Liberty Molly hybrids

Display pics of the Tiger liberties:
Not all the hybrids shown, currently sitting at 5 males (all shown), and a couple females (2 shown). I wanted to get display media of them especially the females, I haven’t really shown much of. Females will backross to islai to make the bars dominant. I’m keeping the males with the liberties just in case the sisters are sterile, and I don’t end up hitting a roadblock.


F3 Liberty Molly Hybrids: (Liberty Molly (M) x F2 Blonde melanistic (F))
They are about 1 week old, there were def more fry hiding around the tank, I caught out throughout the week, when I first posted the two fry. So far from one F2 blonde female, she gave me 5 melanistic Blondes, and 3 plain Wildtypes (unsure if any will show late melanistic markings). The wildtypes are def pure liberty fry passing but I’m not gonna use them for breeding just the blondes. They look quite nice better than the F1’s, and F2’s when they were fry. I was under the impression that backcrossing to liberty using only blonde type specimens, I would get lower percentage of blonde offsprings, but nope that female gave me more blondes to wildtypes.

Tiger liberty update:
Couple things on the tiger liberties, I mailed a majority of them to a friend of mine on Monday. I gave him a few of the sexed out males at the time there was 7 males, uncertain a few females, a few unsexed siblings and juveniles. It’s pretty much time to test for fertility the females with the islai males, and (islai x tridens) im fine with whichever males hits the tiger liberties females. In case the females are sterile, I’ll keep the hybrid males with the liberties, they’re coming out quite nicely. Here’s some females I’m certain of, I noticed the females have less colorful dorsal than the males. And longer body from what I can see.



I still have like 3 males that’s just starting to form gonopodiums, I’ll pull them out later in the day and pop them with the liberties.

Here’s a male




Liberty hybrids (Liberty and sphenops) update:
The more I look at this F3 (F1xF2) melansitic female she started to look more like Seatbelt with how her pigments looks more clustered near her mid section but I’m not confident she could still be the dominant male F1’s daughter but eh idrc she’s very adorable, I love seeing her whenever I check on the tank.

F3: (F1 x F2)

I literally posted it a week ago literally two days after posting them, it decided it’s time to form a gonopodium. This whole time he was a late bloomer… in my defense it stayed small for months, I fully thought it sexed out to female but nope he just wanted to take his time to mature. I took him from my other tank to grow in the main with the liberties for now. I do want to breed him out but that’ll be more side branching for this project. He’s my favorite little one I did planned to use him before I got the Blonde F3 that’s backcross to pure, and deciding to go all in on adding Limia blood. I’m still leaning on keeping him and just let him hit the Liberty females but I don’t want more wildtype melanistic fry, I’m still uncertain if splotches and bars can be co-dominant when I incorporate the tiger liberties the the liberty hybrids and more Limia blood into the mix.


Also forgot to add when I had mailed my friend some hybrids, I had also gave away the Tri Tiger liberty fry (Limia islai male x F2 female). Just waiting for the other blonde f2’s to give me more fry, I’ll keep the blonde f3’s and cull the wildtypes. Also will give another friend the blonde f2’s and maybe that f3 male and his blonde sibling. I don’t want to overdo it with this project it’s big as is… and I’ve been drained with life, I don’t want to burn out again.

Tiger liberty media:
The males are quite nice body form wise 3 different males in the pics. Also the 3 different females in the pics.

Display pics of the newborn F3’s Liberty hybrids (Pure x F2 Blonde)

So many babiessss lol so yea I think there’s maybe 1-2 I missed but head count is still 6 blondes and 9 wildtypes. If I can go further which I won’t some of the wildtypes were born with typical stripes others weren’t. They aren’t my focus anyways still nice to look at.



Here’s the older batch of F3’s (Pure x F2) i put them in the window tank to speed up their growth.

Minor update on the Liberty hybrids I mailed another friend the last of my F2 blonde females and the two F3’s (F1xF2). I last of the juvenile tiger liberties from the later batches. he raises his mollies in salt water so it’ll be interesting if the hybrids will be salt tolerant especially the tiger Liberty juveniles. I’m just condensing this project down somewhat to focus on less trait transferring and because of tank spacing.

