Description
The HB Red Rose Caulidorsal guppy opens with a clean silver white head and shoulder, then shifts abruptly into a band of magenta and violet iridescence before the body turns to dense metallic green scaling over a dark half black rear. The front half of the fish looks almost pale and plain until the light catches it, and then the whole mid body lifts into green and gold. Behind that sits the tail, and the tail is the reason people stop and look.
It opens into a very broad orange red fan with a deeply frilled, ruffled edge and clear ray lines running out from the base, which is what the rose in the name describes. The colour is a warm brick orange red rather than a flat postbox red, and it carries right out to the frilled margin without fading or thinning. The dorsal is grown out to match, running long and full over the back rather than sitting small and upright the way it does on an ordinary guppy.
Body shape stays close to a standard guppy, neither shortened nor exaggerated, with the half black colouring beginning roughly at the midpoint and deepening through the caudal peduncle. The caudal itself is close to as wide as the body is long when it is fully spread, and the extended dorsal follows the same line, so a settled adult male reads as one continuous sweep of red from shoulder to tail edge.
Males carry the silver front, the magenta shoulder flash, the green scaling and the widest tail. What makes this strain worth a second look is the female, who does not fade into the plain grey you usually get. She holds an olive grey scaled body with a cream belly, a dark navy patch at the tail base, a full ruffled dorsal of her own, and the same broad orange red rose caudal the male carries.
This is a straightforward strain to keep and needs standard guppy care rather than anything unusual, but the finnage does ask for two small things. Keep the water clean and stable, because long fins show damage and edge splitting faster than short ones, and keep the tank free of sharp decor and rough edges that can catch a spread tail.
Good tankmates include other peaceful livebearers, small tetras, corydoras and similar calm community fish. Fin nippers are best avoided with any guppy, and they matter more here than usual, because a tail this broad and this frilled is an obvious target and takes weeks to grow back cleanly once a piece has been taken out of the margin.
As livebearers, a settled pair will produce broods of fully formed, free swimming fry roughly every four weeks, with no egg laying stage involved. Fry from this pairing show the half black body first and grow their finnage in slowly over the following months, so judge young fish on body colour and let the tail and dorsal arrive in their own time.
Sold as a breeding pair.
The HB Red Rose Caulidorsal guppy varies between individuals in how far forward the black saddle sits and how much frill develops along the tail margin, with some fish carrying a cleaner edge and others a heavier ruffle, both being normal for this strain. Stable, well maintained water supports the fullest finnage and the deepest red, and a routine of weekly partial water changes combined with steady filtration keeps the tail margin intact rather than ragged. A varied diet with occasional live or frozen food added to the usual flake and pellets also supports steady growth and helps the dorsal and caudal reach their fullest size as the fish matures.
The dorsal on this strain keeps extending well past the point most guppies have finished growing, so a young male often looks unremarkable next to an adult and is worth waiting on.
