Platinum Red Tail Dumbo Ear Guppy

Description

This dumbo ear guppy carries a full tail rather than a ribbon, so the fin rays sit close together and open into one solid, evenly shaped fan instead of trailing off in separate strands past the edge. Anyone who wants that big dumbo look without the extra fuss a ribbon tail brings will find this an easier fish to keep long term.

The dumbo pectoral fins sit just behind the gills and grow noticeably larger and rounder than what you would see on a standard guppy, almost like a pair of small wings tucked against the body. They carry a deep blue tone that shifts between looking almost black at rest and a bright cobalt when the fish flares them out while swimming or displaying to a female.

Body colour is really the standout feature here. Under normal room light the fish looks like a soft muted grey with a platinum cast, fairly plain at first glance. The moment any light source or camera flash catches it though, a metallic teal blue sheen lights up across the shoulders and runs back toward the tail base, almost like someone flipped a switch. This flash versus no flash colour shift is completely normal for platinum bodied guppies, it comes down to how the reflective pigment cells in the skin catch and bounce light, and it is one of the more fun things about keeping this strain since the fish can look like two different colours depending on the moment you catch it.

Moving into the tail, the base carries a solid black ring right where it meets the body, a clean dark band that then opens out into a warm red orange running the rest of the fin. Because this is a full tail and not a ribbon, that red orange colour spreads evenly across the whole fan rather than concentrating in a few separated rays, so the tail reads as one confident block of colour when the fish spreads it. The dorsal fin on top follows the same colour story in miniature, giving the fish a matched top and back fin look.

Males show off all of this, the platinum sheen, the black ringed red orange tail and the oversized dumbo fins. Females are built differently the way most guppy females are, rounder through the body and considerably plainer in colour, with only a light hint of that platinum sheen and much smaller fins all around, so it helps to know ahead of time that a female will not look anything like the male pictured here.

For tank setup, a sponge filter running gentle flow works well since it protects those bigger fins from getting caught or torn against a stronger power filter intake. A bare bottom tank or one with fine sand rather than sharp gravel also helps, since dumbo pectoral fins and a full flowing tail can both snag on rough decor if you are not careful with what you put in the tank. Keep tankmates on the calmer side too, small peaceful livebearers, tetras and corydoras all make reasonable companions, while anything known to nip fins is worth avoiding entirely given how much fin surface this fish is carrying around.

Guppies are livebearers, so once a pair is established in a stable tank you can expect broods roughly every four weeks, with fry appearing fully formed and swimming right away rather than hatching from eggs. Feed a mix of good quality flake or micro pellets daily, and add live or frozen baby brine shrimp regularly since it does a lot to bring out and hold onto that deep platinum and red orange colouring as the fish matures.

Sold as a breeding pair.