially if they purchase the females that got in with the male guppy.

[Matt_95]

Very nice fish, I'll reserve my judgement until I can look at mine in the flesh, I'll be able to get photos of the gonopodium on one of the microscopes at the museum when I go in as well to post up here for you all as well.

Jay, endlers are still found in the wild, the original location they are listed as coming from doesn't have them though I believe, some people seem to think they died out due to pollution and others seem to think they were never found there and it was listed as that to protect the real population.

[Garnelchen]

These little fish look stunning! Even the females are very pretty with their metallic blue shine. I can't wait for more pics!

I NEED these fish! I NEED more tanks! :dejection:

@ Baccus: Can I please see some pictures of your endler/guppy crosses? Fluro yellow, pink and light blue sounds amazing. :cheerful:

[Squiggle]

Very nice fish' date=' I'll reserve my judgement until I can look at mine in the flesh, I'll be able to get photos of the gonopodium on one of the microscopes at the museum when I go in as well to post up here for you all as well.

Jay, endlers are still found in the wild, the original location they are listed as coming from doesn't have them though I believe, some people seem to think they died out due to pollution and others seem to think they were never found there and it was listed as that to protect the real population.[/quote']

Thanks dude, very interesting, good to know they're not as rare in the wild as was thought :encouragement:

[wayne6442]

I think the nice bit about these particular fish is that they come from a fairly isolated spot. I am not sure where Bob collected them from , but I know when I was up there with him a couple of months ago we were catching them in a stream up in the hills, Kuranda way. I think that they would have no cross pollution from other domestic gupps as the coastal ones have and would be more in tune with the original strains released many years ago.

The only work I will do with some of my fish is to cross an endler male with a female from Bob fish, and one of Bobs fish males to an endler female. Just to see which sex carries the strongest colour genes. The only problem I will have is that the guppytype females can store sperm for up to a year meaning that they could have sperm from a mating with their own type from an earlier session. So if this occurs with both girls then it will be a long wait for results. I think I will have to pick very young Girls for this experiment.

The ethics of any sale of these possible crossbreeds dictate that any buyer Must be made aware of their heritage. This goes for any animal, etc that has been crossed.

Looking forward Matt, to what you can come up with, hope Bob gets yours to you soon. We just have to chase Bob up first to find out roughly where he collected them from.

Wayne

[wayne6442]

[ATTACH]3574[/ATTACH][ATTACH]3575[/ATTACH][ATTACH]3576[/ATTACH][ATTACH]3577[/ATTACH]some more pictures of bob's wild guppy/endler Sorry for the quality I still blame the camera!