One thing that’s been a reoccurring issue in the hobby is when people often times mislabels guppy strains as endler strains. Okay when obtaining guppy strains that are labeled as endlers good chance they are pure reticulata or have a reticulata origin due to hybridization, and you can’t tell without genetically testing or asking the creator of the strains for a pedigree *which is impossible lol*. The reason for this misidentification is usually due to the size and phenotypes of certain strains being “endler like”, commercial fisheries/breeders labeling them as endlers to sell for a higher profit, and/or people generally aren’t knowledgeable enough to know the difference between reticulata and wingei. I can’t speak for a lot of strains of guppies in the hobby and in the wild, but here’s a few examples that comes to mind that majority of the time gets commercially labeled as endlers.

- Japan blue guppy: this is a hit or miss but Japan Blue originally came from feral fancy guppies living in the river systems in a certain area of Japan in the early 1990’s. Idk the original person who caught the founding specimens but as been told they are purely reticulata. Originally the Japan blue (JB) trait is a Y-linked trait that express on the back half of the guppies body with a blue iridescent sheen, same zone as halfblack/tuxedo (nigrocaudus) gene. As of late breeders manage to make that trait cross over to the X chromosome making it possible for females to pass the JB trait and males passing it on both sex chromosomes. Also breeders used male Japan blue guppies to hybridize with pure wingei females to make smaller more compact Japan blue endlerguppy strains, which they fall under K-Class category. Japan blue was never a wingei trait it was a reticulata trait bred into a hybrid that’s been breed to pure wingei over time.

- Ginga rubra guppy: this here is a classic guppy strain created by master breeder Kenjiro Tanaka (also known for Tanaka’s candlelight guppy and plus more). The origin of this strain is pretty simple he wanted a more nice small robust short tailed guppy strain so he used feral guppies and crossed them to blonde type fancy guppies I assumed females, which over time he selected for the blotching markings with the blonde base of that strain. They have been commercially labeled as endlers to make a profit unfortunately people seem to forgot such a classic strain of guppy basically passing around a guppy as an endler. Ginga means galaxy due to how iridescent the strain is and rubra means red for the red blotches seen on the males.

- Vienna Emerald guppy: this is alsoooo another classic strain of guppies someone are confused for endlers. They were created in European in early to mid 1900’s if I can recall. Breeders selected the strain for a primitive wildtype appearance which were based off Ojvind Winge paper on guppy genetics. This strain idk in-depth on gene traits off the top of my head so I had to look up the exact name for the gene which is called “smaragd iridenscens” which is supposedly a Y-linked trait paired with the swordtail types which is also Y-linked passed from father to son. From what I can find. They express those nice green zebrinus bars. I assume based off their phenotype they are mistaken for endlers or endlerguppy hybrids.

- Any feral/wildtype guppy: guppies are basically everywhere in the world except Antarctica. Guppies were used as mosquito vector control not endlers. They’ve been around possibly before endlers were getting popular in the hobby depended on the region. When people go out to collect these feral guppies, people would think they are endlers mainly because they express primitive phenotypes. Individuals vary Poecilia reticulata is a highly polymorphic species even more diverse than endlers genetically, and phenotypically.

Picture credits: “Japan blue guppy” Karen Kooman (1), “K-class Japan blue endlerguppy hybrid” Owen Long (2), “Ginga rubra guppy” Michael Jensen’s Aquariums (3&4), “Vienna Emerald double sword guppy” Stan de Jong (5), “Vienna Emerald double sword guppy” Clause Osche (6), “Caracas, Venezuela - Native guppy” Adrian HD (7&8), “Italy - Feral” Matteo Pillitteri (9), “Jamaica - Feral guppy” Tobi (10&11)

Hello- I have a bunch of endler types mixed in a tank. Any idea what the variety pictured might be? Thanks!

I got 10 of these Endlers from my LFS and while I’ve had many traditional type guppies, I’m not familiar with these guys. Done some research and tried to figure out a type/coloration, but can’t peg it with certainty. Also having a tough time with sex. First photo is two possibly females? I see a lot of color strains with plain females so not sure. The ones I suspect to be males (second pic, forked tails) have been chasing those the most, but they all chase each other so IDK - lol.

Endlers are certainly way more active than regular guppies! I started to think they were terrorizing each other until I got deep into temperament. Anyway, any help appreciated. Best pix I could get, and they look hot pink with some reddish markings and opal type body. Absolutely love the look, and if I don’t have any females, I’d love to get some. Thanks!!

