Liberty Molly hybrids

[Latrell]

Poecilia salvatoris(M) x Fancy sphenops(F) hybrid fry
Out of the whole batch, 6 came out blonde, and the rest are gray/wildtype coloration.
I’m excited to see how they turned out. They were born on Tuesday. I wasn’t expecting the sphenops momma to drop fry for another week. Bc on Monday a Liberty female dropped pure fry, so Ig it was a cue for her to drop fry around the same time also. Funny enough I keep all my special fry in the same breeder box, and from what I seen pure liberty fry looks identical to the gray hybrids. You can’t tell the two apart for now, maybe when they mature. Only difference if I look very close pure liberty fry has abit of vertical bars and darker dorsals and eyes, the hybrids as well but they have a tiny bit of uneven black markings/splotches, when they aren’t colored down. So in the media of the fry I took out all the liberties so there’s atleast 3 pure fry in the mix with the hybrids. My plan with the hybrids to recreate Adrian’s rusted liberty mollies but in my own way I want to incorporate sailfin blood down the line with the end goal of making rusted sailfin liberties hopefully. Or maybe something interesting if I could also incorporate vivipara or Limia blood in the mix.

- I provided a pic and video of the mom. I rasied her from a fry originally for a Limia x Molly hybrid project but after a year of trying I gave up. But she and her blood sister is doing well with the liberties letting the males constantly hit them. Lineage wise she’s a descent of my original black Molly colony I phased out by putting her grandfather with a golden lyretail female. Their offsprings(her parents) are siblings that are recessive and didn’t express the lyretail trait. I don’t expect the Liberty hybrids to ever get lyretails tbh I’m not focused on that, but chances aren’t zero. Just mentioning the lineage thats all lol.
Video of the hybrids:

Video of a random Liberty male from my colony with the sphenops momma:

 

[emeraldking]

At least, they've got the shape of a liberty molly...

 

[Latrell]

At least, they've got the shape of a liberty molly...

True, I prefer the slender muscular build the liberties has over the sphenops body type.

 

[emeraldking]

Poecilia salvatoris and Poecilia gilli have the same build as well...

 

[Latrell]

Poecilia salvatoris and Poecilia gilli have the same build as well...

Interesting, but from what I can find gilli is harder to source compare to salvatoris in the states. Ik dans fish keeps both species but the price range is a hard pass for me, there’s def a private breeder that keeps gilli and wouldn’t mind passing them around.

 

[emeraldking]

Interesting, but from what I can find gilli is harder to source compare to salvatoris in the states. Ik dans fish keeps both species but the price range is a hard pass for me, there’s def a private breeder that keeps gilli and wouldn’t mind passing them around.

I've got both molly species swimming overhere...

 

[Latrell]

They’re growing pretty fast and becoming pretty feisty. My second fancy sphenops female also dropped hybrid liberty fry a week after the first sphenops female so now I have twice as many fry now. Batch 1 is 2-1/2 weeks old, and second batch is 1-1/2 weeks old.
- So far there’s 3 color body types of the hybrids, blonde melanistic(BM), gray melanistic(GM), and gray non melanistic(GnM). I’ll gave them initials to keep my words short. The GnM fry looks identical to the pure liberties as of now, and will be my biggest challenge when sorting them out when they mature, I might have no choice to cull or consider them, plus the pure liberties as just wildtype Liberty mutts, since I mentioned before I mixed the fry up… but I can for sure determine the GM are hybrids bc that trait came from the sphenops bloodline. I do like how I’m gaining self knowledge on identifying fry. I want to keep the GnM long enough to where I can tell based on the body shape or whether or not they’ll have red finnage. From what I can find f1 Liberty hybrids the red fins is recessive or just very faded red with whatever other mix they are? I’ll see with time lol.
- The two pics are my two favorite fry out of the whole group. The blonde one is the biggest fry, and growing the fastest. The melanistic gray has a vertical stripe going from the dorsal to the base of the analfin.

 

[emeraldking]

I'm curious if those fry will keep the stretched body type when aging. For that would tell us that the male liberty molly is the 100% father.

 

[Latrell]

I'm curious if those fry will keep the stretched body type when aging. For that would tell us that the male liberty molly is the 100% father.

That’s true. I’ve also noticed some of the body types. Some fry have short rounder bellies and long penduncles. I’ll for sure cull those ans they ange. Other than that all their dorsals, has black trims with yellow. I’m curious if some of their dorsals will stay yellow instead of orange-red like pure liberties. Not what I favor, bc I want to transfer red dorsals and slender bodies to my sphenops hybrids, so I can move forward with my project to add in sailfin traits.

