Penchoff Full Red Double Swords

Penchoff Full Red Double Swords

© Alan S. Bias

Permission granted for nonprofit reproduction or duplication of photos and text with proper credit for learning purposes only.

ca 2005/6 Penchoff Full Red Double Swords
 bred by A. S. Bias

As I mentioned in an earlier post one of the nicest Double Sword lines created in North American results from the efforts of John Penchoff.  John is a non showing breeder who resides in Palentine, IL.  He and I have been trading stock, and routinely corresponding for nearly a decade now.  His primary interest is in planted tanks up to 125 gallons with tons of intensely colored Cherry Shrimp and Double Swords.

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HISTORY of Penchoff Full Red Double Swords
 -  According to John Penchoff 2.7.11...

  

As for the reds, many strains were used. Mostly my reds originated from a single Coral Red Double / Lyre Tail I collected from my German Metallic Yellow Doubles / Lyre tails.  I bred him with the female doubles to get more of the red ones and utilized those with some Red Delta males to get red in their bellies. I also was introducing them to my Half Black AOC Longfin females to get ribbon fins.  Most of the fish used came from a single North American source.  

They progressed in both delta and double longfins, I then introduced Don Sauers Gold Bodied Red Doubles from S. Kwartler in Florida.  His fish only lasted a week or two but passed along their genes which improved some of the offspring.  (Editors Note:  John does the bulk of his breeding in an assortment of smaller planted tanks and grow out in several large display tanks, with a consistent PH, and moderate water changes.  It can take a couple generations for many new lines to acclimate to his conditions).  If I would have had more of those and back crossed I believe this project would been completed.  Anyway, full reds in delta were developed around this time, by Ed Chaisson, and I accquired some from Doug Bertrand, a breeder with awesome fish who I believe has since gotten out of the hobby.  In the F1 I received full red deltas and some very poor short swords.  I have added other fish to the mix along the way, including stock from Aquabid, that needed work, but helped tremendously.

Lastly I had gotten some albino coral red longfins from Taiwan (these were poorly sworded and lacked body color coverage, but I took a shot), also some much better fish from Enrique Patino and better fish from Alan Bias which I believe originated from from Tomoko Young and Håkan Turrason.  Most of the albino fish acquired never lasted very long (in my tanks) and I decided not to deal with them.   These days I am working with albino red doubles collected from my current stock.

The gray bodied finnage showed more promise.  The gray bodied full reds also retained the full body color coverage better than the golds, but were smaller and had some black dots.  I reintroduced these to my larger gold bodies to maintain color and vigor in them.  It seemed the older the fish got the more the caudal filled in.  This could be influenced from some of the swallow tail fish I had in the mix. 


However, the better the fins the worse the body coverage or this or that.  While trying to improve the fins to IFGA standards I had lost much body color and matching fins.  All females looked the same, colorless and very easy to choose the wrong female, as I often did.   

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In 2004/5 John Penchoff sent me several trios of newly released strain.  I ran these fish for several years and about 5-6 generations, always using males with full Moscow traits apparent, in both grey and gold (blond).  My emphasis was on body color and not IFGA conforming dorsal / caudal shape. 

ca 2005/6 Penchoff Full Red Double Sword

 bred by A. S. Bias

Evidence of their Vienna Emerald ancestry is found on the ever present  green spot on the peduncle.  While John always considered this a flaw, I viewed it as a base color.  Part of an intrinsic gene complex, similar to the two orange body found spots on most solid IFGA color strains.  On occasion it was possible to mask it on individual males, but it seemed to routinely reappear in subsequent generations. 


Same with the black spotting that appeared in the body and finnage of a portion of the males.  It appeared related to red striping on finnage found in Vienna Emerald complex, though black from effects of Moscow.  The black was missing in the golds, yet the pattern was still clearly visible, just clear.  While I did show a couple males with a bare minimum of clear caudal on occasion, most were DQ'd by antiquated IFGA standards for swordtails.

ca. 2004/5 F1 Grey
 Vienna Lower Sword

As a rule red finned swordtails do not hold my interest for very long, yellow or white being by preference.  I did work the full red genetics into a line of Gold (Blond) Full Red Lower Swords in several generations.  This line did not originate from the existing  Sauers type IFGA Gold Bodied Sword that has been around for decades.  I started this line with Vienna type females out of Lace Snakeskin Doubles originating from Anette Wulff - that is another story.

ca. 2005/6 Blond (Gold) Full Red Lower Swords
bred by A. S. Bias

The emerald is still present in the peduncle of the Full Red Lowers, and the dorsal is very long and flowing.  While it does not taper to a point and meet IFGA standards, it is my personal preference and I strive for super long dorsals that extend  well into the caudal.   These showed fairly well, though faulted for dorsal shape.

At the time I still had around a line of small  Snakeskin Rountails.  I had started this line from a little non descript snakeskin male picked out of a pet shop tank of feeder guppies and IFGA tail neutral sword females.  Even though the snakeskin was initially Y-linked, it crossed over to X-link, on some of the females.  One generation they would be lace (filigran) with a beautiful chain link pattern and the next more cobra.

I crossed the Penchoff Full Red Doubles with several females from this strain and produced a  nice little Blond (Gold) Full Red Roundtail.  Notice that this male lacks extension in the dorsal and caudal.  Very similar to the effect of Moscow found in "Pandas", which resulted from a Moscow * Pink mating.  All his siblings and subsequent generations exhibited the same phenotype.  They bred true for several more generations, so the female must of lacked X-link snakeskin.   

The results of this same mating to a 2nd female, who carried an X-link for snakeskin, were entirely different.  By the F2 the Moscow and snakeskin had recombined to produce a very pretty phenotype.  Some of the males were roundtail and others more of tiny delta with an indent in the center hinting at swordtail ancestry.  The dorsal was also shaped similar to a Panda Moscow.  In both cases they lacked any extension.  The male on top is grey bodied and the lower blond (gold).

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