(F1 x F2), (62.5% Salvatoris, 37.5% Sphenops)

The more I look at her the more I see she looks like Seatbelt the F1 that had the black band in the mid section. One side of her body her pigments is more clustered in the middle like him. Also she has a more golden under side like Seatbelt. The F1 Dominant male is still more likely to be her father but idrc who the dad is lol they carry the same genes either way. Just the dominant male had a red dorsal and seatbelt didn’t.

Located to the Big Bend region of the Rio Grande of the United States and Mexico. Now can only be found in Big Bend National Park, Texas. They are an Endangered, protected species, reaching an average size of 2.1 inches. Also apart of the nobilis species group. The sexual dimorphism is interesting with females having a robust arched body and huge belly, while males being smaller and slender. They both sport a black lateral line, and are gray with a tiny of orange to them. What’s interesting the population that’s now protected started from a handful of specimens, but now there’s chances of it being threaten again due to hybridization with other Gambusia species like introduced affinis populations.

Picture credits: NPS/CA Hoyt (1), Wikipedia (2), Joel Sartore (3), Thomas, Bonner, and Whiteside (4)

Moved my community over into a bigger tank today and noticed this guy, any help on what he is? i’ve only had tigers and orchids in here, started with 5 a year ago lol. Thanks!

Can anyone tell me what kinda Guppy this dude is? I really like him and I'd like to have more. I got him from my local pet store so I'm not sure if he's just a mutt Guppy 🤷‍♀️🤔

Located in Laguna Catemaco, Mexico. Males gets to around an 1-1.2 and females around 1.8 inches in size. This species has a few phenotypes, they are slender bodied, with grey to even orange colored bodies, some specimen’s has melanistic markings all over, and different tail spot patterns. A beautiful platy species.

Picture credits: Aquarium Glaser (1-3), Wikipedia (4), Gagal (5), Bayviews (6)

Located in your backyard *jokes*, but they are native to the Lesser Antilles (Barbados Trinidad & Tobago), and Northeast coast of South America (Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam, & northern Brazil). Feral Population in every continent except Antarctica. Males gets to around 0.7-1 inch and females 0.8-1.2 inches in size. They have a range of phenotypes, so I won’t be able to speak for all, some morphs, has patches of orange and black pigments, with interesting colored tails. They are close relatives to Poecilia wingei, and Poecilia obscura, all three make up the Subgenus of Acanthophacelus, in the Poecilia Genus. All three can readily hybridize with each other, and because of that, majority of the fancy/feral strains descent from them mostly reticulata and wingei. A lot to say about reticulata but won’t go in depth but gotta say guppies are amazing the pics provided says for itself.

Picture credits: “Trinidad” Amy Deacon (1), “Speyside, Tobago” Ronan Boutot (2), “Carcas, Venezuela” AdrianHD (3), “Rio Morichal, El Salto Largo, Venezuela” Latrell Shemar (4), “Paramaribo, Suriname - Kempkesi” Radek Sejkora (5), “Gillbach River, Germany - Feral” Aquarium Glaser (6), "Jemez Mountains, McCauley Springs, New Mexico, USA - Feral" Alan S. Bias (7), “Bogota, Columbia - 2023” AdrianHD (8), “Maculatus strain” Sebastian Wolf (9), "Cinnamomeus strain" Ronan Boutot (10), "Dzwillo Blue strain" Ronan Boutot (11), “Pauper strain” Michael Kempkes (12)

Located in lake Catemaco, Mexico sharing waters with X. milleri. One of the largest swordtail species with females that can reach up to 4.75 inches and males 3.5-4 inches in size (not including the sword extension). They are a beautiful brass/bronze body color, with gold and red lines going across the body, and males having a long yellow with black bordered swordtail. Due to their large size, males are very late developers, and can be mistaken as a female early on in their lifecycle.

Picture credits: Michi Tobler (1&2), Aquarium Glaser (3&4)

Weird disappointed news Ig? So this female F2 (pic 2) wasn’t looking so hot yesterday she def over ate and breathing heavy bc she’s gravid. Seems the fry amount is too much for her looks as she’s developing dropsy. I popped her in the breeding container for the night to not be harassed by the males. I wake up and see a veryyyy premature blonde fry. Idek if it’s alive but I separated the fry into a cup and letting it float in the tank hopefully it survives. I’m waiting to see if she will drop more premature fry. I can’t put her back the males will stress her to death and I’m not a fan of breeding containers for such a big sized Molly. Sigh she’s a pretty female too 🥲. Also to prevent her from eating she’s in there her fat self will still try to eat. This feels like the situation if you gotta save the kids or the mom dilemma 💀… I’ll give her till tmm to drop fry.