 

[Latrell]

The first batch of fry is 1 month old today and the second set is 3.5 weeks well one week away from being a month old on the 15th of this month. I took abit of time, and some home distractions, but I sorted out the fry to take media of them today.
So for the three types of fry from the two batches as expected wild type is dominant and blonde is recessive. They are the majority of both batches I didn’t headcount but GnM has the most fry, second is BM, and subgroup of the wildtypes the GM are the minority group of only 5 fry.
- The pic provide is of the GM fry, with number 1 being my favorite showing the most melanism so I’ll keep it, the others shows very little melanism on them, which isn’t impressive… I’ll eventually cull(sell) them but for now they stay. I’ll give them another month before I put them in the 5 gal with my Gambusia vittata ladies bc they are picky with tank mates but do well with young mollies surprisingly…
- As of today, tomorrow someone I know is buying the whole group of GnM fry since I have no use of them. I clearly stated to the person Ik they are hybrids(Poecilia salvatoris x fancy Poecilia sphenops), and not pure liberties and provided them pics of the parents for extra security and proof of lineage.
- Also the other reasons is to clear up space for the fry I’m focusing on, and I’ve notice some of the hybrids were nipping each other and other Livebearer fry to a point throughout the week I find fry corpses… seems to be that the sphenops blood enhanced their temper? Bc my pure liberties don’t nip what so ever, but they are very gluttonous. As for my fancy sphenops they are abit tempered bc of their golden lyretail lineage, but not tempered enough to actually kill other fishes in the tank. So I guess both sides of gluttony and tempered made some of the fry competitive. Hopefully bc it was a space issue they started acting like that, but it still seems to be in their nature, but I’ll work it out and study the behavior with the BM, and GM fry I’m keeping for the time. But hopefully with this, culling the GnM, there’s more space and they’ll feel less likely to nip.
- Lastly here’s video medias of the three groups of hybrid fry.

Blonde melanistic group:

Gray(wildtype) melanistic group:

Gray(Wildtype) non melanistic group:

 

[Latrell]

little update: I culled majority of the hybrid fry (as in they’re in my 5 gal tank till I can find them new homes), kept 5 Bm and a single Gm. Ive grown very attached to the Gm, and even gave it the name Seatbelt lol. In the media one of the 5 blondes isn’t shown. Their body form resembles their Liberty side more compare to their fancy sphenops side. Ultimately once they’re close to sexing out I’ll most likely keep only the Bm’s that sexes out to be females, and if chances that Seatbelt is a male, I’ll keep it either way. I’m really enjoying this project so far, while working on my others. And I’m excited to see how they’ll look as matured adults!

Here’s the raw pics from the colleague and a few others that’s not in it

More media

 

[Latrell]

Start of a new year! I’m hopping this project will go well for me this year. The little ones putting in size as usual, hopefully the older juveniles will start sexing out before the end of winter. I posted them on Facebook and someone pointed out the two older blondes have blushing cheeks that I never really put thought into. Till I realized their mom also has the blushing cheeks. Just something to mention on here. I really hope some red pulls through on their dorsal. For when they sex out I don’t really want to keep the blondes if they’re males, because it’ll be easier for me to use them with my male liberties if they turn out to be females. Once they drop fry I’ll have no use for them, maybe give them away to someone down the line. But I’m for sure keeping the wildtype melanistics, just to keep the gene pool going with my pure liberties, in case I’ll use them to back cross with someday.

 

[Latrell]

Late night pics of two of the hybrids. What I find interesting the black pigments is more solid almost matte with the wildtype, while the black pigments is more sparce on the blonde, with the blue iridescents.

 

[Latrell]

Took proper media of the hybrids. One thing to say the blondes colored down their melanistic scales which, I find cool!! you can see how vibrant they are when inactive. I’ll take media of them when they are colored up and active.

Group 1 specimens I keep in my 5gal (2 BM, and 2 GM).
Group 2 specimens I keep in the 40gal breeder (4 BM and 1 GM).
At first I only kept my favorite hybrids in the main tank and culls in the 5 gal. And was planning to remove any males once they sex out (into the 5gal), the biggest blonde in group 1 was one of the first males I removed from the 40gal, bc I was hoping for a blonde female. The funny thing is out of the all the hybrids I’m keeping they all are sexing out to be males… I pretty much gave up with separating them out once I realized and kept them as is in both tanks. My plan was to use a blonde hybrid “female” and back cross with a pure Liberty male. Now I pretty much have to do the opposite of what I wanted. I’m keeping the ones that sexed out to males in group 2 to mate with the pure liberty females in hopes I get some backcross offsprings. Not all are finished developing their gonopodiums, but I still have hope three of the youngest juveniles, I’ll get a female, if not it’ll be a first time I get an all male group of offsprings from 3 batches of fry out of the two sphenops females (I currently don’t keep anymore).

