Jaysee

Hi, I'm new to the site. I want to set up a tank to breed livebearers to be used as a food source. Which would be my best choice?

namehater

ive kept mollies and endlers. out of those two i would say mollies, i always seemed to have 15+ fry swimming aroudn in my tank and they get to a decent size. endlers would not work out to well for you since neither the male nor female are very large, even at full grown.

Amanda

That would depend on what you're feeding.
For a smaller fish, I would say guppies. For a large, I'd say platys.
You could also try a hand at breeding goldies.

Nick Goody

Hi Jaysee, Welcome to Fishlore! Guppys would the best bet, they're cheap and require less space than Platys, Mollies and Swords. They also breed slightly faster. I breed fancy Guppies and Feeders for my Cichlids. If you just want feeders then for the breeders get the biggest females you can find, as the bigger the female the more fry they produce. Smaller, less colourful males will also breed better than fancy males with big tails.

Jaysee

Thank you!

I will be feeding an african knife, a senegal and a couple of african butterfly fish.

I am thinking about useing a 20L to keep them in, but set it up like a giant breeder box. If I set up a net horizontally dividing the tank 2/3 above and 1/3 below, the fry should fall through to the bottom. Then I would harvest them by taking the net out (taking all the adults out), scooping the babies and growing them in a 10. Or would it be better the other way around?

How do you do it nick?

Nick Goody

I use breeding traps. A lot of people don't like this method, as it does tend to stress the fish, however it's always worked well for me, and I find that after 2 or 3 births the fish get used to being in the trap. The trick to using a breeder trap is to keep a log of when your fish birth, so you can work out when to put them in the trap, thus minimizing the time that they spend in there.

Jaysee

Thank you nick. Do you think the 20L or 10 would make a better grow/holding tank?

gt-ere

Are you planning to keep the fry in the grow tank for a long time? if so the 20l would be best, but if othewise, the 10l would be fine.

marksuttonjr

Endlers and guppies will reproduce the quickest. Most pest stores carry some sort of a live bearer that they sell for $.20 or less. Just buy several of whatever your LPS carries.

Since you are only using these fish for feeders I reccomend a single tank instead of having a seperate grow tank. Add a few large clumps of java moss, and maybe some type of floating plant to a slick bottom tank that has plenty filtration. I would use a 30-60 HOB filter on a 20 gal tank. Cover the intake for the filter with panty hose, or buy a fry saver sponge.

Sinc you are wanting maximum reproduction feed something with lots of protein. I use freze dried krill as part of my feed. It will be around 45% protein.