I'm Going Into Livebearers!

[timmystood]

I've just brought a 20 gallon tank soley for the purpose of livebearers. The thing I am wandering now (while the tank cycles) is, which livebearer to keep??

Which are the easiest to breed?
Which don't eat their young?
Which ones do you think are the best? (hence the poll!)

THANKS

 

[Annastasia]

None of them are really easier to breed then one another, they all are very easy. Most will eat their young, but Guppies are the only ones I know of that actually sometimes don't eat them.

For your tank, I'd say Guppies or Platies. Swordtails might get a big too big, as males can get up to 7" including the Sword. And Mollies are slightly more complex with their needs. You could always mix up Guppies and Platies too. Or get Endlers...fascinating little fish, but they may look a bit bare in your tank as they stay small.

Do you have a plan for fry though? As you can easily be over-run in just a few months.

 

[timmystood]

Well, I like the look of platies and I would get 3 females and 1 male (with no other fish in the tank). What are the chances of me seeing the fry grow up?

 

[nmonks]

Well, I'm biased, but I think halfbeaks are pretty cool. A 60 cm tank should be fine for a small group of Dermogenys spp. My halfbeaks don't seem at all cannibalistic, but it's probably best to separate the fry at some point, if only to make sure they feed properly.

Once you get past mollies, guppies, platies, and swordtails, livebearers are not necessarily easier to breed tha egg layers. Halfbeaks seem to me to be about the same as moderately tricky cichlids in terms of conditioning the fish and getting the female to carry the fry to term; once the fry are free swimming they're very easy to raise on live (pond) foods like daphnia.

Mollies, guppies, platies, and swordtails all seem much of a muchness in terms of simply breeding them. However, and this is a big however, actually producing a good quality second generation fish from your initial batch of fish isn't easy. Lots of people can produce large numbers of indifferent fry that are mongrels of different strains, stunted, or with congenital defects. Only some aquarists regularly produce true-breeding, non-stunted, perfectly formed fish. If you want to breed livebearers, I'd encourage you to purchase the very best stock you can, don't overcrowd the fish, and try your hand at producing the best possible offspring.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Annastasia]

If you don't seperate them out? Not great, but if it's planted and decorated, some may survive.

 

[timmystood]

It's quite well decored out - so maybe there's a few places for the platy fry to hide.

 

[Annastasia]

Yeah. Another thing that can help boost survival rates is floating plants. Fry like to hide in those a lot. Thick plants in the tank, even if they are plastic, will help too. Just places the fry can get into that the adults can't.

 

[timmystood]

Thanks for your help - one last question, don't the fry get sucked up by the filter or are they strong enough to swim away

 

[Annastasia]

Well, it depends on how strong your filter is. Usually they can swim away, but if you want to be safe, put a piece of pantyhose or a breeder net over the intake. That way they can't get sucked up into there.

 

[timmystood]

Has it ever happened to you? (them getting sucked up a filter I mean)?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Ok, i will try and give you some basic info of livebearers in general and some of the specific ones as well ;
a. All livebearers will eat each others young, once they have given birth the mother fish shares no bonds with her fry unfortunatly.
b. The minimum gender ratio for guppys, platys and mollys is 2-3females per male, although in general the more females and the less males the better. With swordtails though its pretty imposible to have more than one male in a mixed gender group in a single tank at any time as they will always fight unless you have something crazy like 15females for each male.
c. Guppys give birth every 3-4weeks, platys every 4-5weeks, swordtails and mollys every 4-8weeks; each species will vary a little, but thats the jist of it . An all-female group of livebearers though, will not protect you from having mass's of fry- all common livebearers can store sperm in them, some for up to 7 pregnancys, and most females you buy will come pregnant anyways.
d. Avoid buying heavily pregnant females, the journey and acclimatisation to a new tank from the lfs is very stressful for them and it can not only result in thinghs like abortion or other birthing complications, but death from the stress as well.
e. Guppys and platys can produce between anything like 10 and 60+ fry a month, mollys and swordtails up to a 100+; the average batch of fry though is usually around 20, many fry are eaten when they are born while others die from stress or issues with their swimbladders within the first couple of hours of life.
f. Although many livebearers can live entrely off bog standard fish fish flakes, this isn't a very fullfilling or healthy diet for them and too many dried foods can lead to constipation.
A good livebearer diet should have a mix of veg and high protein foods .

