New Blond See-Thru Guppies

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Blond See-thru female

They are only two months old, but the new line of blond See-thru guppies are already "not" showing their colors. The yellow you see in this guppy are her first batch of fry. The red color is the color of her blood. And the white color is the light scattering off her tissues. She has black eyes because she has the blond mutation, which does not affect the eyes.

Blond See-thru male

This male is heterozygous for the Asian Blau gene, so he is showing lots of yellow color and also reflective iridophores. He also has the Pink gene. So he is a blond Pingu See-thru. I have noticed in the Pingu brothers to this guppy a blue iridescence in the half-body area seems to be characteristic. That is probably from the Metallic Gold (Mg) gene. What a combination of genes! I really like the subtle coloring on this guppy. I hope lots of people acquire the strain, because I think many interesting combinations will result.

The Future of Guppy Designer Publishing

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I am a micro publisher, a publisher of information so small that you would need a microscope to find me. I have preferred to publish on paper because it is a more permanent storage medium than digital information and people treat information they have paid for with more respect than information they get for free. Why do people pay for a subscription to the Wall Street Journal when they can get business information for free? Why is the Wall Street Journal site subscription based? Because people value the quality of information and see value in paying for it. That has been the basis for my own very modest success as a publisher of guppy genetics and care information.

I have chosen a POD (publish on demand) format for publishing because my ongoing research is constantly producing new information and leading to wholesale changes in the way I organize the Guppy Color Bank of strains or the genetic theories in the Theory and Practice  book. But obviously this is an expensive medium for both me to produce and ship and for people to buy, especially when the book they produce is substantially revised every year or so.

So here it is a day before the new Apple tablet is announced. I have been anticipating this launch for over a year as I see it as the future of Guppy Designer publishing. There is an article that was published that is a rather excellent summary of the situation publishers of print information find themselves stuck in...even a micro publisher of extremely niche information like me. What struck me right away is that newspaper and magazine publishers face the same problems as I do publishing information about guppy genetics. And the background to that problem is a web that has provided information free...up until recently that is...

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/187623/what_an_apple_tablet_would_mean_for_publishing.html

If you are reading this blog in the future and the link does not work, I can summarize it by saying that the model of free information on the Internet does not work because people who generate the information must be paid. The magazines and newspapers currently on the Internet are moving to a subscription basis to cover the costs of producing the news. While basic news facts will continue to be free, the in-depth analysis and commentary of professional journalists will soon no longer be free. The new Apple Tablet is possibly a new model of low cost delivery of high value information. People will purchase magazines, articles, books and newspapers from the iTunes store and download it over Wi-Fi directly to their Apple tablet.

Recently my printer started choking, which means it has printed too many books. It was an expensive machine. I am loathe to put out the money to replace it. I have to sell over 150 books just to amortize its cost down to about $10 a book. That is not counting the consumables, inks, papers or my time in printing, binding and shipping the book. So I have decided to put fewer books out and try to squeeze a bit more life out of the printer. Since zero of my potential readers own an Apple Tablet, and probably a very, very small percentage will buy it when it comes out, I don't expect the tablet to be a viable publishing format in the next couple of years. So some of the information will be published in PDF format, despite the fact it is way too easy to copy and distribute PDFs. But eventually the Apple tablet  will be viable...or a similar device. Then it will be possible to publish high quality, timely information at a much more reasonable cost. I have no doubt the Apple tablet will succeed and do for publishing what the iPhone is doing for cellular communications. It is going to be the future of Guppy Designer publishing. It has to be. I don't want to buy another printer for book publishing...

The See-thru Controversy

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The original See-thru guppy. He has a little yellow, indicating he is heterozygous for the Asian Blau gene.

There have been a lot of posts about the See-thru guppy around the world. I would like to address the most common questions and issues swirling around it.

First of all let me say that I chose not to profit from this guppy (or any guppy for that matter). I still stand by my offer to ship it free to anybody in a country that allows the importation of guppies without a vet's license or import document. So why is it being sold by ATFG?

