Advice On What To Get?

I currently have a ten gallon tank with 4 ghost shrimp and only 2 female balloon mollies right now...but that's a much longer story why there are so few in my tank right now...but one is being extremely agressive and I will have to take her back...I think today...But I am getting a 75 gallon freshwater and my little sister is going to get a 30 gallon or so very soon, within the next couple of months. So I want to start breeding fish a little so that I can have some healthy fish I raised from babies going into those tanks as soon as they are cycled.

I want to stick with livebearers and I'm thinking platties mollies or guppies. Which one do you suggest? I am also up for any other kind of livebearer...these are just the ones I'm thinking about. If there are any livebearers that will produce some fry I am open to it

Thank you

Platys and swordtails are very easy to breed, basically 1 male and 2 females will fill your other tanks very quickly indeed. You can get 50+ easily in one batch. You need to ensure that you can find homes for them though if being responsible. I would buy from 2 different lfs to widen the bloodline.

If wanting some rarer live bearers then consider halfbeaks and goodieds. But ensure that you read up on them.

Platys because guppies are not particularly healthy on the whole and the jury is out on whether mollies need brackish water or not (some species do, some don't, most sold in shops are hybrids).

But I would actually recommend that you bypass the livebearers and go for something like.. (if you have any say about you sister's tank):
30 gallon: Apisto breeding tank with some small tetras
75 gallon: one specie of tetra, one specie of Cory (will breed), bristlenose plecos (will breed), Apistogramma of one species (will breed) and a few other dwarf (and maybe medium sized) SA cichlids
10 gallon: grow out for baby Apistos/Corys/bristlenose or breeding tank for the same, as and when you want to breed a specific species

If you let us know the dimensions of the tanks, I would be happy to advise on stocking numbers.

Tank dimensions are about:
18" long
12" high
10.5" wide


And as soon as we get the bigger tanks I am turning the 10 gallon into either a hospital tank or a breeding/fry tank...not sure yet...but It still might be a few months until I can fully cycle the bigger ones because we have to wait to move into a new house to buy them

Molly's do fine in fresh water providing the water hardness is high, as it should be with Live Bearers.

I have had mollies for 3 years now...they always live for a long time The one accidentally born in my tank lived for over a year and would have still been living were in not for the fish I bought that unknowingly had ich...

The thing with balloon mollies that i love though is that i had 11 born in my tank...by accident and they were all completely different colors/patterns from each other. Is there another kind of fish that has variety in their fry?

Meggie :) said:

The thing with balloon mollies that i love though is that i had 11 born in my tank...by accident and they were all completely different colors/patterns from each other. Is there another kind of fish that has variety in their fry?

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The variety was the result of them spawning with a different colour males. If you breed a specific male with a specific female, the offspring will often be consistent in colour.

what would you suggest?

Meggie :) said:

what would you suggest?

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Kitty Kat said:

But I would actually recommend that you bypass the livebearers and go for something like.. (if you have any say about you sister's tank):
30 gallon: Apisto breeding tank with some small tetras
75 gallon: one specie of tetra, one specie of Cory (will breed), bristlenose plecos (will breed), Apistogramma of one species (will breed) and a few other dwarf (and maybe medium sized) SA cichlids
10 gallon: grow out for baby Apistos/Corys/bristlenose or breeding tank for the same, as and when you want to breed a specific species

Click to expand...

^ I find that breeding Corys, bristlenoses and dwarf cichlids are considerably more rewarding than having livebearers drop fry every 4 weeks like clockwork. The only problem is that the fish I suggested are more expensive than livebearers from shops. If you want to do serious livebearer strain breeding, which is interesting from a genetics point of view, you'd need a lot more tank space..

the wild type Livebearers are as rewarding as any fish
photos of my fish