Tuesday, February 13, 2007

New Babies

Oh, I forgot to mention. Besides the horrific snow today, I did have a wonderful spot in my day. My second guppy female had her babies today. Nine (at least, those itty bitty swimming flea looking babies are hard to count) new baby guppies. These are sired by my male--here's a picture of the proud pappa:

He's got a great body, and terrific color. His tail should be about twice the size it is, but he's very young yet (about 4 months) so it should grow considerably more in the next few months. I'm hoping he passes a lot of his great traits on to his off-spring. Mamma in this case (guppy female 2) has great color and body size, but could do better in depth, and the length of her caudal and dorsal fins while well colored, could be a lot longer. Still, I hope to keep a couple of females, and at least one male out of this batch to possibly show in the future.

Meanwhile, fry (baby guppy) batch #1 is now three weeks old. It's easy to forget how small they were and since they're still very very small (about 1/4 inch long) they seem so little, but now with the new fry in the brooder box in that tank, the older ones look HUGE.

That first batch are from an unknown sire (female was pregnant when I brought her home) but if it was the male she was in the tank with when I got her, he's very nice too. She has GREAT body size and shape, but isn't as good in color either on the body, or the finage. Still, I can't wait to see how the babies grow and color out. Hoping for a few keepers in that group too. Whatever ones I don't want to keep from that batch already have homes to go to locally so that makes me happy.

Oh--and Brad--no, you can't eat them. hahaha Bob (my hubby) said they'd make a nice meal... sort of like smelt. I don't think so. As small as smelt are, guppies don't even come close in size--plus I don't raise smelt. I raised these little bitty fishies. :)

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