Even more Limia hybrids

[Latrell]

Put it short I put my remaining Limia islai males, with my only 2 Limia tridens females I raised from fry as virgins. Now I have f1 offsprings. They’re around 2 weeks and 1 day old born on February 23rd. Pretty much looks like both parents pure fry, tridens black and yellow dorsal spot, and bars, mixed with the islai black trim dorsal plus uneven vertical bars and slight protrusion of the lower jaw. The fry have different ranges of bar count, sizes and length. Nice little ones curious to see how they’ll look when matured. I’m planning to keep them all let them freely breed to each other or back cross to either parent. Only so I have a supply of Limia blood going for myself. I’m done buying fishes for the year times is rough unfortunately… I want to replicate my friends hybrid project he crossed nigrofasciata x perugiae. His specimens came out nice, so yea that’s also why I threw my remaining limia’s together. I keep the sister species to his, (Perugiae complex: Tridens & Perugiae) (Lake Miragoane complex: Islai & Nigrofasciata), so I may get vaguely similar results just different body morphology.


Todays video media:

A comparison between the pure of each species plus the hybrids. Made this back on Feb 28th. I never had pure islai fry so I used media from a different friend of mine.



Video and Pic media from when they were born.

 

[Latrell]

Limia tridens giving birth and fry

Funniest thing, this is the first time I’ve ever gotten media of a Livebearer giving birth. I head counted 11 fry plus 1 unfertilized egg, mainly because she was a virgin for so long (1-1/2yrs old) and that’s her first ever batch. My other Livebearers were chasing the fry, I had to scoop out the mom and the fry, popped them into the display tank, so she can finish dropping.



Total count for hybrids around 22-23 fry between both sisters not bad for their first time being moms. I’ll add the newborn fry with the older set in a day or two while acclimating them.

Video media:

 

[Lucy]

Fish make it look so easy, haha.
Congrats on the fry. beautiful fish!

 

[Latrell]

Fish make it look so easy, haha.
Congrats on the fry. beautiful fish!

Thanks!

 

[Latrell]

Older set, I’m loving this cross a lot everyday.

 

[Latrell]

Ik I showed the older set not too long ago but here’s media of them I took today.

 

[Latrell]

First batch is starting to sex out, well half them that’s growing in the 5 with crnaked up heat, so far one sporting a gonopodium. Makes it somewhat better to tell the feminine hybrids from the males, seems they show dimorphism like their tridens side? Islai doesn’t haven’t that much of a major difference besides analfin differences and bell shape ofc, but yea the masculine offsprings, the dorsal spot seems to be shrinking. Hard to show it in the pics. I was mainly focus on the gonopodium, he’s slimming down more streamline shaped. They are 2 months 3 weeks old. Hybrid vigor plus warm water def sped up their growth by a ton. From my time keeping tridens, I usually don’t see them sexing out till 3-4months of age. Not sure how old the islai’s were when I got them but they didn’t sex out till another 3 months after I received them, so this is very interesting!

 

[Latrell]

Little male’s gonopodium is formed. Im really loving them, definitely an upgrade from tridens and islai body form.



Also a female sexed out seems she expresses the islai reticulation between the scales, and she looks gorgeous. The rest in that 5gal seems feminine but I’ll still wait if I see more males, their other siblings in the main tank still has a way to go, I may just put them in the 5 to growout faster.



Oh here’s a video of the other siblings in the main tank. They have beautiful baring more streak shaped and numerous like tridens but still spaced out and bold pigment like islai. The 5 gal siblings will look like them when colored up and better lighting. So no phenotypical difference between them.

 

[Latrell]

I’m starting to think of the set of 5 growing in the window tank he’s the only visible male lol. The rest are females or seem not ready to sex out. Theirs is one I suspect will be a male but I’m still waiting. Anyways I love his dorsal colors. Black trim dorsal spot and the rest is a yellow tint. His bars are perfect but hoping a backcross to islai or outcross you nigrofasciata will change the density and thickness of the bars.