Now tiger liberty update:
So far none of the females are gravid but I think 3-4 of them have tiny gravid spots while the rest there’s no black spot. Hopefully they’ll show signs of actually being gravid by July. Anyways they looke quite nice. Not the best angles but some of the females has colored dorsals while others don’t. (Other pics below)


The tiger liberty males, I’m happy for once, I got good pics of them. Their mature coloring is starting to kick in. Some of their fins are getting abit more hue in them, and showing more salvatoris iridescence and dorsal markings. Body form is very nice, somewhat robust and streamline. I’m still cycling out the islai sperm in the pure liberty females, so they’ll either drop pure fry or f2 tiger liberty fry. Hopefully soon! (Other pics below)

F3 Blonde Liberty Molly hybrids update:
(Pure Poecilia salvatoris male x F2 Blonde melanistic female)

Here’s two batches from two different F2 blonde females. The older batch there’s 4 specimens, they had time colored down before taking pics of them, but they are golden-yellow hue like the younger set with some melanistic markings when they’re are colored up. The younger set isn’t quite big enough to be around the other Livebearers but I have 8 specimens.

I’m still going to go for just females in F3 bc the females sex chromosomes are Z for Salvatoris and W for Salvatoris. The F3 males may still carry a Z copy for Sphenops and I want to breed that out. With certainty future F4 (Pure Salvatoris male x F3 blonde female) or (F2 Tiger liberty male x F3 blonde female) will not carry any Sphenops sex chromosomes, and only transfer the blonde melanistic gene over. And I’ll work from there adding the Limia stripes onto them. Still a lot of work but worth it.

This pic and pics 2-6 is the older batch.


This pic and 8-10 is the younger batch

F2 Tiger Liberty Poecilia hybrid

Limia islai (M) x F1 Tiger Liberty (F) - (75% islai, 25% salvatoris)

Welll night time tank sweep and one of the Tiger Liberty females left me a surprise tonight. Too bad it’s the only one so far. I’ll check on the tank in morning for more. I’m playing it safe and put that fry with my endler fry bc of how tiny it is. It was super stressed out from me catching it but it has stripes. Not sure how well it’s expressed yet, but I’ll give it a week to get its colors. Proof Limia x Molly can make fertile hybrids past F1. This made me very happy to reach F2. Let alone using a female hybrid with unknown odds on fertility. I still have no clue which female dropped it and if all the current F1 females are fertile or not or have reduce fertility, just this one fry for her first batch it’s possible it’s reduce fertility. Now I’m confident their brothers are fertile so I should get F2 backcross to Liberty soon.

Pics I took just now it’s colored up not as stressed anymore the bars looks more present compare to the F1’s as fry now I wait to see if the bars are dominant and sticks till it sexes out. I might outcross it to the F3 blondes ones, to see what I get.

F2 Tiger Liberty “Molly” hybrid

F1 Tiger Liberty (m) x Liberty molly (f)
(75% Poecilia salvatoris, 25% Limia islai)

Well I’m not surprised first off I did have questionable fry a few weeks back. I assumed were f1 tiger liberty fry I haven’t culled. But I still just considered them as pure liberties to not guess. The Tiger liberties I gave to a friend he got f2 hybrids with the males to his female sailfins. Proving the males were fertile, and that made my offsprings questionable. Now 100% confirmed it, a Liberty lady dropped these fry they matched the slight older batch ontop of looking similar to my friends batch with the uneven stripes and rusted body tone. They look more bulkier than F1 tiger liberties. I don’t plan to use them but I’ll keep the f2’s in my liberty colony and see how they turn out. Seeing I used a seasoned Liberty female she and her sister gave me a decent amount of fry. So the f1 males don’t struggle with reduce fertility. These are just the three specimens I took pics of at the time but I have 5-6fry isolated and the rest are roaming the tank I’ll catch later if they don’t get eaten. I do have the f2 that’s backcross to Limia with them in the breeding container the morphological and phenotype contrast is very interesting. For naming convention I’m calling them Tiger liberty mollies hybrids and the backcross to Limia as tiger liberty Limia hybrid for short.

F1 Tiger Liberty Poecilia hybrid males

Now that I have F2’s from them I don’t really need them anymore I need to make tank space, so this is the last display media of the boys. They look too much like immature Liberty mollies, if you’re not seasoned to tell them apart. To me the mouth and form is rounded and stocky compare to pure liberties same for the dorsals are rounded out and colored like islai. I won’t know if they’ll have red tinged fins but their offsprings may be promising. I don’t need their fry for my project but I’m fine raising them out to see how they look first before deciding. I really need their sisters to drop more backcross to islai fry for me so I can take out my islai males, and give my (islai x tridens) hybrid males a chance to sire fry with them. Once they do I move forward with the project. I’ll wait it out see how everything goes, and keep culling any unwanted fry as I go.

