How To Identify Different Livebearers And Know How They Breed.

I have 2 separate tanks. In 1 I keep only livebearers and in other I keep livebearers with rosy barbs, corydoras, zebra danios and gouramis. Now I keep only I gender type of livebearers in each tanks(It may contain male mollies and female platys but never opposite gender of the same species), don't want to mix males and females as I don't want them to breed.

Now I have the following questions:

1. Is the mickey mouse fish a molly or a platy? ( Here some fish store say its molly some say its platy)

2. Can platys and mollies breed? Can I keep female mickey mouse fish with male lyretail mollies without making them breed?

3. I have 2 platies where they r like platies I mean they have a red body and black tail but they the tail is like a swordtail one. So it looks like a swordtail and also a platy. Is it a swordtail or a platy?

4. The swordtail or the platy one will it breed with the female mickey mouse fish?

Please clear my questions.

I have earlier breed many livebearers but now I am not interested in breeding them because of lack of time, lose of interest, the babies need special care and also beacuse of lack of space to keep them.

 

1. Mickey Mouse typically refers to a platy with the Mickey Mouse markings. It should be rather easy to determine between a molly and platy however, considering how different each body shape is.
2. No/yes. They could “breed” per say but nothing would come of it. They typically will not try to breed eachother unless there are no females of one kind. For example, you have all male platies and all female mollies, the males may try to breed the females and harass them. They still may not though even in that situation, it’s rather dependent on the fish. I’d personally stick to all of one gender in a livebearer tank to avoid any unnecessary stress.
3. To get an accurate I’d you will need to post a clear photo, but it’s likely a sword tail if it has a sword.
4. Yes, swordtails and platies can breed with other platies.

 

Platylover beat me to it, livebearers don’t cross breed except swordtails and platys.

 

1. Mickey Mouse typically refers to a platy with the Mickey Mouse markings. It should be rather easy to determine between a molly and platy however, considering how different each body shape is.
2. No/yes. They could “breed” per say but nothing would come of it. They typically will not try to breed eachother unless there are no females of one kind. For example, you have all male platies and all female mollies, the males may try to breed the females and harass them. They still may not though even in that situation, it’s rather dependent on the fish. I’d personally stick to all of one gender in a livebearer tank to avoid any unnecessary stress.
3. To get an accurate I’d you will need to post a clear photo, but it’s likely a sword tail if it has a sword.
4. Yes, swordtails and platies can breed with other platies.

Ok so this is the one I am talking about. Is the species a platy or a swordtail?

And the mickey mouse platy is there too in the 1st pic on the right side.

 

That’s a sword, the one on the right is a platy.

 

So can the male swordtail breed with the female mickey mouse platy and produce frys?

 

So can the male swordtail breed with the female mickey mouse platy and produce frys?

Then I would not keep them in the same tank if that's the case.

 

The answer is yes.

 

Thanks to all for clearing my doubts

 

If xiphophorus (platies or swordtails) strains are kept with mollies and they're of the oppsoite sex, than some chasing may happen but a real mating won't happen. The gonopodium of a xiphophorus male is not compatible with the female sex organ of a molly (this goes for the other way round as well). So, no fertilization will take place.
If swordtails and platies can cross has already been answered by some other members overhere.