Livebearers: Breeding and rearing guide.

[Mollybreeder]

I found this article very informative but there are still questions that can be asked even with the help of the article.

 

[JoyB]

Hi

Thanks for the information in this thread, it's very useful. I've just checked the two pictures in the first post and I'm confused.

I have a platy which I thought was female because she looks like the picture on the right but the anal fin is like the one of the left. Any idea's?

 

[Grumpy]

i am the proud father of several young swordtails i was wondering how long it was before i found out what sex they were.

 

[Balloon_molly]

I read this when I frist joined. It was a lot of help. thank you!

 

[paulthegreat]

Just a note on the breeding nets and traps. I have a plastic trap with a removable second floor. It has worked fine for me but I have discovered that having Yoyo loaches can be fatal even to fry that look safe in the trap. They can suck the fry through the gaps in the trap even though the fry can not force their way out on their own. I am sure there are a lot of other fish that can do the same. The plastic trap is also just too small for a 3" highly pregnant female Swordtail and can stress them out. If you have an option the best bet is the net.

 

[raeburter]

I think all my fry would be dead if i dun put water plants and livebearer traps

 

[Seb R]

Great article..... just wish mine would STOP BREEDING!!!

 

[Jo and Gra]

Can anyone help.

How can you tell if Balloon Mollies are pregnant?

 

[foxxybrownn]

I have just purchased three new platties. Two of them are definately pregant. I did read all the info thoroughly and I was wondering why most people prefer the net breeder. I went back to the pet store and the sold me a plastic breeder with a separate chamber for the fry. After the female gives birth the pump underneath the maternity chamber pumps the to a different holding area. I am afraid that I may have made a mistake by buying this breeder. Also I may have placed them inside of it too early. Do you have any advice to assist me?

 

[littlebensfish]

Hi all,

Firstly, thanks for all the info here, it helped us out sooooo much!!

We now have approx. 40 fry (maybe more!) happily swimming away, born on New Years day!

Just for info, i thought i'd write a few comments about our experience incase it helps others.

We have 2 female silver mollies and 1 male and the girls are constantly clearly pregnant. Infact, its got to the point where i never see them without a gravid spot!
Anyway, the girls are nearly always very big. On New Years Eve i noticed one of the girls seemed to be hanging around towards the back of the tank at the bottom, hiding behind the plants. The others two mollies kept going to join her. Normally as soon as they see me coming over to the tank they come straight to the top at the front eagerly waiting for food. But she stayed at the back. I thought there was something wrong with her so got out the breeding net, only thinking i'd seperate her till the morning and see how she was then. When i went to the tank in the morning the net was filled with fry! My little boy was sooooo pleased!
Something i should mention in hindsight is that thinking back the barbs were also hanging around at the back of the tank near her and i've a feeling they new what was happening and was waiting for dinner! Maybe thats something to look out for next time??
Anyway, the fry have all survived so far, feeding well and growing. I'm doing water changes every couple of days which they seem to appreciate as they seem to come to life.

What i'm going to do with them all god only knows!
I thought i'd be able to put them in a community tank when the seemed too big for the mouths of the others, but it seems from reading that i can't until a couple of months, and until they're about an inch long!
I've still got to discover if i'm meant to keep them in the net until then? If anyone has any suggestions i'd really appreciate it!
Also, curiously, at the bottom of the breeder net we have 2 much smaller fry and they don't even seem to be the same colour. Infact, they don't seem to be freely swimming like the others and prefer to hang around at the bottom eating? Any ideas?

Keep up the good work everyone, this site has been so helpful to us newbies!

 

[Pfhjr369]

Hi, everyone, im a newbie, too!! i just got back into breeding after many years away from the hobby. I have never been a big fan of either the plastic OR the net breeder tank, simply b/c of the stress that it seemed to have on the pregnant females. BUT, recently, i found something that may be the answer to all of that, an oversized breeding tank, it's almost 7 INCHES big, in all dimensions. Altho i havent recieved it in the mail yet, it looks AWESOME!! It's HUGE!! I can't wait to use it, and THEN i'll let everyone know how it really worked for me. I have not been able to find this tank ANYWHERE but on Ebay, and it does cost about $30. I think that it'll b worth it. I tried to paste a picture of it, but its not working, so here's the link, Check it out:

http/cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...bayphotohosting

 

[nmonks]

littlebensfish -- Make sure you read the pinned topics in the Common Livebearers section. I think those will clarify things for you. It normally takes a couple of months for baby fish to get big enough to mix with their parents, though this depends on the species. A breeding trap or net can only be safe for two, maybe four, weeks at best. After that, you need to move the fry to a rearing tank. A 10 gallon tank will do admirably. While you need a heater and a simple filter, other things, like lights and ornaments aren't required, so such a tank is cheap to set up. Once you've rearer and sold a few batches of fry, you'll have covered your costs.

Pfhjr369 -- No breeding trap or net is a substitute for a rearing tank. While 7 inches sounds like a lot, for things like swordtails and mollies it is still far too small, and the mother will be stressed by being placed in there. Even a biggish sort of platy will be unhappy. So by all means try it out with guppies, but don't harm larger livebearerers by wedging them in there. Stressed females often miscarry, which defeats the entire purpose of the exercise!

Cheers, NEale

 

[donna-78]

Most people's first fish to breed are livebearers simply because it's almost impossible to not get them to breed! To get started with whatever fish you decide you'll usualy need a pair or a trio -1 male 2 females or 1 male 1 female (identification techniques later on). Livebearers- mollies, guppies and platies, do not lay eggs like most fish but instead give birth to young free swimming fry. When you get most female livebearers they are pregnant and should give birth to babies every 3 or 4 weeks.