Display pics of the F2 Tiger Liberty hybrids

The backcross the Islai fry (stripe one) with its backcross to salvatoris cousins. Interesting to see them next to each other. They still share a good amount of similarities. Color wise and similar dorsals. The Molly backcrosses just these I have growing in the breedernet and I left the others in the main tank. Some are still expressing faded stripes others don’t. I’ll be on vacation for a week so I won’t see my fishes till then.

F2 Tiger Liberty Limia hybrid:
It put on size since I left and came back from vacation I really like it, his dorsal is pretty good. The later pics is with the F2 Tiger Liberty Molly hybrids that was in the breedernet with it. The ones roaming the tank put on a lot of size but I’m too tired to take pics of them. The F1 Tiger Liberty females haven’t given me any fry but the one gravid female spot gotten bigger but her belly hasn’t changed. Will give her more time and hopefully have more F2 Tiger Liberty Limia’s before the end of the month.



F3 Blonde Liberty Molly hybrid update:
Of the oldest F3’s from the first batch this was the first to sex out but it’s a male… I culled him. I can’t tempt myself to keeping both sexes anymore. He was my favorite F3 bc of his two different colored eyes. The other 2? Haven’t sexed out yet I pray for a female lol.

F2 Tiger Liberty Molly hybrids:
(F1 Tiger Liberty hybrid (M) x Liberty Molly (F))

My Liberty females keeps popping out more F2’s. More than what I want, but it’s fine. Going to just keep females from them as backups for my project. As I wait for my female Tiger liberties to give me their version of F2 fry backcross to Limia, which I want to use for breeding. For now plan is to backcross the future F2 females to pure Liberty that’s about it. They do look very nice better than F1, they still maintain the islai black dorsals (some showing spot markings on the fins not seen in F1), and copper toned body. Something I’m looking for in my project. Stripes is translucent worse than F1 but I don’t mind it with them that can be fixed, looks to be that it’s a recessive trait now over incomplete dominant.

New set of F2 Tiger Liberty Limia hybrids

One of the female tiger liberties finally gave me fry, but just these 3. I still suspect they suffer from reduce fertility or maybe I have too many females to male ratio ontop of them dropping their first ever batches causing this low batch counts. Idk I’ll wait till they color up and take pics later or in a few days but they don’t seem to be backcross to islai, one of the fry has bars that’s close together instead of spaced out like the first f2 juvenile the other two has different bar count. I suspect the father is the nigrofasciata, these fry is quite big for newborns and the body has some depth to it. The dorsal I really like thicker black trim, with a yellow base. Once I’ve confirmed they are either F2 to nigrofasciata I’ll try to rehome him. They should be (50% nigrofasciata, 25% islai, 25% salvatoris).

Anyways the bars will give me a better idea what they are, I don’t think they give off traits showing the father could be the (islai x tridens), not seeing any tridens trait then again if they were it’ll be at 25% blood tridens trait would be recessive. If they are then they will be 50% islai, 25% salvatoris, 25% tridens.



F3 Blonde Liberty Molly media:
Second batch growing well. They look very nice seems they are more golden hue than some of old f2’s. They should have the best color potential even better than the first batch of F3’s.


As for the first batch of F3 blondes, I’m down to one juvenile, its other siblings died from sickness and like 1-2 siblings that sexed out to male which I don’t want. Also here’s the first F2 Tiger Liberty Limia juvenile but colored down.


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Colored up media of the newer F2 Tiger Liberties. I have confidence the father was the nigrofasciata mainly based of the closeness and odd formation of the bars not being straight.

F2 Tiger Liberty Limia hybrid update:

Tiger Limia (M) x F1 Tiger Liberty (F)
(75% Limia islai, 25% Poecilia salvatoris)

Little one picked up a lot of size since I last showed it. It’s iridescent starting to come in, it’s like a soft blue/green/white nice combo of both species involved in it. The bars thickened up more, looks more broader. Its dorsal is nice starting to look rounded like Islai with the same black trim. Like with pure islai it can control the intensity of the bars and most of the time it keeps it translucent, so it’s hard to catch it on camera with his bars boldly expressed. Seeing it looks somewhat feminine, honestly what it to be a male but sucks I’m just working with 1 specimen from this cross. Will adjust if female I’ll let it breed to the F2 tiger Liberty limia’s that’s half nigrofasciata. Slowly will assimilate the crosses together so I can finally cross them to the blonde liberties. The plan is if male cross it to a female F2 Humpback Tiger Liberty, and future F2 tiger liberty female that’s part (islai x tridens). The islai x tridens is the only ones holding me back which sucks… I really want fry from them. If they don’t give me fry, my reroute is crossing (islai x tridens) males to both F2 tiger liberty strains. Better than nothing…


Video media 1:

Video media 2:

Colored up media of F2 Tiger Liberty Limia hybrid. Little one looks very nice! The F2 Humpback Tiger liberties are catching upon size to it. No media of them today.