 

[Latrell]

The main tank set from the first batch

The dark substrate makes a big difference in how their bars and iridescent expresses, it pops way better than their siblings growing in the 5gal. Too bad they’re growing much slower in this tank. Pretty interesting on darker substrate they look more islai base with the deep bars but the amount of bars, bar thickness and blue diamond iridescence is still tridens.

I thought about swapping them from one tank into the other to speed up their growth and slow down the others. But yea none of the 6 in the main tank is sexed out one is a male tho eventhough it has an analfin, I caught it a few times flexing it while sniffing the other Livebearers vents. Oh and in the 5gal more males are sexing out so out of 11 in the first batch 4 males and 2 female atm.

 

[Latrell]

Comparison media between the Limia hybrids to the parent species and their half blood hybrid cousins.

Pic 1: Limia (islai x tridens) comparison media to both Male parent species. Pure Limia tridens, Limia (islai x tridens) hybrid, and Pure juvenile islai.


Pic 2: Limia islai comparison to their hybrids. Tiger Liberty (Limia islai x Poecilia salvatoris) hybrid, Pure Limia islai, and (islai x tridens)


Pic 3: Limia tridens comparison to their hybrids. Limia (islai x tridens), Limia tridens (male & female), Lendlers (Limia tridens x endlerguppy)



Pt. 2 comparison display media:
Took two of the islai males that shares the window tank (5.5gal bare bottom, only getting indirect sunlight, waters temps 79-80°f), with these two pale hybrid males. The two darker hybrids is from the same batch as the pale brothers but raised in my main tank (40gal, dark substrate, with artificial lights, water temps 76-78°f). The bigger hybrid males also colored down pretty fast so I couldn’t get them to show their bars and nice colors tone. Anyways you can sort of see similarities with them to the islai (fathers/uncles). When they are active the colored up body leans more to islai, but colored down looks more like tridens. Less food competition in the 5.5gal so those hybrids grew significantly faster than their siblings in the 40gal. I did thought about swapping them between tanks so the smaller siblings can catch up and the bigger siblings can darken up, but this is a fun experiment watching their development. The hybrids are coming out quite nice.

 

[Latrell]

All the hybrids are currently in this tank which will increase my odds for males hitting the tiger Liberty females and their sisters. Sucks I can’t get good pics of the males they are shy. The females and juveniles don’t mind at all they are so pretty

 

[Latrell]

Went on vacation for 10ish days came back took media. The males bars are getting more defined and seems some are close to finish growing. I’m obsessed with this hybrid cross. Very tempted to put two pairs in the main tank to see how they darken up under the aquarium lights but I don’t want to risk them mating with my liberties and vice versa. I may change my mind and risk it but not atm. Seems I have more males to female ratio? I haven’t head counted.

 

[Latrell]

Not all are shown in the pics but all of the hybrids has sexed out. I have a heavy male to female ratio 5:1 roughly. Of them one male (not in the pics) is leaning more to tridens in bars structure, body form and gray hue, the rest looks intermediate. I’ll say one or two males has more islai resemblance but their iridescent structure is mainly tridens diamond shape sheen. Pictures doesn’t do them Justice they are much shinier in person. The females looks like tridens body wise with a islai face or vice versa, it’s pretty quirky. So far the males doesn’t show mating interest in my f1 tiger Liberty females, and tend to stick each other or their sisters even sticking the nigrofasciata male. I just need them to give me fry so I can retire my limia’s possibly still haven’t fully decided. I really like this cross, I may keep a male and female I have my eyes on but that’s about it. Behavioral wise it’s more mixed between both parent species, but not much of a difference, hard to explain. They like to flex their bars and spar a lot, sneak mating, lots of vent nudging (even to each other). I’ll give it more time to see if any dominant males show the golden throat/chest seen in tridens and islai, as of now I think 3 males shows it but it’s more noticeable with a flashlight and when they are active during the day around feeding time.

 

[Latrell]

This morning media of them and my nigrofasciata male.


Here’s the male that’s more phenotypically tridens trying to court one of his sisters.

