by Woody Tews, MAS

Many years ago, in the 1950’s I believe, I read of a Catholic Priest named Father Peters who was on the staff at Mount Mary College in Milwaukee.

It so happens that he was one of us, a devoted aquarist, whose specialty was fancy guppies. The original article that led me to Father Peters appeared in the Milwaukee Journal.

I decided to give the good Father a call in the hope that a meeting could be arranged. I was working the 2^nd shift at the time, which of course meant that my days were free. When I finally got him on the phone and mentioned that I would like to see him and his setup, he sounded very austere and business like. Of course I was intruding on his work schedule and had to take that into consideration.

He said "Well I am free between 11:30 am and 12:00 noon, if you want to come it will have to be then."

Arriving at the college, I soon found myself at the door to his private quarters. He was a friendly man but obviously a very busy one. As I remember it, his rather large bedroom had aquariums around the entire perimeter of the room.

And the guppies! Up until that time I had never seen guppies of such size and beauty. The females looked like good size helleries and the males were magnificent. I later learned that he had developed several wonderful strains that people in the business referred to as Peters Guppies.

I asked him, "How do you get them to grow so huge?" With a twinkle in his eye he replied, "My dear boy, (I was in my early 30’s at the time) do you expect me to tell you in 5 minutes what it took me 25 years to figure out? He told me, "Use your head son. You don’t have to feed your fish the so-called fish food. Read the labels on all your foodstuffs familiarize yourself with the percentages of protein, fats, vitamins, etc. Feed your fish small amounts of whatever you deem practical and record the results." At one point, he opened the door to his refrigerator and I had a brief peek inside. I saw some mysterious looking jars and would have loved to have their contents chemically analyzed.

Time was growing short so I got to the point, "Father would you sell me a few of your guppies?" I detected somewhat of a reluctance to do so but this was probably due to his busy schedule. He sold me a young pair and added some "juveniles" as well.

Upon arriving home, I put the female in a trap since she appeared ready to deliver. In size she was perhaps only half as big as his larger more mature stock but she delivered a brood of 79 youngsters. I thought if she can deliver that many what do the larger ones deliver?

I never saw Father Peters again but I never forgot him and his huge beautiful guppies. Of course he is deceased now but I often wonder did Father Peters have access to a growth producing hormone substance? After my female’s brood of 79 all subsequent broods were smaller even though I fed her a balanced diet of dried and live foods.

Father Peters did put guppies in a campus pond at Mount Mary’s, which certainly didn’t hurt their growth, but I still feel that he had a secret of some sort.

Over the years, at guppy auctions, I have seen some really huge specimens but unfortunately I can’t compare them with the Peters’ guppies of yesteryear.

It is interesting to note that those of us in the hobby do feed our fish a large variety of non-commercial foods although they are available commercially. Foods like peas, zucchini, beef heart, turkey heart, spinach, etc.

In conclusion, I would have loved to get to know Father Peters better but I too was busy with my job, bowling, softball and most importantly, my family consisting of my wife Nancy and 4 sons.

But Father Peters words, I will never forget. "Do you expect me to tell you in 5 minutes what it took me 25 years to figure out?"