Endler Breeding Questions

Exactly how young have those of you who breed endlers noticed they are capable of reproducing?

I've been splitting up the fry (males go in my big female endler free tank and the females to a couple different tanks) as soon as I can tell what they are (males and their colors and females and the black spot) but I'd swear some of those young females (less than 4 weeks I believe) look awfully boxy/pregnant already.

Also, the adult females can give birth up to one year after the male is removed, correct???

I read that females are usually produced at cooler temps (<77) and males at warmer (>77), but all of my tanks in which there was breeding are at 79-80 and I have quite a few females vs males. So.. is that wrong information?

Apparently I don't have any tanks where the non-endler fish (not the angelfish, not the bettas {not a single betta except my female that is and that would be like lambs to the slaughter in that tank and even if I could stomach feeding the cute endler fry to her there are too many fry - she may not even eat them, just stress them out to their death of a heart attack}, no pleco, no panda garra, not the sae...) will eat the endler fry so I'm juggling things while the endlers get big enough to safely move as a batch to the LFS (unless anyone in Oregon is looking for endlers?!). Going to move things around and set up the empty 5g or 10g as a split fry tank I believe.

 

Giving this a bump up for you hope our livebearer breeders can answer your questions today

 

Yours dont look pregnant, just normal full bellies. I do find they breed way sooner than guppies though.

 

I have had a few endler hybrids pull a late bloomer/ninja male move on me. I haven't seen any of my females get pregnant until after 6-8 weeks. Usually if I want to guarantee quick successful mating I wait until they are 3 months old but I know they can at about 2 months with persistence.

As far as the under 6 week situation, I base timeline on first birth which could be misleading. Just as they can store sperm packets up to a year (more commonly less though), I'm sure they could delay their first fry drop. In addition I don't try to get them pregnant that early as I haven't seen any large healthy drops from any of my females until they are well over 4 months.

emeraldking breeds live bearers in a very serious fashion unlike myself and would likely have the most scientific and experience based answer to your question of the people I have followed here. To be honest until today I had never heard the idea of altering temperature to affect gender outcome. I would assume that untrue but again I have to defer to someone who knows better.

 

Well, female endlers are already sexually developed at a month old of age. They're still small at that age but can already mate.

Regulating water temperature during the whole pregnancy "can" be of influence on the sex ratio. But it's not a 100% quarantee. But this method does work mostly. A lot of serious breeders of livebearers do use this method to influence the sex ratio of the offspring. It also depends on the kind of livebearer wether there will be more male or female offspring at a higher temperature. Yes, mostly with a large number of ovoviviparous livebarers higher temperature result in a majority of males. But take a number of dwarf ovoviviparous livebearers, it's the other way around. But again, it's not a 100% guarantee. It is more of a guideline than a rule.

Yes, sperm storage can take more than a year.

I believe that your young females are wellfed instead of pregnant.

 

I'm gonna guess you wouldn't ship them to MI, right?

 

Giving this a bump up for you hope our livebearer breeders can answer your questions today

Thank you Cora. Do you know if there's a reason I'm not getting thread updates in my email? Threads that I've started only it appears.

 

Yours dont look pregnant, just normal full bellies. I do find they breed way sooner than guppies though.

Oh, no, thankfully those are just the fry. I have 6 pregnant females elsewhere.

I have had a few endler hybrids pull a late bloomer/ninja male move on me. I haven't seen any of my females get pregnant until after 6-8 weeks. Usually if I want to guarantee quick successful mating I wait until they are 3 months old but I know they can at about 2 months with persistence.

As far as the under 6 week situation, I base timeline on first birth which could be misleading. Just as they can store sperm packets up to a year (more commonly less though), I'm sure they could delay their first fry drop. In addition I don't try to get them pregnant that early as I haven't seen any large healthy drops from any of my females until they are well over 4 months.

emeraldking breeds live bearers in a very serious fashion unlike myself and would likely have the most scientific and experience based answer to your question of the people I have followed here. To be honest until today I had never heard the idea of altering temperature to affect gender outcome. I would assume that untrue but again I have to defer to someone who knows better.

Yeah... there were a few I thought were solidly females but have started to show coloration (they're getting closer to 3-4 weeks old now) of their dads. I'm definitely learning, and watching daily.

I'm just hoping to separate them as soon as possible so that I can better control the fry.. explosions - particularly since I wasn't expecting so many to begin with and I didn't know they'd keep giving birth for up to a year. Eek.

Well, female endlers are already sexually developed at a month old of age. They're still small at that age but can already mate.

Regulating water temperature during the whole pregnancy "can" be of influence on the sex ratio. But it's not a 100% quarantee. But this method does work mostly. A lot of serious breeders of livebearers do use this method to influence the sex ratio of the offspring. It also depends on the kind of livebearer wether there will be more male or female offspring at a higher temperature. Yes, mostly with a large number of ovoviviparous livebarers higher temperature result in a majority of males. But take a number of dwarf ovoviviparous livebearers, it's the other way around. But again, it's not a 100% guarantee. It is more of a guideline than a rule.

Yes, sperm storage can take more than a year.

I believe that your young females are wellfed instead of pregnant.

Can the males mate at 4 weeks?

How do you, or do you, differentiate at the younger stages between male/female?

And the temperature range is fairly extreme isn't it? For more males or more females? Like 75 for females and 81 for males?