Endlers

[jpeterson]

I have a 13 US gallon tank with slate substrate and some live plants which grow on rocks, wood and float on the top of the water. I was wondering if the tank would be suitable for breeding endlers in.

Also any suggestions for the tank or what ever please give me them!

 

[nmonks]

Yes, should work fine. The key thing is floating plants. Get lots of them! These help keep the fry from being eaten, and they also give shelter to the females. Nothing else matters, not rocks on the bottom, not plants on the bottom, nothing! Floating plants really are important.

As always with livebearers, keep twice as many females as males.

Obtaining good quality Endlers can be tricky; many retailers sell "pairs" consisting of a more-or-less Endler male and a plain vanilla guppy female. Shop around, and if you can get your Endlers from a club, that's a good move.

Cheers, Neale

 

[jpeterson]

From what i have read endlers don't eat their young. There is only going yo be endlers in this tank. I would also be buying from a breeder not a pet shop. The plants would be mainly for show and decoration.

 

[nmonks]

From what i have read endlers don't eat their young.

Seriously, almost all livebearers will eat their young when hungry. There's no evolutionary pressure for them not to: in the wild newborn fry immediately swim among floating plants or into very shallow water where the adults can't go. So there's no need for adults to ignore their fry. To them, anything small and wriggly at the surface comes under the heading of "potential food", whether mosquito larva, midge larva, or baby guppy.

Get some Indian fern. It costs almost nothing. Grows fast. Consumes nitrate. If you're anywhere near Berkhamsted, you're free to come get a clump from me!

Cheers, Neale

 

[jpeterson]

Well i was thinking of getting some bog wood and covering it in weeping moss with Egeria densa floating on top.

 

[nmonks]

Hope you have really intense lighting! Egeria is a temperate to subtropical plant, and when kept in tropical tanks either [a] goes bananas under very strong lighting or else just becomes etiolated and sickly-looking.

Cheers, Neale

with Egeria densa floating on top.

 

[jpeterson]

Well i have a t5 compact light. The fishtank i have is the interpet fishbox 48l. The egeria densa seems to be doing fine in their now.

 

[Dinky Stig]

Well i have a t5 compact light. The fishtank i have is the interpet fishbox 48l. The egeria densa seems to be doing fine in their now.

Light isn't the only important factor, CO2 and nutrients play a big role when lighting levels are high.

 

[nmonks]

Indeed, and Egeria is one of those plants that removes bicarbonate from the water as a source of carbon for photosynthesis (what's called biogenic decalcification). You may remember from school doing the Elodea photosynthesis/bubble counting experiment in biology where sodium bicarbonate was added to the water within which the strand of Elodea was placed. This is why; these plants rely as much on bicarbonate as they do dissolved CO2. It's also why they thrive in hard water and even brackish water systems rather better than soft water tanks.

Note that it is VERY easy to have fast-growing plants such as these suddenly crashing the pH of your aquarium because all the carbonate hardness is lost. As the Egeria grows bigger and bigger, the strain on the carbonate hardness of your limited water volume gets more and more. Eventually there's a crisis unless you do something to prevent it.

One plus with Indian fern and other true floating plants is these get their CO2 from the air, so fertilising the water with CO2 isn't necessary, and they have no impact at all on carbonate hardness or pH. Indian fern is wonderful stuff, and if you can buy some or beg some from a friend, do so.

Cheers, Neale

Light isn't the only important factor, CO2 and nutrients play a big role when lighting levels are high.

 

[OldMan47]

I keep endlers in a 45 gallon tank and a 20H tank. Both tanks have very poor cover compared to what I consider adequate for most livebearers. In both cases, lots of fry survive to become to adults. Although my tanks are far from ideal for typical livebearer survival, the endlers are a case unto themselves and are far less predatory than many other livebearers would be. Although NMonks advice would be applicable and good advice for many livebearers, I find that endlers are not as difficult as many livebearers when it comes to fry survival. That means that my endlers do fine without the usual livebearer precautions to protect fry or juveniles. This is my colony at feeding time and, as you can see, the adults largely are ignoring the fry and juveniles.