🐡 FOTM RECOUNT! VOTE NOW: October 2025 Fish of the Month Contest(Livebearers)

[connorlindeman]

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PLEASE VOTE!
We have 8 awesome live bearers entered into October 2025 Fish of the Month Contest. View all the entries and descriptions below and then go to the top of page - click on your choice for FOTM and then click the "cast" button.

Please DO NOT post any comments about any specific entry in this thread...such posts will promptly be deleted.
You are not allowed to update your entry picture once voting has started.

Please note:
Any attempt to influence competition results, other than by casting your allocated vote, is not permitted and may result in your entry being removed and / or further action being taken. You are not allowed to have friends or family join TFF for the main purpose of voting for you. This is a public poll so source of votes can be viewed.

The winner is awarded a neat banner in his profile area and will be featured in a Winner Thread for all to see and to comment. The winner also will be added to our FOTM Wall of Fame .

Poll will close on October 31 at 4:41 PM ET (US).

Good luck to our entrants in the Fish of the Month contest. We at fishforums.net thank you for your participation.

 

[Abaddon]

This is one of the lesser-known livebearers, the barred topminnow (Quintana atrizona). Unfortunately it's almost impossible to find on the market - I was very lucky to get mine (at a borderline unreasonable price) from a guy who was getting rid of his stock, and one other breeder (the only one in the country AFAIK). This species is classed as critically endangered according to the IUCN and hasn't been seen in the wild since 2009. It's native to only 2 small areas in Cuba and threatened by the usual suspects - pollution, invasive species, water management etc. I have lofty aspirations (lol) to breed and give away or exchange as many of them as possible so as to hopefully make them a bit more popular, and I'd be happy to donate to any conservationists that will take them. I realise I'm very lucky to have them & want to do everything I can to help raise awareness about this species. These guys may not be as flashy as some other livebearers, but they're adorable, easy to keep and beautiful in their own right. They have splashes of yellow, black & iridescent blue (not really visible here), and are otherwise totally transparent, except for the vertical black bars (usually around 5) on both sides of the body. The fish in the photo is a juvenile male, one of the original stock I got back in August.

When it comes to husbandry, they're some of the smallest species available (about the same size or slightly bigger than tiger teddies, which are another criminally underappreciated species imho) so they can do quite well in nano tanks. They are extremely shy and only suitable for single-species setups (they will get stressed even when paired with similarly-sized and docile species). I keep mine with dwarf & amano shrimp and they seem to get along fine, although the amanos are absolutely *enormous* compared to them, so I'm keeping an eye out for any signs of stress. They don't eat their young, but they also don't breed as prolifically as guppies. I just had my first fry recently (that I've noticed, there may be more hiding in the plants) & am very excited. I currently have just under ~30 individuals split up into 2 tanks. I feed them a mix of dry, liquid and frozen foods (cyclops, daphnia, insect meal, baby brine shrimp, regular flakes), plus microworms. It was a bit challenging to find foods small enough to fit in their tiny mouths, but I think I've figured out a pretty decent combo, at least for now. I've only had them for 2 months and I'm very much still in the process of figuring them out, but keeping my fingers crossed that they establish a happy & thriving population.

Interesting fact about them: The males shouldn't really be netted, as their gonopodium has a tiny hook at the end which can get caught & damaged in a mesh, rendering the fish infertile (at least temporarily). Moving mine was a bit of a pain because of that lol

 

[emeraldking]

Overhere one of my males which I've caught last year during my trip to Mexico back in July 2024. It's a Xiphophorus variatus from a tributary of Tecoxtempa. The Tecoxtempa is a stream in the state of Veracruz in Mexico.
This is one of the variatus platy strains that are beautiful colored in free nature. A lot of people think that wild platies are dull or plain. But in fact there are also very nice and bright colored wild platies. If I would only focus on maculatus and variatus platies in the wild, there are more well colored variatus platies than maculatus in the wild.

The adult females are pretty plain in color. In certain populations adult females are not the same color as adult males. In these population, fry are born greyish and will get color and pattern when they grow up to adulthood. But there are also variatus platies where both sexes have tyhe saem color. In that case, they already have the same color at birth. Similar to most breeding forms at birth.

Males of this population will start off as greyish specimens. When they are colored out, males show a yellow dorsal, a red caudal, the lower half of the body will be black and the upper half of the body show different hues of iridescent blue.

These are one of the more beautiful colored variatus platies I own.

My apologies that I took this shot when he was pooping. But they just ate... That's my excuse...!

 

[connorlindeman]

This poll ended in a tie. I have reset the poll. It will now end in 3 days. VOTE VOTE VOTE!