The Matter of Size

My big body Moscow Red

Imagine having a posh little yacht and we would endow it with everything nice and lovely - install a big sail, and furnished its cabin with quality heavy-duty timber and steel. Throw in the accessories like fridges, TVs and lots of goodies and food too. If we do not pay attention to the payload, the chances are the yacht may be overloaded or may even sink, let alone set sail.

Human nature would wish for everything nice in abundance; no exception when we make guppies. It is easy to cross in lines with big sail fin and wide caudal and discover eventually that these fancy guppies may not be able to carry itself properly as they mature.

I love the delta strains with big broad, long dorsal and majestic caudal and so I experimented a lot with the Moscow strains because I wish for their strong, big body to carry a bigger payload. Size matters, but age takes its toll on everything, it really does matter when we carry the same payload when we are young and strong compared to when we are older... so be mindful of the peak of the lineage when grace and beauty are in good balance.

"Green Lantern" Lace

Sometimes there are morphs with interesting phenotype from my experiment with existing strains and if they look beautiful to me, I will try my best to enhance and stabilize their traits.

Another interesting colour is the green based half-metal lace. Its luminous green is a stark contrast against any dark background. I dubbed it the "Green Lantern" Lace :)) This strain is now only in the F2 generation.

The current progeny is tinted with yellow and copper-like coloration. Some maybe purplish but they spot a green tint on the metal upper body. Hopefully one day, I can achieve a lace line with very solid green shine.

Moscow Magenta

For best effects, see them
against a dark background

The Magenta is another colour I am instantly attracted to. Pinkish reflective and striking even from afar, this hue is everything but natural. This colour really reminds me of the ladies' nail varnish. When I was very young, I was once so captivated by mom's reflective nail varnish that I used it to paint on my drawings... and that was a very painful experience :-P

Unfortunately most magenta strains are short tails and so I wasted no time in crossing them with my albino moscows to create the delta tail variant. I have since been working on it for more than 3 years and it nearly got extinct last year.

The most challenging of the magenta strain, as confirmed by some Guppy veterans is in perfecting the delta tail which are usually not triangular enough. This is one of the better specimens this year but definitely the strain still has a lot of room for improvement on the caudal.