The first year I had my tank I never saw any fry but in the last 2 months I've had 2 lots of kribs and 3 lots of guppies. Three more guppies are about to drop, the kribs are spawning again and I also have a heavily pregnant swordtail

Now this morning I woke up this morning to find a couple of baby halfbeaks in the tank. It was quite a surprise, I'd had never thought they'd be having fry too. I've tried to do a bit of research but can't find out much info on them as far as breeding is concerned.

Does anyone know anything about their fry, such as how many they normally have, how often they breed and what I should feed them? I'm giving them liquifry at the moment

Also anyone have any ideas what I can do with all the babies? I'm fast running out of space in my fry tank. I've spoken to my lf and they've said they can't help. Friends are taking a few but what should I do with the rest?

This post has been edited by Elisabeth: May 23 2003, 04:43 PM

Where abouts are you from elizabeth?

well this might be something that could interest allot of people who are breeding any of the more popular variaties of fish ive been looking at it for general info and id have to say i am verry impressed. some guy has made up a site about breeding all sorts of different fish and all the info i have found on there is bang on. Breedig tropical fish hope this helps

I'm in Leamington Spa, which is in Warwickshire, nearest cities being Coventry & Birmingham

Sorry elizabeth which halfbeaks do you have as there are more than one species of them As a guide 10-70 young will be produced and their breeding difficulty is slightly harder than that for other livebearers. The liquifry is a perfect start for them to eat

I would imagine halfbeaks would be quite sought after, you could let "survival of the fittest" occur in your main tank with the guppies and platies which few LFS will take because they can buy them in in such bulk and just take out the halfbeak fry which I would reckon the LFS would be happy to take off your hands but you think not? Try yellowpages and scout out a couple of other LFS if there are any and see if they will take them.

Good luck

Thanks William.
I think they are the Malayan ones. I only found 2 halfbeak babies, I suppose the others got eaten. Anyway I try and find room for a pair of the first batch of each species of fish I breed so I shall be keeping these ones but if I get any others I shall follow you advice and ring round.
I have to say I'm surprised the LF don't want the guppies or kribs. I was offering them to them for free. Anyway I spoke to somebody at another LF who said he could use them to stock some tanks that he's setting up at a local hospital so it looks like I've found them a home.
Just hope they get looked after ok - or at least better than the patients get treated

Hi elisabeth you probably have already seen this site but it looks like it may have some good information for you: http://www.mongabay.com/fish/hemirhamphidae.htm

I too am suprised they did not want the kribs, many places however don't take livebearers as they fear disease from an external tank and as they can get livebearers so cheap and in such bulk they rarely even take them off hobbyists.

lol at the patients

Thanks William, I hadn't seen that site before. Now I can tell which are the girls and which are the boys

Elizabeth how many guppy fry do you have? and what colours are they? how old are they?

Bigfish.
I have 3 batches of guppy fry. The oldest are about 6 weeks old and have those fan shaped yellow tails with an arc of blue spots. The next youngest look like they're going to be neon blue ones. Its still too soon to tell with the others.