If you want to have a few baby livebearers, get two or three fat female you can tell they are females due to their fan shaped anal fin unlike the males elongated gonopodium- see pictures the male (platy) is on the left and the female platy is on the right.

It is obvious to tell which female guppies are pregnant as they will have an obvious black "gravid" spot which is the fry's eyes forming inside the mother, this will form just in front of her anal fin. For platies and mollies the only way to tell how far into the pregnancy the fish is, is by seeing how fat they are, platies and mollies which are about to spawn will seem almost square from the back view and will be very swollen in the middle. Below is a picture of a guppy about 2 and a half weeks into the pregnancy note the gravid spot.

Be sure to keep your aquarium clean and change about 25% of the water in your aquarium at least once a week. Feed your livebearers plenty of floating flakes and some live food as well to supplement their diet and give them larger and more healthy offspring. As always remove any uneaten food after 5 minutes.

When your female livebearer is big and looks like she?s about to (burst) release babies there is the option to move her into another aquarium or put her into a net breeder protect her babies when they spawn, it should be noted that the mother for approximately 12 hours after releasing the babies has a surge of a hormone which results in her not being hungry. While this is an option the difficulty is that often I have found that if I move the female too early she will abort the pregnancy due to stress, the same may happen if you buy a heavily pregnant fish from the fish store and yet you find no babies in your tank. For this reason I have found - perhaps because fry especially from livebears are no longer unusual or special I just leave the adults in my community tank which has a planted corner. I have found that even without removing the babies into an external aquarium/net breeder you'll get some babies which make it to adult hood... unless you've got some really evil fish in there! I have also found the use of large marbles on the floor of the tank to be superb as hiding places for the fry, even so if I wish to save some interesting colour fry or need more fry then I follow the following procedure.

Aid the Fry: A net breeder is a must if you wish to save large numbers of fry. Simply place it in a corner of the tank when one of the females has already spawned or place the female in it just before she spawns. Either way ensure the fry are the only fish inside the net. As a rough guide, a young female platy/guppy/molly usually releases 12 to 30 babies in her first batch of young. In comparison a large molly may be able to release up to 100 babies! I highly recommend you to purchase a "net breeder" made out of mesh rather than a plastic one as I have heard too many bad reports about them and my net breeder has worked flawlessly for me (plastic ones babies escape/get eaten or trapped!) The net breeder has a frame made of plastic and is covered in fine net to separate the fry inside the net from the larger fish swimming around in the aquarium.

A few of common problems people have is that they have bought store bought fish which the store said were pregnant and yet you don't have any babies. If this is the case, and you are sure that you have both females and males in your tank preferably at the ratio 2 females to 1 male livebearer then you can do a couple of things to enhance your chances.
1) Change 20% of the water in the aquarium each day replacing it with dechlorinated water which is as close to the temperature already in the water as possible, remembering any differences will result in stress to the fish and more chance of your livebearer aborting her pregnancy.
2) Supplement your livebearers diet with vegetables which form an integral part of a livebearers diet in the wild I would reccomend blanched zucchini (courgette) or cucumber, flakes are only so good and try to add to the meaty part of your livebearers diet with blood worms or adult brine shrimp.
3) This should probably be number 1 as it is the most important... Patience! there is nothing to stop your livebearer giving birth and the odds are stacked in her favour if you have followed the procedures already mentioned.

Now you've got the fry leave them in the net breeder or their own aquarium, feed them little and often - 3 times a day for maximum growth- with finely crushed flake food (as fine as you can crush it, use your fingers and rub them together really grinding it up very finely because any large bits will remain uneaten and will rot polluting your tank). When your baby fish have grown to about one inch which will take between two and four months you can release them back into the aquarium with their parents or this is also the size when fish stores will be willing to buy livebearer fry off you. Growth will vary on quality of food and also of tank temperature, 79 degrees fahrenheit is about the maximum recommended and at this temperature the fry will grow faster than at a lower temperature. Not recommended if you have other fish in the tank though and step up the temperature increase slowly.
If everything goes well you should have lots of fry which will look like this:

Hi to every1 and if any1 out there has experience with breeding swordtails then u might be able to help me.
ive had successfully bred guppies for a year now and wanted to try swordtails but have no luck with guppies i can tell when there about to give birth cos i know the signs but with my swordtail i have no clue she definatly is pregnant as the black spots (the fry) are visible it must be week 4 now and still nothing she has no blackspot under her anal fin it is white and seems to becoming more and more visiable. she is very long so im not putting her in a breeding trap i never have with any guppies and have managed to catch most/all their fry. So my question is this is there any clear signs that the swordtail is ready to drop my last swordtail carried her fry and not long before she would of had them she died so im really hoping this swordtail will give me some fry fingers crossed any advice appreciated oh and she seems to be sitting at the bottom of the tank alot lately.

 

[geezer]

Is it always as simple as people say to breed livebearers?

I've had two tanks 95 gallon jungle planted and 25 gallon without any luck

the big tank has co2 running so the PH is 6.2 does that matter? the other tank is ph 7.5 , do temps matter at all?

i had like 5 females (sailfin mollies) and one male and none of the females seemed interested, and with platies they don't seem to do much or school.

i'm thinking of trying again in the little tank, maybe the big tank conditions are too low ph?

either that or i'm the unluckiest breeder in the world

 

[damebria]

Is a mesh breeding net a good idea if you have sharks in the same tank as the pregnant platty???