About ten months ago I sent half a dozen of my F2 generation of See-thru guppies to Prasertsak, a seller of guppies in Thailand. Here are my reasons for shipping the strain to him:

  • I wanted to distribute the strain to the rest of guppy community. Because I do not have a vet's license to ship guppies, I cannot ship guppies to most countries in the world.
  • I chose ATFG in Thailand because they ship all over the world.
  • I did not want to profit off this strain so I merely gave them to him with no restrictions other than giving credit to me for creating the strain.
  • I did not place any restrictions on ATFG as to the price he would sell them for. I repeat that I do not get any monetary benefit from him.

 I created the See-thru from three mutations that genetically remove the color cells from the skin.These are:

  • the albino gene (aa)
  • the Asian Blau gene (AbAb)
  • the glass belly gene (GbGb)

Creating the strain was actually quite easy once I had the most important ingredient, the glass belly gene that renders the belly and head transparent. (See my description of its creation in this published scientific article: http://www.bioflux.com.ro/docs/2009.2.137-145.pdf). I used an Albino Blau strain from Luke Roebuck (male) and a female Glass Belly Panda that I sourced from a breeder in Taiwan. In the F2 generation of the cross 1 in 16 guppies were See-Thru. These formed the basis for ATFG's stock. He has apparently outcrossed them to strengthen them, although I suspect the combination of recessive genes makes this a somewhat delicate guppy. I raise them in five gallons tanks without grey siblings. They do not do well mixed with other guppies. Currently I am developing a blond See-thru strain that I believe will be stronger than the albino version.

I should note that the strain is in fact not completely devoid of color cells. It has a few iridophores in its caudal fin, which you can see in the picture above.

My reasons for creating the strain are as follows:

To create the first guppy genetically transparent. Other people have had the glass belly gene, but nobody combined the three autosomal recessive genes that render the guppy transparent.

  • As a first experiment in a new color type made possible by the glass belly gene.
  • As an outstanding example of what you can deliberately create with a little knowledge about guppy genetics
  • As an encouragement to others to become engaged with guppy genetics

Reading the various forums on the Internet, I see that some people think the transparent guppy is cool and others feel somewhat revolted by it.

I am not surprised by that. The anatomy lesson provided by the mutant is a little revolting to me as well. But I see the potential for creating beauty out of the base mutation, the glass belly. And there is something very beautiful in the concept of the guppy. It has the elegance of science.

Currently I am using the glass belly gene to create other new and unusual strains, including glass belly metal pingus. I am creating a glass belly IFGA Green to hold the gene in a neutral strain. I have also distributed the See-thru strain to the scientific community (SFU).

I never really expected Prasternak (I hope I am spelling his name right) to sell the guppy for $365 USD for a trio! My first reaction was that this was counter to my original intentions, which was to make this marvel of guppy genetics available to as many people as possible. There were people who howled with indignation at the price.

But wait a minute. When I entered the hobby about ten years ago, I heard that guppy fanatics in Japan regularly paid these sums of money for rare and beautiful guppies. So who is right, the Walmart crowd who thinks a guppy for $5 is a good deal? Or the fanatics like me who paid $350 for the Glass Belly Panda that formed the basis for the strain? What is the price of a guppy anyway? They are regularly sold for $20 to $70 on Aquabid, with the sellers of the expensive strains touting their show winning heritage. I suppose the price of a guppy is whatever people are willing to pay for it, just like everything else in the world. A house cannot be valued according the size of the land it is located on or the number of bedrooms it has. Certainly a well made house is worth more than a cheap bungalow when the price of the land is subtracted away. But nobody is really setting the price of houses. A house is what people are willing to pay for it.

So it is with guppies. In the past I have paid as much as it took to get a guppy that is simply not available at Walmart. Such was the case with the Glass Belly Panda. The surprise is that I bought it from a guy who advertised it on Aquabid for $350, and failed to receive one bid for it. I think he was very disappointed and never renewed the auction. Obviously nobody at the time saw the value in the guppy.

You know, I am hoping some day that the $350 will seem like a bargain for a rare and beautiful guppy. It happened in Japan, why not here? Or we will be always held hostage by the Walmart guppy and the $70 Best of Show guppy? I hope not.

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