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Is it possile for common guppies to mate with fancy guppies? I would like to increase the hardiness of my fancies and thought this might work. feedback please.

Yes they do, but fancy guppies were developed through years of breeding programs to look the way they do and if you begin breeding them with an inferior looking strain that is what you are going to get.

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

OldTimer is exactly right. A few of my oldest guppies are mixes between a common feeder guppy female and a fancy guppy male. They mostly look like a feeder guppy on the body. Their tails are between a quarter "fancy" and around half "fancy" (meaning the top portion is larger and colored like a fancy guppy whereas the bottom is transparent like a common guppy tail). Very interesting looking but not a trait I'd want to encourage.

I have often seen feeder or common guppies up for auction advertising that they would be great to mix with your fancy guppies to start your own strain. A lot of people who are not very knowledgable unfortunately fall for this not realizing the actual truth of the matter. Breeding them of course can happen but it takes a long long long time of selectivly breeding to get what you want. The folks above said it pretty good too.

Ok that is what i thought might happen. Any idea how i could make hardier guppies. I am really tired of all the ones i get dying before i have a chance to get them settled in my tank.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "how do you make hardier guppies".... Are you having trouble raising them from fry or are you having problems with the ones you bring home from the LFS? My answer would depend on yours. Let us know.

I am meaning the ones that i purchase at the LFS. I get them home and they die in a day or 2. I double and triple check the water perameters and let them float in their little plastic baggie for like 20 minutes. I don't understand why they don't do as well as the neon tetras that i recently purchased. All the tetras are fine. But the guppies and their fry don't last very long and the ones that do live get a diease and then die. When that happens i have to treat the tank and that is very hard on my tetras and my cory. I remove the cory to his own little tank now instead of treating him because i know that the medicines are not really for fish like corys. I just want to have my guppies live atleast a week before they die. nothing is wrong with the water. It is a little on the warm side for my cory but it is healthy temp for the guppies. I just don't get it. everything else does fine but the guppies die like flies.

Does this happen from the same fish store? Maybe they need to be acclimated longer... or maybe the comparison of your water to theirs is way off. What size tank? What's the water parameters? Have you asked the LFS about their water parameters, (as far as Ph and whatnot)? Does it seem like they die of stress or a disease?