Livebearers

[iobre8ks]

What are the different types of livebearers?

 

[gale]

If you just mean fish: Mollies, Platies, Guppies, Endlers...that's all I can think of.

 

[iobre8ks]

i know that swordtails are also. I was just wondering since i want to breed livebearers. I currently have (look at sig.)

 

[Kittycat]

There are lots of other kinds, but the the four are most common...

 

[iobre8ks]

Which are easiest to breed?

 

[bigfish]

All are easy to breed providing you have good quality water and feed them a varied diet.

Guppies tend to be prone to wasting diseases in my experience ue to loads of in breeding.

Personal choice though.

I prefer platys myself, but seeing as you have 125 gallon tank to fill you would be fine for Swordtails, Just make sure you keep 1 Male to loads of females becoz i have had a case of bullying in my tanks right now even tho i had 2 males to 5 females. My 1 male was getting bullied constantly.....i had to move him to a tank of his own

LFS round here only sell pairs and not just single females or males.

 

[Kittycat]

I have guppies and platies. Platies are new, but so far seem great and hardy. Guppies I found to be a little fragile, I've lost many when I first started out.

I think all four breed pretty much the same. I read somewhere that molly fry are the largest and least likely to get eaten, I don't know if that's true...My platies so far haven't bothered their fry much.

I don't keep swordtails because they are bigger (and therefore would use up more tank space), and I've also read bullying might occur. Mollies I don't keep because also of potential bullying /aggression, and they are brackish.

 

[Sanj]

There are hundreds of species of Livebearer, but only a handful are commonly seen in the hobby.

Endlers are probbaly the easiest to breed, they have a shorter gestation period than other fish and so produce babies more often.

 

[Squirrelbuddies]

... Just make sure you keep 1 Male to loads of females becoz i have had a case of bullying in my tanks right now even tho i had 2 males to 5 females. My 1 male was getting bullied constantly.....i had to move him to a tank of his own

I am thinking of adding swordtails to my 20 gallon. I currently have 3 female mollies and a plec. The plec is only 3 inches and will be moved to the 55 gallon once it's cycled. I also have molly fry in a breeder net - but they will be moving into the 5 gallon eventually.

I really do not want any swordtail fry, though. So, two questions:

1. If I get only male swordtails, will they still bully each other if there are no female swords in the tank?

2. Will they try to mate with the female mollies?

 

[ferrikins]

... Just make sure you keep 1 Male to loads of females becoz i have had a case of bullying in my tanks right now even tho i had 2 males to 5 females. My 1 male was getting bullied constantly.....i had to move him to a tank of his own

I am thinking of adding swordtails to my 20 gallon. I currently have 3 female mollies and a plec. The plec is only 3 inches and will be moved to the 55 gallon once it's cycled. I also have molly fry in a breeder net - but they will be moving into the 5 gallon eventually.

I really do not want any swordtail fry, though. So, two questions:

1. If I get only male swordtails, will they still bully each other if there are no female swords in the tank?

2. Will they try to mate with the female mollies?

1, yeah it very likely they will still fight, as it seems to be more dominace realated than breeding related.

2, yeah they will try, but they won't get anywhere though.

 

[Polardbear]

It depends on the males. I currently have 4 male swordtails in my 55 gallon tank with 3 adult females (and 6 3 month olds) and they get along fine. I would ordinarily recommend having several more females in with them (I lost several females over the last few months and the replacements are in quarentine). The 4 males I have all came from the same batch so that may have some bearing in their getting along. I have had other males in the past that did not get along. I watch these guys pretty closely though and am prepared to seperate them if they start not getting along.