Honestly I may just drop the F1 Tiger Liberty females in favor of letting the Limia (islai x tridens) hybrids to mate to the F2’s to get out the traits I want from tridens. I might strictly keep the F3 blonde liberties for one more backcrossing, then I’m safe to consider them relatively pure salvatoris. And work in the F2 Tiger Liberty mollies backcross to pure liberty for F3. Thinking of crossing future F3 Tiger liberty Molly females x F4 Blonde Liberty males. And rehome my pure liberties idk. I wish I can set up a third tank that’ll easy pressure on me for tank space and pairings. My mind keeps changing as a go lol. It’ll def change again but that what makes it fun just working with what I got. I’m trying so hard not to side branch. But! The friend I gave my surplus F1 Tiger Liberties to manage to get F2’s that’s backcross to Molly but technically an outcross to fancy sailfin. His specimens are amazing, but still maturing. I do want his blondes bc they show stripes! I would incorporate them to the Limia side of the project before mixing to the Molly side.

F1 Tiger Liberty Poecilia hybrid females final update for this gen:

These are the last of my F1’s they served their purpose so this is the last media documentation of them.

End results: only a few (~3) of the 12 females I’ve kept gave me F2 fry. Proving not all of the females were fertile most were infertile. Their brothers on the other hand were all 100% fertile. They are gorgeous specimens they still look more Molly like but with a Limia face, their iridescences was a pearly white-blue sheen, not all the females showed but their iridescence bars are present in certain light angle. Their dorsal are a yellow orange tinge just like their brothers. Limia (specifically islai), bar trait is incomplete dominant, and Poecilia salvatoris does carry the genes for the bars as well but it fades away with age for that species. Now I can focus on F2 Generation and the my Blondes. Project is slowly coming together. Hopefully I can reach my end goal by the end of next year. It’s such an extensive project! Also provided pics after euthanizing them to make space in my tanks. Sad part of breeding projects. Thankfully a friend is still working with the siblings, I split with them. Just my time working with the F1’s is done.


Video media:

The F3 Blonde Liberty hybrids. This is all except 1 one from the second batch I’m working with. They have the best color potential than the first batch I culled. I don’t want to jinx it with getting females so any males I’ll just keep them and cull any of their fry if they were to hit my pure Liberty females. Still going to wait for females to show up to move forward. They look amazing! They resemble their sphenops great grandmother with the reduce melanistic markings closer to the back section of the body. Clearer body section will make the vertical bars pop more once, I add in the Tiger liberties genes with there’s.


Now for the F2 Tiger liberty media!

Nothing much the F2 T.L Mollies has serious potential imo they look very pure passing just the
face still looks like a Limia. One more backcross (Liberty male x F2 female) to get F3 females that’s Z and W sex chromosome for Salvatoris. I’ll breed them to the male F4 Blonde Liberties that’s Z and Z for Salvatoris as well. With that F5 blondes will only have only have autosomal genes from other species but they are liberties by sex chromosomes. And that’s set for the Molly half of the project!



The F2 humpback T.L Limias are growing quite fast the pics aren’t recent I just haven’t had the time to get display pics of them. And they pretty much will hide their bars on camera but trust me they are amazing. Still planning on keeping just females to cross with the Limia (islai x tridens) males with that their F3 daughters won’t carry any nigrofasciata Sex chromosomes. Which I want to breed out.


Lastly F2 T.L Limia, which is the backross to islai juvenile. As of late it’s lost weight idk if it’s sick but I did over feed and medicate and did water changes. The F2 humpbacks two of them are also skinny. Still rolling the dice on this juvenile being female to breed with the (islai x tridens). It’s offsprings I’ll keep males to breed with the female F3 humpbacks. To solidify the bars, dilute nigrofasciata blood, and fix the tridens iridescent and body size. And that’ll be it for the Limia side of the project.


Forgot to say my article piece in the ALA was published in Livebearers #267 which made me happy talking about this project and the Lendlers! I really want to see how my project closes in and completing this complex strain. Waiting till time pass I’ll write a part two uodate on this project. sadly not many people knows I actively talk about my projects in this forum lol.


