SkySilk
Nov-2021 Line start time
Among our Mutations, we introduced one type of mutation which play a very important role of our breeding program, the male picture shows on left was a very typical representation. it has all the characters we want to establish different lines, but put all that in one fish just seems too cloudy.
We first use this male to cross with Transnow female, things did not go to our direction at all, we got blue male with red mark and black spots on the tail and yellow version of Transnow. We did not continue with any of color versions after three batches.
We was thinking to start it all over again until an accident happened.
March-2022 Line establishing time
We keep some tanks to put adults fishes from establishing lines on the last qualification selection. The male shows on right was from early BlueLazuli, almost good as breeding male ( we only select 2 males from 50-100 individuals to continue the breeding), but the tail is too dark and did not reflect blue color when it swims.
From the first three batches, we did not get any good male, but we did end up with some very nice female with yellow body with some blue tail color, we accidentally put some of these female with the disuse BlueLazuli males. and it gave us a surprise male, it is not even near what we would like to create, but point out a direction to continue.
The male has almost transparent tail with sky blue/purple, and still contained white/orange spots. We think the female we introduced may have some mix Transnow with the mix mutation male and then mix with BlueLazuli which also has Transnow genes.with all these mix, we got this beautiful male. Actually we got 3 very similar individuals. Next step is how to stabilize the color and remove any spots.
Jun-2022 Breeding tank introduction
Breeding tank is heavily planted, it is perfect for female when she needs a quite corner to give birth and endless escape places for fries away from adult fish’s killing attention. This is medium maintenance planted tank, the background plants required trim very week while change the water, the front and middle can stay for 2 weeks.
Net fries out of this type of breeding tank is tricky, we do not want to disturb the plants while chasing the fries into the net. Many times we have to replant after net out the whole batch. One trick is really helping, try to net fries before feeding time. all of them are going to swim towards the surface, easy to scope them, after 3-4 nets, the all the fries will start panic mode, we stop netting, feed them and try the same trick next day. it will took 3-5 days to finally get all fishes out. The smaller numbers of fishes in the tank, the more cautious they get. so in the end, we always have some fries left in the tank.
as the process of establishing a line, we only breed the adults for 1 , max second batch to speed up the selection and stabilization of the line.
Apr-2023 Breeding tank update
During the spawning time, we start increasing feed times and amounts, that is really challenge to maintain the water quality and healthy of plant, after one year of enjoy beautiful heavily planted breeding tank, we went to vacation for 1 week, and let the background plants grow to cover the entire surface, and mid and front plants started melting or float up, even we tried to recover method by remove all the overflow plants from the background. but once planted tank broke the balance, it is really hard to turn it back.
We decide to save the hard scape, wood with moss. and let the background plants grow emergent to create a different look and relatively low maintenance tank.
All the efforts has been paid off once we finally got the sky blue color with silk like feeling. The male has very distinguished red spot when body connects with tail, I think this if from the Transnow line. The female is something we have not really sure , we like the blue color in the tail, but the black color on the beginning of the tail seems not pair well with the male.
Aug-2023 Raising tank introduction – line status update
The rate to get such color male is fairly low now around 15%, the rest of either too dark in the blue or grey blue with no silk feels. Most of the females are either with black cover to the upper body or brown yellow with no blue in the tail.
We are working to stabilize the line.
Breeding tank has heavy plants (floating) on the top, guppy is easy to be scared and jump out of the tank if there is no cover, for all my tanks (breeding & growing) . the plants provide well function to prevent them jumping out.