Controlling Livebearer Levels Within A Community Tank

[stackem evs]

Your livebearers fry start appearing so you put the female / fry into a small breeding trap / net (assuming you don't have a seperate breeding tank). If you have 20 fry, am I right in assuming ratio is 10 male & 10 female? Then to keep a ratio of 2 female to 1 male, you have to remove 5 male or add another 10 female. And so it continues, with the amounts growing exponentially. Pretty soon you have a tank full of Guppies, Mollies, Platys etc.

So how do you control it? Are lfs likely to take them off you (put them on ebay, sure some idiot does....), do you leave them as food, which might not sound nice but is nature.

How do people cope with it (apart from don't have livebearers to start with....).

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i've no livebearers anymore but when i did i just left it to nature, understock your tank a little so you have room for the odd 1/2 fish that survive, but other than that leave it up to nature.

 

[nmonks]

On the whole baby livebearers do not last long in a community tank. If nothing else, the parents are quite likely to eat them. In the wild the babies swim into shallower, more densely planted water than the adults so evolution hasn't produced a mechanism to stop this from happening, which you can contrast with mouthbrooding cichlids, which don't feed while breeding. Things like angelfish and Pimelodus pictus are very efficient predators on baby livebearers, so if you have them in your tank, you likely won't see any juveniles survive more than a few days.

If you're serious about breeding fish, removing the babies to their own aquarium is really the only system that works reliably. From there, it's easy to periodically remove larger juveniles and take them to your local pet store or fish club. Mish-mash livebearers aren't of much value, but if you've breed livebearers of a single strain, say black mollies or red cobra guppies, then there is no difficulty finding homes for them. With the more unusual varieties, you can actually make a little money this way. Similarly, finding homes for "rare" livebearers like halfbeaks isn't the least difficult.

Cheers, Neale

 

[Nick Bramley]

leaving them to it is the best way if your not bothered about keeping any, moving them to another tank is the way of keeping most but if your like me and you want a few to survive everytime then have a couple of piles of large pebbles in your tank, they hide in these until there big enough that there left alone, i have a pile at the back and a pile in the corner of my tank, the most ive had survive is four, the least two, so its quite a consistent method.

Nick

 

[richchappy]

and with live bearers they dont have a 50-50 ratio of male and females, they instead of x and y cromazones have x y and z so they have babie sexs in correct ratio, somthing like that anywho

 

[dwarfgourami]

I have tended to leave mine in the community tank, saving a few into a fry net here and there, but not all, and letting the rest hide in the plants or get eaten. So I get the pleasure of seeing a few make it to adulthood and live out their lives in my tank but not all. Doesn't work with the poeciliopsis, though, they're too smart to get themselves eaten, I'd need to invest in bigger faster fish. Then again, they don't have such enormous broods so it's not too much of a problem.

 

[Somethings Fishy Here]

I do the very same as dwarfgourami. I let the females have the babies, and once theyre born, any fry that I find I will keep which is usually only one or two per brood. The others are eaten which is sad, but it also nature taking its course to some extent.

 

[theotheragentm]

I do the same. With Mollies and Gouramis in the tank, I've had a few survive each batch only. My guess is once those are big enough, there will even less chance and my tank will hit an equilibrium. If not, I have a LFS that will take the fry.

 

[chibi]

Probably has been said, but I just leave them be. My females have had combined atleast 200 babies and I've only had 2 survive to adulthood and I've got one now that is still tiny but is sneaky and has yet to be eaten. I've found angelfish LOVE fry. Gouramis and mollies too.

 

[Joemuz]

Whould it be a good idea to not use a breeding trap or breeding tank and let the survivors survive and the ones that dont...........
.................well.............not survive? And then use a breeding trap when you start running low? Hope that didnt sound harsh or blunt.
Im no expert but that is what id do. Not that id be that lucky. lol. Good luck with your population control, i hope you solve your problem
Joemuz

 

[confusion]

get yourself an angelfish and you won't have fry problems.

 

[theotheragentm]

Whould it be a good idea to not use a breeding trap or breeding tank and let the survivors survive and the ones that dont...........
.................well.............not survive? And then use a breeding trap when you start running low? Hope that didnt sound harsh or blunt.
Im no expert but that is what id do. Not that id be that lucky. lol. Good luck with your population control, i hope you solve your problem
Joemuz

If you provide plenty of hiding places for the fish to hide, there will most likely always be survivors. I bought some stones, which are mostly flat and round. When I stack them together, it leaves plenty of gaps between the rocks. The fry can hide out there until they grow large enough to come out. Even when they're still small enough to get eaten, they get braver as they get older and will venture further out as long as they feel like they can swim back to their hiding places.

 

[NoRp]

i had 4 female guppies before who each had around 100 babies and non survived this new tank has 2 female guppies they had about 40 fry i took 10 out as i wanted to keep atleast some of them, now my tank still has all 30 fry and i have a fry tank also.....
im going to be well over stocked if they dont die, so be warned it depends on the fry the parents and the conditions
good luck figuring it out lol

 

[theotheragentm]

i had 4 female guppies before who each had around 100 babies and non survived this new tank has 2 female guppies they had about 40 fry i took 10 out as i wanted to keep atleast some of them, now my tank still has all 30 fry and i have a fry tank also.....
im going to be well over stocked if they dont die, so be warned it depends on the fry the parents and the conditions
good luck figuring it out lol

Try seeing if a LFS will take fry. Sometimes they give credit, but at least if they just take them, you know they have a better chance than being crammed into a tiny tank. My LFS will take them, for pennis, but take them nonetheless.

 

[fishcollector]

you should be ashamed just letting fry get eaten!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!