Lineage chart as of late. Once both the Limia and Molly side is done I’ll cross the Blonde Molly male side to a Wildetype Striped Limia female side. Then backcross that back to the Blonde male side to increase Liberty blood so they can be dominant Molly by blood. And I’m set keeping both blondes and striped wildtypes. I’ll just select from there to maintaining the traits so they can still birth both stripes blondes and wildtypes.


Display media of the F2 Tiger Liberties:

Limia’s/hybrids in the display tank never works well for me when trying to show their bars. It’s growing well but abit slower than the F2 humpbacks in the tank. Guessing it might actually be a female since it’s not showing the male robustness and longer chest cavity. Will give it more time!


Like with the F2 T.L Limia, they aren’t showing their bars as much in the display tank, but it’s def more noticeable. They aren’t as shy. Im liking how these are turning out!!!!! First pic is the biggest one, I think will sex out to male unfortunately bc he’s pretty stunning. Second pic is the others they def showing significant variations between them. And that short deep robust body form, is not what I like but it’s pretty dope. I like their iridescences and dorsal shape the most. They are pretty active lots of vigor to a point they’ll mature pretty fast compare to pure Limia’s in their bloodline.


Comparison Pics between the F2 Tiger Liberty Limia and F2 Humpback Tiger Liberty Limia: The darker specimen is the F2 Humpback. Def more robust stockier framed compare to the F2 T.L. I prefer the F2 humpbacks iridescences more that bright silvery blue looks nice on that darker color base. Slight fin shape difference, humpback has a bigger rounder dorsal and wider tailfin.

Display media of the F2 T.L Mollies:

They looks pretty nice they can pass as a Liberty Molly but to me I can still see differences between them and my pures.

F2 Humpback Tiger Liberty Limia males update:

So 4 out of 7 sexed out to male shown I got them separate for now. No hope on getting a female from this cross I see, mostly bc of the low count of specimens I’m working with. Not shown but a fifth one is sexing out soon def will be male the last two humpbacks I have no faith, I assume they’ll be male as well. So def going to have to reroute. Considering putting my best male with the fully formed gonopodium and a second male with the F2 Tiger Liberty Limia female just to get the humpbacks out of the way then cross F3 females to the Limia (Islai x tridens) males. And that’s set for the Limia side of the project.
Now for appearance I tried my best to get them to color up so first pic is them sort of showing the bars but not fully expressed when they are in the tank, second pic is colored down, one of the males is showing a slight red-orange tint dorsal which I’m liking, he might be the second male, I’ll keep for breeding. The dorsal shape is well rounded and the wide tailfin I like a lot. Third pic is their iridescence very stripy lol.

More F2 Tiger Liberty update:

Just did a water change and cleaned the glass and threw in a pleco wafer just now and Ig that trigger the males to get frisky tonight. Successfully catching the F2 Humpback T.L male copulating with the F2 T.L female makes me happy. Her first batch will for sure be from them. The islai x tridens males doesn’t care for her eventhough she stays grouped with them. That should give me time to get fry to work with from her.

The pics of the males fully colored up for once… they look amazing still their bars isn’t as refined but still pretty thick from their islai and nigrofasciata blood. Also pics of the female I love her shape you can see the Molly in her but def more shaped like an islai females

I should be expected F3 by maybe late November - early December hopefully. That’ll mean I pushed out F1 to F3 Tiger Liberties in the span of a year roughly. Pretty fasttttt for Limia bloodline gestation and grow rate.

At some point, it will make a total different species. They look really good. So, my compliments to you...

At some point, it will make a total different species. They look really good. So, my compliments to you...

Click to expand...

Thanks Stan! That’ll be interesting if it does down the line!

F2 T.L female is def gravid I see eggs in her which is great! I was gonna wait to get colored up pics of her to show her bars with the F2 humpback males. I got impatient they didn’t want to show off for me. Hopefully will see fry from her in 3 ish weeks probably less seeing how fast these hybrids has been maturing. The father will be the F2 humpbacks. F3 gen will just be a reshuffling of traits, fixing bars and possibly fixing the skewed sex ratio. Will pump out more batches from her for females that’s for sure.


I haven’t talked on the F3 blondes and F2 T.L Molly females in awhile, but they are doing great. Seeing I only have 2 (now 3, a third male developing) pure liberty Molly males they haven’t got around to hitting them yet. Might have to isolate pair the blondes with the pure males. But I don’t mind the wait gives me time to work on the Limia side of the project more.