 

[Latrell]

Just showing the wildtype Melanistics this month. Especially my favorite male Seatbelt. Unlike his brothers he’s coloring up nicely his finage is showing a yellow hue, and his body is also showing a golden-yellow hue, over his grey base boy color. His chest area is showing some translucent golden color to it as well which I’m liking. His brothers are nice as well butttt they are okay, that’s why I’m keeping them in the 5 gal, while Seatbelt is in the main tank with the blonde siblings to breed with the Liberty females. Hopefully soon I’ll get f2 offsprings from him or his brothers, so time will tell.

 

[Fishfur]

Got to love a fish named (oh so appropriately) Seatbelt! He is a good looking fish for sure.

 

[Latrell]

Got to love a fish named (oh so appropriately) Seatbelt! He is a good looking fish for sure.

Haha right!!! Interesting thing he was born with that thick stripe. Makes me glad that I kept him. I normally don’t name my fishes because I’ll get attached, and bummed out once their time comes, but I just had to give him a fitting name.

 

[Latrell]

Found a newborn F2 Liberty molly hybrid. Unfortunately only one, I assume the rest may have been eaten before I notice or they’re hiding very well. It’s a cute little one, it seems to be sparsely melanistic but I’ll give a few days to see if it’s true. I remember the f1’s were born moderately melanistic at birth.

- F2 backcross: Pure Poecilia salvatoris female x Blonde Poecilia salvatorisXsphenops Male. I didn’t use any particular male or female I let them flock breed in my tank. I’ll wait for the other females and see if they drop hybrid fry. Hopefully I get some female offsprings in the f2 generation, and I can retire the f1 blonde hybrid males.

 

[Latrell]

Forgot to show this but the f2 fry. Media I took back on April 10th, it showed some pigment development, so far so good. I would have been abit disappointed if it didn’t inherit any melanin. What I find interesting unlike the f1 blondes, this fry wasn’t born with the the black markings, has a more apricot color, and a slightly more robust form close in comparison to a pure Liberty fry, but it still retains the less rounded sphenops face like the f1’s.


F1: pure liberty fry for comparison.


As for the F1’s here’s one of the two melanistic blondes I’m keeping in the main tank. I find it difficult to take proper pictures when the blonde hybrids are colored up, in just a blink of an eye their melanistic splotches turns to light freckles lol. Either way I still find them as good looking specimens. Even with the wildtype melanistic siblings they’re all getting a nice deep orange tail color. Gives me hope the f2 has some chance of getting a closer to red tone finnage with the backcross.

 

[Latrell]

Well the f2 is 34 days old just over 1 month of age. It showed nice color improvement, the black pigments is covering more of the penduncle now, and its hue is more golden yellow/orange. With a proper side by side comparison with the same pure liberty fry from the last time I posted them. The hybrid def looks close to pure in body form for now. But it’s growing slowly not much hybrid vigor which is expected. I also expect it’ll have a more thicker robust form and not be as elongated as the f1. I’m curious if the melanism will spread more with age? From my experience it’s the opposite the f1 even my old fancy sphenops they are born with the melanism either stays the same or recedes with age.


Also here’s color up media of the f1 male from the previous post I made, I still need to get a proper side pic the other melanistic blonde male, I also provided a not so good pic of him.

Second f1 male: Trust me he is a very nice looking specimen he just refuse to stay still for the camera … he’s about 50-75% melanistic but it’s not heavily concentrated it’s more like freckles lol.

 

[Latrell]

Took media of the males in the 5gal back on May 13th. I’ve been quite attached to this male. As of late, I noticed he’s been showing dominance and coloring up more than his brothers.

This video I took yesterday morning, but the cover pic, is just for a clear shot of him lol. I moved him to the 40gallon Friday-Saturday night I’ll say Saturday 1-2am. Best time to catch fishes when they’re alseep and lights are off. Okay when I checked on him that morning I noticed he’s gotten considerably darker in base body tone and even expressing his colors more his dorsal shows a nice dark red hue! Out of all the f1’s only him and one other blonde male in the 40gal shows slight red in the dorsal. Yea his blue scales are vibrant, nice body tone red dorsal, imo he’s a fantastic f1 specimen. It gives me hope if he passes his genes down over time. Also he has the zoomies in the video, because he hasn’t been around females much if his life. Makes me curious if he will compete for dominance with the other males in the tank.

