Halfbeaks

[ferrikins]

Proberly a silly quetion, but I shore Halfbeaks are sexed differently than other livebearers, anyway I picked up 3 of these guys, and where wondering what sex they where, I am hoping to breed them at some point.

I also got a stow away in the form of a small fry of some kind, the lady at the shop said it was a guppy fry, but it not, I raised anothe of them to know. I think it maybe a a Black-Chinned Livebearer there simular to guppy fry but have a blue abouth there eye. Will let you know as I have it in a breeding net and will try and raise it.

It been a good week, for me and fish as I got some Glass Tetra's I asked for 5 and he mis counted and gave me 6. LOLOL 2 free fish in a keep not bad ay.

 

[ferrikins]

no one?

 

[nmonks]

Hello,

Sexing halfbeaks is easy. All halfbeaks prefer to do two things above all others: fight and eat. You can use this to identify males from females. Males will fight as much of the time as possible, and feed when they have a spare moment. Females prefer to eat, but will pick fights between mouthfuls.

Alternatively you can go by the shape of the anal fin and the development of the beak. Males have a distinctly shaped anal fin (it looks like it's been clipped flat) while the females have a normal, triangular anal fin. Males also tend to have longer beaks. Colouration is unreliable: I have a dominant male Nomorhamphus ebrardtii with no colour at all, but a female of the same species with bright orange fins.

Halfbeaks are not difficult to breed, despite their reputation. The trick is proper feeding, no aggressive tankmates, and stable water chemistry. I've written a web page on my experiences of breeding Nomorhamphus ebrardtii and Nomorhamphus liemi liemi, which you can read here. One surprise might be how big the babies are -- around 13 mm in length at birth, and more than double that within the first month!

Cheers,

Neale