Beth191987

I have a ten gallon tank that i used to keep the feeder gold fish in. It is freed up now so I was thinking about doing some small livebearer fish. I would like some help picking out a good certain fish. And this is the first time I have tried breeding fish too.

COBettaCouple

Platys would be good - or guppies, either breed prolifically and you could fit a small school in a 10g tank. There are a HUGE variety of Platys and we had platy fry unexpectly (we bought 4 females) from our gold twinbar.

Beth191987

Also have another question about the whole moving thing. Since you already know we will be moving in August do you think it is a good idea to start trying to breed these fish do you think they will do ok on a trip if they are only so old?

COBettaCouple

Yea, i wasn't thinking of that when i replied.. you bring up a really good point and i'm glad you did.

As they can take up to a month & a half to have the first batch after getting pregnant, you'd have some very young fry in August and a very pregnant female(s) - a trip like that would be harder on them, especially if the timing had fry dropping at the time of the trip. They probably would make it alright, but I'd probably wait until settling into the new place so you can tend to the fry and mama(s).

Beth191987

Thank you. I will wait to get new fish. No sense in taking that chance when you can avoid it completely.

vin

personally, I would wait until you're settled in your new home before starting up....

Muffymouse

good call on the wait but now you have all this time to plan and decide which kind you really want =))

Joy44

I have had guppies and they were OK. But now I have platy and I love them. They come in such a wide variety and are easy to care for. I have a batch of babies now and I thought I would get all red wag because that is what she is and the male was too, but now as they are getting bigger I can see some golden ones. I don't know where they came from but I think it is cool. Long story short my vote goes for platy once you are settled in. good luck

Beth191987

I still havent decided which one to get yet but I was also wanting to get 4 to 5 neon tetras and i was wondering if i could still have the other fish too. And which ones would be best together?

COBettaCouple

i'm not sure if neons would nip platys or not.. but at the least, you'd want a 20g tank to have a school of platys and of neons.

Beth191987

ok thank you.

Beth191987

Well, I am all moved in and the fish are doing well. I went and got three more fish a couple days after we were settled in. I bought 2 neon mickey mouse moons and 1 gold dust molly. I already had one gold dust molly and I moved it over to this tank and it seemed lonely to me so i had to buy him a friend.
And I got a SURPRISE. The moon was pregnant and she is actually have them right now. I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and i went to check on her and she was hiding in the corning so I thought it might be time and put her in the breeders box. Got up at 8:00 and there were 4 little babies!!!! I am still waiting to see how many more she might pop out. How long does it usually take for them to have all the babies? I heard around a day. I also heard that i should feed them 3 small amounts a day is that correct?
I will be back to let you know how many over all there are and how they are all doing.

COBettaCouple

hmm.. i'm not sure, but i know our platy had them over 3 or 4 days each time she dropped.. we fed them powdered flakes a few times a day.

Beth191987

OOps well she might have had some out of the breeding cage. But she seemed around the normal size and she hadn't had any for awhile so I let her out. But we had around 20 babies and they are so teeny and CUTE . They all seem to be doing fine. O and of coiurse I have a question. How long does it take for them to grow into adults or to put them into the aquarium with the rest? Just wondering how long it takes them to grow.

COBettaCouple

I think it can vary, but if you get liquid vitamins for their tank it might help them grow and prevent things like curved spines.. ours grew rather slowly but they were not the healthiest and we only recently started using vitamins. It'll probably take a few months until they're big enough to go in with the adults. I think when they get close to an inch, they'll no longer be thought of as snacks by the other platys. Basically you want to wait until you can sex them anyway to avoid unwanted breeding.

vin

Just remember that livebearers can store sperm and remain pregnant up to a year.....so she may not seem like she'll have more, but if that dark gravid spot doesn't disappear, she'll keep having babies until the sperm are used up.

COBettaCouple

it sounds like this is her first batch? each time she drops fry, she'll drop them over 3-5 days usually, with most on the 1st day. about every 25 days, she'll have a batch. you can tell it's getting close when you see the little black dots in her belly looking at you and when her back end squares off. sometimes she'll try to find a quiet spot away from the other fish. that's when it's a good time to gently herd her into the breeding net and maybe even have something she likes in there or plants around the net to try to help her not get so stressed.

Beth191987

That is the reason i want to feed most of them to the other fish so I don't get millions I have no where to put and I only have 2 people who want one or two. Plus I haven't looked into the pet store we have to see if they would take them or not. A couple months ok. man that will mean i will have like 2 or three more batches by then lol. Well maybe even more if my one molly gets impregnated. I would love to keep them all and buy some HUGE tanks for them but probably not any time soon will that happen but in the future I will have some big tanks. When I get rich :

COBettaCouple

lol.. yea, livebreeders are such underwater rabbits!

VidW

here is one of my experiences of breeding livebears!
My guppies and swordtails breed every month

Here is what I do:
1) But 2 female ( guppy or ST) and 1 male (better to have a bigger size of these fish)
2) feed them bloodworm (frozen) one day and flake food the other day ....etc..
3) where u see that ur fish are pregent, put them into a breeding box
4) and just feel them bloodworm or other frozen live food
5) you will see you baby soon

Beth191987

Under water rabbits lol . I will have to remember that one. So I have heard a lot about feeding them bloodworms makes them more in the mood to :. Is that true and why?

COBettaCouple

lol.. i'm not sure it takes anything to get them in the mood.. the difficult thing is to keep them from getting in the mood, so they should reproduce pretty quickly without help.. but i know for bettas, a protein-rich diet like that does condition them for breeding, so it may help speed things up with livebearers and/or make them healthier/stronger.

Beth191987

Well I might have to try that and see if my mollies will breed.

COBettaCouple

the best way to get them to breed is to look right at them and say "I REALLY hope you all don't start breeding!".

Beth191987

Hehe. I will have to try that.

Beth191987

Well I have about 13 more platy fry!! And I think we might actually be keeping most of them to put in our 55 when that is set up which yes i still isn't set up. But soon

COBettaCouple

lol.. don't forget the tank divider for seperating the males and females. cool that you have more fry - how many do you have now total?

Beth191987

well i gave away all the other babies I had so i only have 13 fry.

COBettaCouple

ah.. i see it so clearly now.

armadillo

13 seems to always be the number for my (molly) fry for some reason. Our first batch was made of 13 fry that we transferred to their outgrow tank, then our second batch was made of 13 fry that we could fish, and we transferred them to another tank. Lately, we've transferred another 13 to the outgrow tank, leaving the others to fend for themselves. Reminds me of that Johnny Cash song (Number 13 tattooed on my back).