Female not shown in photo, none available.
By Ted Dix
The green is probably the easiest of all the lines I work with. The females in this line, as in most green stains, are very easy to to pick. The green female is generally one of your best choices for an outcross to another line because its green color is not dominate. Out of the green giants I get 2 different looking females. One has clear colored finnage, the other has green fins. This clear tail mutation, as its been called, has by far been the best female for my breeding program. Since I first started using the clear tail female the greens have improved a great deal. The males display much more of the forrest green color than they originally showed. The original green giant in my opinion had more of a bluish tint when under bright lights. This is one of the reasons that alot of greens get disqualified at the guppy shows. Even though they are very nice guppies and well shaped, if they arent green under the lights, they wont win. So for this line at this time, the clear tailed female is my choice. The percentage of clear tail females in this strain is still about 30% clear tails out of each drop of fry that i get. I am working on improving this percentage.
Picking shape is a little tricky since there are so many preferences and choices. What I mean by preference is... When you show your guppies at the show you have many different judges judging your guppies. While there is a judging system that must be followed, one has to think that some of the winners are picked from pure preference rather than comparison test. I pick the shape of my guppies to my liking, even though some other breeder would probably not pick the females that I use. When I pick the female I tend to pick the 5 best looking females out of the brood that I am going to breed. Out of these 5 I will narrow it down to 2 or 3 females. Typically there are 3 possibly 4 body shapes that you could choose from in any strain of guppy.
Out of these choices I like to use number one. I find that if the female is well proportioned so will the male offspring be. The females that I get from using this kind of female as a breeder is very much the same as its parent. I do not, or have not shown any of the females from this line. Although I could probably show them, I dont think they would have a chance against some of the other females being shown on the bench. I breed this line for showing the males, and not the females. I have other strains with females that do well for me in competition.
So picking the females are very important when it comes to breeding your guppies for show. With this line I use clear tailed females that are large in body size and very well shaped with proportion in the right places. If you have any more questions regarding the green giants, please click here. I will bring you briefly up to date.