 

[Latrell]

They look so amazing when the sunlight hits the tank in the morning! You can see some of the males showing both parent species golden throats/chests. It’s amazing. I’m still unsure what I’ll do with the surplus males. I may keep all the females and select my 5 favorite males to let them breed with the F2 Tiger liberty hybrids. My favorite male first pic (lower left middle) he looks like a bigger size tridens phenotype wise but still show slight bulk from the islai side. Second pic is two males that’s more intermediate types but somewhat more islai leaning.


Feeding video. The tiny juveniles are the F2 Tiger Liberties. The F1 Tiger Liberty ladies are more behind the sponge filter and plants but focus is the Limia hybrids.

 

[Latrell]

F2 Limia (islai x tridens):

Born today. They were too small to be F2 Tiger Liberty fry. They are grey based hue with a dorsal spot and black trim and asymmetrical barring atm. 100% identical to my F1’s so they are results of a sibling cross. My pure nigrofasciata male did mate with the F1 females but I don’t see any identifiers showing they are a three way Limia hybrid cross. *neither do I want that for my project…* Anyways they’re no different to F1’s currently since I havent selected them for anything, they’ll just be back ups towards my project in case I need virgin females if they turn out to be. Adorable little ones just 2 of them atm. Alsoooo to add proving the F1’s are fertile both males and females, like tridens the female def has a very tiny to no noticeable gravid spot. With only a few fry being born, is most likely why I didn’t realize one of the ladies were pregnant.

Comparison pic:

 

[Latrell]

The F2 are big enough to be with the other Limia hybrids. I know once they mature it’ll be hard to tell them apart from the F1’s. anyways here’s a F1 male sleeping under a leaf.

 

[Latrell]

display media:

Pics (1-3): Netted out all the F1 individuals, final sex ratio heavily skewed 11 males and 2 females. I had late blooming males showed up that previously, I had thought were females. One of the ladies recently dropped F2 fry for me she gave me 6 fry but so far 1 passed away from being very premature and weak. That brings the F2 count to 7 individuals between two batches. Not much else to say.

Pics (4&5): The ones I’ve kept and culled the other males I didn’t like. Brought the count down to 7 males. Almost all of them has a nice orange colored dorsals and defined striping I like. I was going to bring the male count lower but gonna keep this group for the F2 Tiger liberties for now. One of three favs is in the mix and my top boy is the one with the deepest orange dorsal.

Here’s the two F2’s from the first batch. Not much to say with them looks identical to F1 ig whoever the dad was they’ll look closer to him.

 

[Latrell]

F1 mom and F2 fry

The recent batch of f2’s are big enough to be in the tank. They look quite nice. The F1 female tho gives me cryptic pregnancies probably from the low fry count, so I can’t tell if she will drop her 3rd batch any time soon hard to tell.

My digital microscope I use to take flashlight pics with broke. I got a new smaller flashlight but it’s too strong, this was the lowest setting and it was still very bright. Can’t record videos bc the beam from the flashlight causes the camera to flicker with black lines. Can’t complain it’s perfect for checking the tanks out at night. Just need to figure a way around taking night time medias now…

 

[Latrell]

Third batch of F2 Limia (islai x tridens) fry born just awhile ago. This time around 7 fry. This bring the F2 count to 13 (2, 4, 7). Seems a few looks weak so I’ll have to keep these guys separate for now. Plan to use them for the Liberty Molly project instead of the F1 males, crossing them to the future F3 T.L Limia’s since they’ll be closer in age. Makes more sense that way. And I can cull a few more of my F1 males now, def will keep my best 3 boys. Maybe wait for one more batch from their sister and I’ll retire the F1’s. Still in the thought process of it.

Anyways the sex ratio should be fairly stable, but Ik my tridens tends to be male heavy so I’ll still maybe see more males to females in the hybrids. I think I’ll do some selecting, when it comes to thick expressive bar structure. From the first two batches there’s still differences between them, batch 1 has finer bars closer to tridens and more robust shaped, batch 2 fry looks to be more islai leaning with the spaced out bars slightly slender, but they are young to tell if they’ll get the stocky build like the f1’s. I’ll take pics of them in a week or two. But yea once the F2’s starts sexing out it’ll be only males I’ll keep that’s showing the best bars, and dorsal color.