Swordtails and mollies go well together

In one of my tanks I do keep Poecilia salvatoris (wild molly) and Xiphophorus helleri Rio papaloapan (wild swordtail) together. Some El silverado endlers are swimming in there as well. This combo works really well. What I like about the P.salvatoris is that the body is plain in coloration but the fins (especially the males) have red, black and white in there. The females have mainly red in their fins. They're slender build mollies in comparison to the mollies most people know.



Above: Male P.salvatoris


Above: Female P.salvatoris


Above: P.salvatoris, male (bottom) & female (top)
Below: A bunch of these P.salvatoris

Below: A combo of Rio papaloapan swordtails and Poecilia salvatoris

Below: A bunch of Rio papaloapan swordtails

Wild livebearers are not common here, and that is too bad. Lovely fish.

Beautiful fish, the last picture is my favorite.

So cool I love it when you post your pic of your livebearers

He really is an expert!

Byron said:

Wild livebearers are not common here, and that is too bad. Lovely fish.

Click to expand...

What I think that is a bit weird is that you guys are living much closer to the source of many livebearers in the wild than we do. But it seems a fact that overhere much more choice is at hand to get your hands on wild livebearer species. Of course, wild livebearer species are still rare to the regular aquarium scene overhere as well. But in some way there is a better network of breeders of wild livebearers.

PheonixKingZ said:

Beautiful fish, the last picture is my favorite.

Click to expand...

Oh yes, you do have special thing with swordtails...

JuiceBox52 said:

So cool I love it when you post your pic of your livebearers

Click to expand...

Oh, thank you... Well, I do like to show people that there are way more livebearers than just the commercial guppies, platies, mollies and swordtails.

PheonixKingZ said:

He really is an expert!

Click to expand...

Well, thank you... I wouldn't call myself an expert.
I'm just a passionate and devoted aquarist who's engaged to aquaristics a bit more than an average aquarist is...
Eventhough, I do have a serious knowledge within the vivaristic field, it doesn't even matter if someone has got 1 year or 50 years of experience, there's still a lot for me to learn as well.


Me at the reception counter of the 3 week lasting international vivaristic exhibition AquaHortus2015 at the botanical greenhouses of the University of Leiden. I've participated with 24 smaller show tanks with different livebearers in it. And I was one of the sponsors.

Just curious, how long does it take you to do water changes, substrate cleaning, feeding, etc. in all of your tank? It must take a while!

The coloration on these is cool and makes it so much easier to tell males from females. I was doing a water change on my RES Turtle tank today and decided to moved 5 males to my LOTR tank I am working on. I noticed that for every male I saw there was a least 4-5 females.

What does “LOTR” mean?

PheonixKingZ said:

What does “LOTR” mean?

Click to expand...

Lord of the rings

JuiceBox52 said:

Lord of the rings

Click to expand...

Ohhh...ok. Thanks!

PheonixKingZ said:

Just curious, how long does it take you to do water changes, substrate cleaning, feeding, etc. in all of your tank? It must take a while!

Click to expand...

Oh, to me it's all a routine. I'm not busy with them the whole day. I do less frequent water changes than the average aquarist. As long as it's balanced in a tank there's no need to change water unless it vaporated. In general depending on the kind of tank every 3-6 weeks. Feeding them doesn't take that long. As long as you enjoy spending your time on maintenance, it doesn't feel like a long time spend. I still find the time to do other things and have a social life.The bottom will mainly be cleaned by certain snails and other bottom dwellers. If you've got multiple tanks, you should become creative to make maintenance manageable. Specifically when you're also a bit physical limited as I am.

Keeping all my tanks and fish well is something I do with all my heart. That's why I don't call it a hobby but a passion. And I'm pretty old school which means I won't use any modern techniques. I'll do the job the way I was taught by my parents.

emeraldking said:

Oh, to me it's all a routine. I'm not busy with them the whole day. I do less frequent water changes than the average aquarist. As long as it's balanced in a tank there's no need to change water unless it vaporated. In general depending on the kind of tank every 3-6 weeks. Feeding them doesn't take that long. As long as you enjoy spending your time on maintenance, it doesn't feel like a long time spend. I still find the time to do other things and have a social life.The bottom will mainly be cleaned by certain snails and other bottom dwellers. If you've got multiple tanks, you should become creative to make maintenance manageable. Specifically when you're also a bit physical limited as I am.

Keeping all my tanks and fish well is something I do with all my heart. That's why I don't call it a hobby but a passion. And I'm pretty old school which means I won't use any modern techniques. I'll do the job the way I was taught by my parents.

Click to expand...

So your parents were Aquarists? That so cool! It would be awesome living in a family with generations of proper fish keeping.

PheonixKingZ said:

So your parents were Aquarists? That so cool! It would be awesome living in a family with generations of proper fish keeping.

Click to expand...

They started off back in the 1960's...

Here's a picture of 1973 when we were still living in an apartment. I'm not in it but my mom and dad (both on the right) are in it There's a blue fishtank (one of a couple of them). Those fishtanks were still framed and we didn't use silicon sealing but putty back in those days to seal the glass parts. We had several fishtanks throughout the years and they became bigger and bigger...

We always sold the offspring of dwarf cichlids and livebearers to two stores in the neighbourhood who were always interested.