I’m pretty sure she’s pregnant, is that what’s making her attack the others?

Located in Motagua River in Guatemala. One of two subspecies of Phallichthys amates species group. Males reaches around 1.75 inches and females 2.3 inches in size. They are robust, angular shaped, with very short penduncles. Also this subspecies is recognizable for their thick black band on their dorsal, black streak on their eyes, and thin vertical bars on the top half of their bodies.

Picture credits: Aquadiction (1&2), Aquarum Glaser (3&4)

Located in Trinidad to the Amazon River delta. They have two distinct morphs, gray and red morphs. Males reaches about an 1-1.2 inches, and females 1.1-1.2inches. They are a type of guppy species in the Micropoecilia subgenus of Poecilia, while being a sister subgenus to Acanthophacelus (Reticulata/Obscura/Wingei). Unlike their Acanthophacelus guppy relatives, Picta’s and other members in the genus Micropoecilia, have a rapidly degrading Y chromosome. To compensate for that the females, X chromosome has twice as many linked genes to it. Meaning the females will pass down her genes to her sons and daughters, while the fathers passed his linked traits to his daughters, and chromosome to his sons. They are slender, with a range of painted orange to gray body color with black markings. They have a short tail fin, and oval shaped dorsal fin. This species truly thrive in brackish conditions. But they can tolerate full fresh, and full salt. Domesticated specimens now can do well in full fresh, thanks to commercial breeding.

In my experience, they are tricky, I already lost my first ever colony due to wasting diesease, and dropsy. Even though I’m giving picta’s a second chance i still lost some founder fry after a couple of months to wasting but I think, I got the hang of it, on how much food to give them, and what they prefer to eat. They like green matter with some protein, so I recommended a source of algae for them to graze on, and biomatter/mulm. Some salt in the water goes a long way. From my first colony, the fry I got from them were tiny and skinny they can fit through floating specimen breeding containers, so I prefer a breeder net or a separate tank entirely to grow out fry. This species aren’t prolific breeders, but they make up by how beautiful they look. Keeping this species is not for beginners or intermediate keepers… I still have a hard time with them, it’s sort of a let down as of late I’m down to an adult female and a juvenile sibling that damaged its spine during while they were being shipped to me.I’ll def get more again given the chance. They are my favorite guppy species.

Picture credits: “Red” Peter Maguire (1&2), “Black” lebendgebaerende.info (3), “Trinidad”Aquarium Glaser (4&5), “Gold/Blonde” AdrianHD (6&7), “Red” Latrell Shemar (8-11), “Red” Thomas Gleim (12&13)

their personalities never fail to bring me joy :3

im currently treating the tank with kanaplex bc of a few guppies showing signs of cottonmouth, but this female seems to be missing several scales along her head and back. she's been acting really territorial and swimming around quite erratically and chasing the others a lot as well, but I'm not sure if these are correlated. I've already treated the tank with aquarium salt so I'm not sure if there's anything else I can do, anyone have any insight?

edit: thanks for all the love on her lol, her name is Lisa Frank and she's a red dragon I got as part of a trio from Tucky's Bettas. she's colored up tons since I got her and I hope I can help her to feel better :(

Liberty Molly (M) x F2 Blonde melanistic (F)
(87.5% Salvatoris, 12.5% Sphenops)

They are about 1 week old, there were def more fry hiding around the tank, I caught out throughout the week, when I first posted the two fry. So far from one F2 blonde female, she gave me 5 melanistic Blondes, and 3 plain Wildtypes (unsure if any will show late melanistic markings). The wildtypes are def pure liberty fry passing but I’m not gonna use them for breeding just the blondes. They look quite nice better than the F1’s, and F2’s when they were fry. I was under the impression that backcrossing to liberty using only blonde type specimens, I would get lower percentage of blonde offsprings, but nope that female gave me more blondes to wildtypes.

Limia islai (M) x F2 Wildtype Melanistic Liberty Molly hybrid (F)

(50% Islai, 37.5% Salvatoris, 12.5% Sphenops)

None show any signs of bars either plain body or melanistic. Splotches is dominant over bars in this cross apparently. Not keeping all except the one fry that’s the most freckled. Also there’s only 1 fry that has a pale grey toned base over that copper grey base the rest has. I had just fed them but their body form is somewhat bulkier than the Tiger Liberty (islai x salvatoris) cross, head shape is more bulldog ish, def because of the sphenops blood.