Some pointers on each species;
a. Swordtails can easily hybridise with platys, which means you can have swordtail females with a male platy and he'll be happy and vice versa.
b. Mollys can survive in brackish conditions as well as freshwater ones, always check out wether your lfs's mollys are brackish or freshwater bred if you can. If you are not keeping a brackish tank but decide to keep mollys, its very beneficial for their health if you can give them some liquid multi mineral/vitamini supliments regually.
c. Alot of livebearer males are known to harrass a pregnant female livebearer before she is about to give birth so they can make her give birth faster and mate with her quicker and/or eat her new born fry- male platys though have a really bad reputation for this and the stress they put on heavily pregnant females can somtimes kill them, so its a very good idea to make sure your tank has some really nice dense planting and hiding places and you have plenty of females to keep the males occupied while pregnant females give birth.

A breeding net can be handy at this point as well, you shouldn't keep heavily pregnant females in it for more than a couple of days max and you should never keep females bigger than a molly or more than one fish in it at a time. But they are handy for raising small quantitys of fry in for their first vunerable couple of weeks of life, or separating heavily pregnant females that are getting over-harrassed by males in.
d. Guppys are lovely fish to have, but many have very poor genes from over and inbreeding over the years because people find their huge array of colors highly desirable- delta/long tailed guppys are particually fragile, when choosing guppys you should go for the blandest colored females and the shortest tailed males as these tend to have the best genes.
Inbreeding causes an array of issues, from weaker imune systems and poor quality/weak fry, shorter life spans and increased chances of deformitys and females having high risk of birthing complications- so it is a good idea, not only to keep those gene pools fresh with guppys by introducing new unrelated ones every now and then, but with all livebearers too .

Ahh...Where were we? Oh yeah, livebearers to chose...You just going for a single type? Personally i would go for either platys or guppys, platys are easier to look after in my experience, but guppys are more successful breeders.

edit: Yeah, sorry if some of my points have already been done, took so long to write this post thats all .

 

[widgetuk]

Try the Endlers they are a very nice little fish and not inclined to eat there young
try this link to learn a we bit more
http/endlers-r-us.co.uk/index.php

 

[Annastasia]

Has it ever happened to you? (them getting sucked up a filter I mean)?

Not that I'm aware of...

Most of mine do survival in the fittest in the community tanks. I don't believe any of them have gotten sucked up, but it's hard to tell. The ones I raise are in tanks with sponge filters, so they can't be.

 

[timmystood]

Well Thanks everyone for your help. I think i'm going to go platies because I like the look of them and they are fairly easy to keep (or so you say!)

Thanks everyone! I only started cycling today so it'll be another 4-6 weeks but i'll keep you updated!

 

[guppymonkey]

I think you should try to find some Goodeids or half-beaks like nmonks suggested. They are a little more difficult to find but are well worth it if you want to have something different. nmonks already described the halfbeaks so I will try to explain the goodeids. Goodeids are a central american family of livebearers who have the unique feature of placenta-like reproduction. In most livebearers the eggs are simply carried inside the female and the young feed off their yoke sack until the are born. In goodeids there is a placenta like structure that actually feeds the young. The fry are born with what is basically an umbilical cord that is visible for the first few hours. Plus there are a lot of amazing colors for goodeids, just look them up in Google or some other search engine and you can find a ton of great pictures. Also, goodeids are a great way to get into breeding endangered species, many goodeids are either endangered or extinct in the wild. So you can have fun breeding fish and help save a species!