Guppy Wiki

The Guppy Wiki is a repository of information on the guppy, its care and its strains. It is edited and maintained by Philip Shaddock. It is supported on a forum dedicated to it. Each article in the Wiki ends with a comment area. Please add your comments and questions.

• Blue Metal Guppies   ( 3 Articles )
  

  This category is for guppies who have a distinctive shiny blue appearance, like the Japan Blue.

• Double and Triple Recessives   ( 3 Articles )
  

  This category includes guppies with a combination of genes that result in the loss of color. These can actually be a combination of dominant, semi-dominant and recessive alleles, and can actually exceed three in number.

• Full Golds and Leucophores   ( 2 Articles )
  

  Full Gold guppies with shiny yellow platinum coloring is due to the Metallic Gold (Mg) gene. It is often associated with leucophore (white) color, as in Full Platinums.

• Grass   ( 2 Articles )
  

  The classic Grass guppies from Japan may have originated from snakeskins. The reason I suspect this is because the dot pattern on the fins is not that different from the snakeskin pattern, which consists of islands of black color cells in a sea of platinum. And the snakeskin body and fin genes are actually separate genes. It also appears to modify the snakeskin pattern, that is its effect is additive.

• Half-Black or Tuxedo   ( 8 Articles )
  

  The popular half-black body is called “tuxedo” in Asia. The gene is sex-linked and dominant to the wild type.

• Magentas   ( 4 Articles )
  

  Magenta is a mutation, not a strain. It is like “albino,” a color modifier gene. One of the striking aspects of this mutation is that yellow color cells develop early and then become red as the strain  matures. This tends to make guppies that have a yellow basis quite orange when they mature. The hue of the magenta color will also depend on what type of red color cell pigments are present (pteridine or carotenoid) and the density of the blue iridophores and the density of the red color cells.

• Metal Heads   ( 3 Articles )
  

  Metal heads are simply a combination of the snakeskin and Moscow genes. The name “Metal Head” refers to the Blue Moscow phenotype, which is dominant in the front of the body. The snakeskin phenotype is dominant in the rest of the body. You often see the “Metal Head” name reduced to “Metal” on the Internet, as in “Metal Snakeskin.”

• Medusas and Galaxies   ( 3 Articles )
  

  The Medusas and Galaxies combine the Schimmelpfennig Platinum gene and the snakeskin gene. The original Japanese Galaxy was created by Yoshiki Tsutsui, although a Medusa was created around about the same time from the same parental strains.

• Moscows   ( 8 Articles )
  

  Moscows actually come in a lot of different colors and patterns. The one trait linking them all is the Moscow "head and shoulders" color passed on only from father to son. The female usually colors the back part of the body and fins.

• Pinks and Pingus   ( 4 Articles )
  

  Both Pingus and Pinks share the same gene, the Pink (pk) gene. The difference is that the Pingus have the half-black gene (Ni) as well as the Pink gene. Females typically have a heavy reticulation pattern. This mutation is not related to the Pink White mutation.

• Pink Whites   ( 3 Articles )
  

  Pink Whites are not the same mutation as the Pink mutation, despite the fact both genes can be expressed with white color. They are characterized as having white fins and a white area at the top of the peduncle near the juncture with the caudal fin.

• Red Guppies   ( 5 Articles )
  

  This category includes full red guppies and red tail guppies.

• Schimmelpfennig Platinum   ( 2 Articles )
  

  Schimmelpfennig Platinum is a yellow metallic color found primarily in the front of the body. It oiriginates from the German Schimmelpfennig Platinum Sword. The Galaxy was created using the Schimmelpfennig Platinum gene.

• Snakeskins   ( 5 Articles )
  

  Guppies with the typical chain link pattern consisting of islands of black color cells in a sea of platinum, resembling the pattern on snakes. Dividing guppies into "cobras" and "lace" is a rough classification between coarse and fine patterns.

• Solid Color   ( 3 Articles )
  

  This category includes solid color strains, excluding Moscows, Full Reds and the Metallic Solid guppies.

• Stoerzbach   ( 2 Articles )
  

  Guppies in this category have a heavy proliferation of blue iridophores, that appear to cover the entire body. It is an autosomal recessive mutation.

• Wild Type Guppies   ( 2 Articles )
  

  Wild type guppies including those that are variegated like the Vienna Emerald Green and feral guppies.