Limia Vittata

[Inchworm]

I've had these fish in my corydoras tanks for about a year and a half now, but never gave them much thought. They seem to spawn regularly, but eat their fry before I can rescue them. At the beginning of September I saw some newly born fry and quickly scooped them out. For several weeks I thought only six of them survived, but it looks like all eight of them made it this far. Since then, I've been watching the adults, and last week was able to catch another 15 new babies.

Here's some pictures of the September batch:

I'd appreciate any information you can give me about these cute and easy to keep fish.

 

[helterskelter]

Nice fish I've never kept hem my self but who could resist

 

[Inchworm]

Thank you, helterskelter.

I was hoping to get better pictures of the adults, but they just won't hold still long enough. These are the parents of the youngsters above:

Thanks for looking.

 

[helterskelter]

You can see the yellow on the adults nice fish, same not more peeps are keeping these stunning wild fish

 

[Inchworm]

Hi helterskelter

Thanks again.

Since I've started this thread, and there seems to be nothing else noted here about them, let me record how I've been keeping them.

Temperature: 70 to 78 degrees F. They do well no matter which tank I keep them in

Food: Live blackworms, frozen bloodworms, good quality flake food. I drop a few Hikari bottom feeder wafers in the tanks from time to time, but I don't think they eat them. They eat whatever I serve the corys.

Since they live with corydoras, the water is absolutely fresh, never salted. In fact. I traded for them from a guest speaker at the Aquarium Club and selected them because they were the ones he had that could live in salt free tanks. I consider them to be one of my better trades.

 

[jollysue]

I always thought mollies were those baloon guys in the lps. Those are adorable, Inchy.

I could be sold. But then I am an easy sell. LOL

 

[helterskelter]

*Chokes*

Mollies.... Their not mollies their Limia's Ok their relatively distantly related, and have been in the Poecilia and Gambusia genus before being moved to limia.

 

[Inchworm]

Oops!I thought they were mollies too.

Are they at least from Cuba?

_____

Actually, this is the sort of thing I was hoping to learn by posting here. I know virtually nothing about livebearers, and these delightful little fish have made me very happy. It would be nice to learn something that could make them thrive even better in my tanks.

 

[helterskelter]

Yes their from Cuba and this is where they get the common name of the Cuban Limia

 

[jollysue]

Well, I have once again revealed my ignorance of live bearers! LOL

But they are pretty and nice pics too.

 

[helterskelter]

Well, I have once again revealed my ignorance of live bearers! LOL

But they are pretty and nice pics too.

To he honest it's not ignorance it's just not knowing any difference, i do stuff like that in other parts of the forums all the time.

I've worked with livebearers since i was 12 when i 1st started to lurn about the wild fish, and now it's 17 years later and I'm still lurning stuff......

 

[jollysue]

Do we have one of those "I'm not worthy smilies"?

Perhaps flowers will do



Moderate temper, experience and knowledge!

So give up more info on Inchy's fishies?

 

[dunchp]

Limia vittata (and other limias) and the mollies are actually quite closely related. Limia have previously been in the genus Poecilia and some people still place them in there. Mollies belong to the genus Poecilia, having previously been in the genus Molliensa (hense the name Molly). So it is not such a daft thing to think of Limia vittata as a molly.

You are also dead right that there is far more to Mollies than the balloon molly; there are quite a few species, although I haven't counted how many; most species come from the wild species Poecilia sphenops which is quite variable in the wild but are generally olive green although I have caught some that have amazing yellow tails. There are also plenty of other species such as chica, mexicana and sulphuraria which are the strangest fish I have ever caught and almost impossible to keep in captivity. There are even blind forms of molly.


Getting back on track, I have kept a few different species of Limia including melanogaster, nigrofasciata, vittata and caymenensis; they all require warmer water and go stringy and weak and eventually die if they are kept too cold. My vittata are the only fish in my fish room which are in a heated tank. I think your temperature is fine.

There is not alot else to say, if you get them established they are generally easy to keep. I think they are a cracking fish, the wild strains are generally a bit less colourful than the aquarium strains and people are often disappointed as the photos you see in books are often of colourful aquarium strain species; good luck with them and you seem to be doing excellently well.

 

[Inchworm]

Thank you for your very informative post, dunchp.

Right now, I have the adult pair in the pics I posted above, and another, younger pair. When doing a water change this morning I found these fry in their tank:

Here is one of my fry tanks. The one down at the bottom is from the batch above and the others are 8 days old.

I also have a few extra males and that is what prompts me to ask this question. I never gave it much thought before, but one of the extra males has more yellow on it than the one that just gave me the fry. Another one has no yellow (at least that I could see today) but is much bigger (could just be older?) Also, the batch I first posted about is still young, but looks to have several females.

In your opinions, since I can only keep some of the fry, which ones should it be? Should I switch the more colorful or larger male with the bigger females and keep them? I separated the extra males because they all kept chasing the female, but should I just have kept them together and let nature take it's course?

Please don't get into technical talk about genetics; it's above my head. I don't want to do anything to "improve" these fish, but I don't want to let them to inbreed to the point where they lose their natural good qualities either. I just want to do the responsible thing.

What do you think?

 

[dunchp]

I will stay non-technical (I am flattered that you think that I have the knowledge to do otherwise but I am just a hobbyist and have a functional knowledge in genetics etc).

Firstly, IMO, in Poeciliids (the family which Limia belong to), females are far more valuable than males. Females can have fry for a months after exposure to males and so you should protect your females. Males of Limia and many other Poeciliids are 'ambush' maters in that they don't really court the females, but inseminate by ambushing them, this is tiring for the females and under no circumstances should you keep one female with many males. One female with one male is fine, but I try to keep my poeciliids in a ratio of 3 females per 1 male.

Secondly, regarding selection of mates; IMO, of course you should select the best males to mate the females with. Culling of young is a very important part of breeding fish properly, otherwise you just end up with poor quality fish which are either dull or small.

Some people think you should leave it to chance but I do not agree. A few things to remember though is that 1) the best, bigger males often develop a few months later than other males in their brood 2) remember that females store sperm for months so if you fail to separate the males and the females then you will not be able to selectively breed, particularly since the smallest males tend to develop earlier and may inseminate the females before the better males mature.

Finally it is not 100% proven, but it is a trend that seems to be borne out in my fish room, colder tanks produce more males, warmer tanks produce more females. This may be an old fishkeepers tale, but as I said, my experience leads me to believe that it is possibly true.