8 Guppy Coloring Book

Most of the early fancy type guppies that I was familiar with, had tails like in "A" or "C". The wild type tail is not shown here. These are standards for show type male guppies.

I am NOT a fan of show fish, show cats, show horses, or show dogs. I know all I need to know about it, and then some more. I realize that many people enjoy putting animals into shows, but look what it does to the animals! And it is so pointless!

When I tried to get back into guppy breeding, but found that the stores carried only the fancy type, I resolved to breed them to revert to the semi-wild type, which I liked better. When I found that the store had sold me snipped males, and chemically treaty females, I was very unhappy. Froze out of the hobby?

But them one store had big not glass tanks in the back. One day someone come in and bought a goldfish from one of these tanks. He didn't hand pick the goldfish, he just ordered "One gold fish". This fish store also sold little pugnacious fish that would grow big. You were suppose to feed the big fish guppies, and then when the big fish grew bigger, you were suppose to feed it live goldfish.

People buy goldfish so they can watch their big fish eat it alive. The world is full of nuts and not all of them come from trees.

One day, at a pet store, someone bought guppies as "feeder fish" (any fish bought to feed to another larger fish or to any other animal). That's when I discovered that the other tank had guppies in it. The fish shop man would not sell me any as "feeder fish" pets. He said they would not be healthy pets, they weren't well raised.

But these feeder fish guppies were the exact type that I wanted. They were healthy and active. They had bright spots instead of blotches of color. The males were all male, and the females were pregnant. I saw them because the pet store guy sold some as feeder fish, and he put them in the regular clear plastic bag.

Unhappy, I drove around looking at pet shops further away. I found a privately owned one, who had feeder guppies. He said of course they were all healthy, he wouldn't sell sick fish, a sick feeder fish would spread disease to the fish it was fed to. The feeder fish guppies were cheap, real cheap, like maybe 20 for the price of a pair of regular guppies.

I looked at their eyes. They had healthy eyes. Heaven on Earth, I had found normal guppies of original type (healthy heirloom guppies). All the fancy guppies this guy sold had bulgy eyes with no whites. But the feeder guppies had normal eyes.

He asked what I was looking at (the guppy's eyes) and I told him. He said the wild type were resistant, but most of the other guppies arrived already infected. He said if it bothered me, there were other kinds of fish that didn't get it. I had tried many types, I like fish that never fight. I like the way (healthy short tailed) male guppies dance. I like guppies best.

I love the color of neon fish, and they are nice fish, but one neon looks just like the next neon. What good does it do if you name your neon fish but you can't tell Harry from Larry, from Moe? I like fish where each fish is unique.

I like short tailed guppies (really they are normal tailed guppies, the fancy guppies have overgrown tails).