Cross breeding?????

[goldengob]

Hi
Please help!!!

If the question sounds stupid, please understand that I am totally new to tropical fish.
I purchased a tank about 6 months ago and started to add fish. Recently I purchased a female platy whom we were told was pregnant. I did the right thing and purchased a breeder net. After putting her in there, two weeks later she gave birth to about 25 fry. We then moved her out the net and back into the tank with the other fish leaving her fry in the breeder net.
What leads to my question is that in the tank we also have 2 male Guppies. Since we placed the female platy back in the tank, the male Guppies just won't let her alone. In fact its got that bad now that they are physically fighting over her and the smaller of the males has taken quite a beating to the tail.
My question is; Is it possible that Guppies and Platys can cross breed, and if not, why are the male Guppies acting this way??

Thanks ahead!

 

[rollntider]

I dont think they can(different families) , but the guppies are acting that way is because you have more Males than females it sounds like. They like to be outnumbered by females.

 

[tstenback]

I am sure the male guppies will try but i am not sure if they would/could be successful. perhaps others will join in here. I know that swordtails and platties will crossbreed successfully.

 

[Fishkeeper2004]

All livebearers can cross breed with each other as far as I know. The problem could be that you have too many males to each female.

I successfully cross-bred platys and guppies, but it was not meaningful, however the young turned out fine and healthy.

 

[rollntider]

All livebearers can cross breed with each other as far as I know. The problem could be that you have too many males to each female.

I successfully cross-bred platys and guppies, but it was not meaningful, however the young turned out fine and healthy.

Cross Breeding

By GuppyAdict

Wed Oct 15th, 2003 at 10:06:48

Since that discussion, I have re-read some posts by researcher Felix Breden. He is leading a team which is trying - evidentally unsuccessfully - to cross guppies with what he feels is their closest relative, a fish either called Poecilia picta or Micropoecilia picta. They have even tried artificial insemination!

Both species are sometimes found together in Northern Venezuela - the picta may have been flooded downstream from their regular habitats. Picta is a neat looking fish in it's own right. It comes in a couple of color morphs which are predictably passed on to their young. It is a harder fish to keep in aquaria, sometimes coming from acid, soft water!

Livebearer males of different species have very different endings on their gonopodiums. Those modified anal fins are unique enough to each species that scientists sort species in part by gonopdial design. Magnified, they may look kind of nasty - many are a bundle of hooks and angles, and different sized fin rays. These are designed to fit females of the correct species, pretty much to the exclusion of other species.

In nature different species may be separated by habitats in different parts of the world, by different micro habitats within a stream system (platys and swordtails are found in the same river systems, but live in different parts of the river) and even by male coloration or pre-nuptual displays.

In nature, females will flee the wrong color pattern or display. In an aquarium there is no place to go and so we get an odd assortment of hybrid livebearers or killies or cichlids. Since so many of these fishes were collected from places which are no more (drained for housing, farm fields, ports, resorts, dumps and landfill) many aquarists feel that crossing fish outside of controlled lab conditions (both to see if it can be done and because of the, surprisingly controversial, assumption that fish which can interbreed are closer to each other than to other fishes) may cause us to lose the real wild species which may never be collected again.

Certainly hybrids are found in nature, but they are more often prolific egg scatterers - cyprinids including some American minnows - where a whole bunch of fish spawn together or where prolific species overlap in territory (rainbowfish). Once in a while a bait minnow gets loose, crosses with a local population and the local species goes extinct. This may have happened with species of livebearers and also with pupfish.

Breden and others have observed that the gonopodia of guppies and Endler's are very similar. In at least one DNA study, he noted that "our data from one gene, the control region of the mitochondrion, show no differentiation of endler's from regular guppies."

He did feel that more studies of different genes was necessary. But one could say that some info points to guppies and endlers being the same species.

Breden noted that lab crosses of guppies and endlers were by no means always successful.

Male livebearers, without females of their own kind, are still responsive to their "programmed" imperative to procreate. This does mean that they will persist in trying to mate and maybe succeeding where they wouldn't in nature.

A gruesome side of the peskiness by male livebearers is that annoyed females of some species have been know to nip at the fins of the males in an effort to drive them away. Sometimes they bite the end of the gonopodium off, effectively sterilizing the male.

I have read several reports on cross breeding of species since this has happened. It appears it is impossible for live bearers of different scientific names to cross breed, mollies and guppies would be more of a chance since they are in the peocilia (SP?) family. where as swords and platies are in the same species and would be able to also. I would find it hard for them to procreate after reading various reports on the net.
http/www.guppylog.com/story/2003/11/26/4234/5613
there is the report on this and many other on the net to see.

 

[smithrc]

I am sure the male guppies will try but i am not sure if they would/could be successful. perhaps others will join in here. I know that swordtails and platties will crossbreed successfully.

Male guppies DEFINATLY try it on... i dont have any female livebarers but i do have 4 male guppies that seem to be gay

they dont go near the male sword though.

 

[Angry_Platy]

I have 2 male guppies and 5 adult female platies in my tank....the male guppies are too busy chasing each other around to worry about the platies.

 

[AquaSeaFoam]

I am under the impression mollies and guppies CAN interbreed, as can platies and swordtails but not guppies or mollies and platies or swordtails (or visa versa.)
When male guppies feel like breeding they will try with anything if there are no female guppies present.
Also your platy is able to store sperm for several months, so even if she has another batch of fry it doesn't mean they have crossbred, only that she has used stored sperm from a male at the petstore.

 

[Peachybrown]

I was told my guppies are smelling her.

Now, my platy is pregnant and i have only had the tank a month, my first tank, oo.

But they are probably still chasing her because she'll be pregnant again. Platy's retain sperm for further fertilisation, they can have up to nine batches of fry.