hybridization of live bearers

[jdluvsjane]

can anyone tell me of some good fish to try to get to cross breed for my own personal display because i would like to have soemthing that yu just cant go down to the store and buy

 

[terrorist_124]

try swordtails and platies.

although it's incommon to breed 2 type of livebearers it's quite possible

 

[OohFeeshy]

You can also try mollies and guppies, but its much harder.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

y'know a more efficient way of owning "something you can't just go down to the store and buy" is to go to the LFS and ask what kinds of specialty fish they can order in for you. or even just ask to see their stocklist and write down all the names of all the fish you don't recognize. take those names and do some research on the internet to figure out which ones would be best for your tank.

while this sounds rather complicated, its faster than throwing two species of livebearers in a tank and waiting months or years until finally someone spits out some hybrids. especially since in the meantime, you've just got plain-jane mollies and guppies sitting in there.

i'm assuming your tank is 20 gallons or less. off the top of my head, some more exotic species that can go into smaller tanks:

• croaking gouramis
  sparkling gouramis
  shell-dwelling cichlids
  pygmy cories
  apistogramma cichlids
  green fire tetras
  blockhead cichlid (Steatocranus casuarius )
  any of the Carinotetraodon puffers (all of those puffers must be kept in single species tanks).

 

[jdluvsjane]

thank you for your help

 

[dwarfgourami]

Good idea from Pica there. Tbh even if your swordtails and platys do breed, you're not going to get anything very spectacular looking there, people probably won't even notice it. And there is a good chance they never will breed anyway.

 

[Annastasia]

Actually, Swordies and Platies are bred a lot. Any Lyretails, or fancy finnage you see in Platies...all because of hybridization with Swords mainly. And Swordies get more colors by getting hybridized with Platies. So it's more common then you'd think. Also, some of the larger Platies you see, that are not Variatus, are Swordie/Platy hybrids.

If you want some different kind of breeding, try for the less common Livebearers, and not hybridizing. You could try breeding some Goodeidae, or Halfbeaks, or 4-eyed fish. All these are Livebearers.