 

[Latrell]

After 2 months a female finally dropped another batch of f2 backcross fry. Few things I have to say. The Liberty female didn’t drop many only 6 fry that I could find, 2 melanistic blondes, and 4 wildtypes (different base body hue, and vertical bar expressions). When I was first trying to catch the fry I accidentally squished the first blonde fry before getting a chance to separate it into the breeder net … my clumsy mistake. Now I’m down 1 blonde and 4 wildtypes.
One of the wildtypes isn’t in the pictures, but I’ll provide a video. I would say this set doesn’t look appealing to me at all. I’m curious how the wildtypes will turn out so I’ll keep them now. The 5th fry that’s not in the pics it looks very fragile like thin stretched out body form and has a hard time swimming, that fry looks like my old non melanistic f1 hybrids.

- Update on the first ever f2 blonde juvenile. It’s now 2 months 3 weeks old. I haven’t been paying attention to it much, but it’s doing well!! I want to guess but the analfin it might be a female. *I hope it is…* All I need from the f2’s is a blonde female, then I can move on with my project.

 

[Latrell]

I forgot to say I sent out a few remaining blondes f1’s, and single wildtype f1 to a friend of mine, a few weeks back bc I was already planning to cull them anyways… I still had two blonde males i kept, and I eventually culled since I got that recent batch of f2’s. I did keep seatbelt (Im too attached) and also this male here. He’s fully matured now since keeping in him the main tank. Downside I have a dark substrate so his red hue dorsal sort of toned down you can’t really see it anymore only when the tank lights are at its brightest and when he’s close to the top of the tank. Upside he does have some golden speckles on him that grew. I can see the potential, I’m keeping him to see if I can get some decent wildtype melanistic f2’s and testing him for a side outcross, I’ll try to keep it a secret for what species they are. I’m just waiting on them to sex out I had them for a few months already. If results arent so good I’ll scrap it and just use my f2’s for outcrossing to another species once I get a female from that batch.
More media of this male at the bottom.


As for the f1’s I gave to my friend I never showed the pic but this one male he’s the only blonde that developed the redish dorsal, it’ll be exciting to see what he does with him and any female he uses. I took the pic around early mid June.

This month is such a dry time period I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time to take media of the fishes and any of my new additions or updates. I will def have a lot to post about next month.

Out of boredom here’s a side by side comparison between f1 and the first f2 backcross father and son around the same age. Same color phenotype (blonde base, blushing cheeks, and partial tuxedo). Only notable difference is the head shape of the f2 being rounded out, slightly lighter hue, less saturation on the fins, and thinner penduncle.

 

[Latrell]

Biggest f2 sexed out to female I’m kind of excited now I can finally outcross here. I put here in the 5gal for my side project. I don’t want to jinx my plans but she’s outcrossing to a Limia species, to test on fertility, and for traits I like from the limia’s. Also here’s the other blondes from batch two, hmm I’m thinking about keeping a male if sexed out and keeping maybe another for more outcrossing or possibly one more back cross.


Funny thing I did had this one unusual Liberty that was sexing out to male to only realize it was a f2 backcross all along. He has a shorten body but I did cull him, he has no use for my projects eventhough he was an adorable little one.I figured bc his phenotype matches closer to the other wildtype f2 fry compare to a pure Liberty male.

Lastly for this months update, the other Liberty females dropped more f2 fry so I have a few more blonde melanistic fry I let roam the main tank and pulled out that wildtype siblings to grow out in the 5 gal I’ll eventually cull them all and possibly keep 2-3 females as a backup once they sex out. I’m just curious if the females will look similar to that wildtype male. here’s media of the fry from batches 3-5 I consider them all as batch 3 since they were born the same week. From different females, and the same fathers.


Molly genetics is abit odd, bc I used a blonde melanistic male to pure liberty female, they only produced either blonde melanistic or non melanistic wildtypes, zero melanistic wildtypes. Another reason I’m keeping the wildtype melanistic f1’s I believe they’ll throw out either melanistic or non melanistic wiltype f2’s and no blondes, when backcross to pure liberty. Hmm I think I’ll keep just a wildtype melanistic f2 male from the cross and any wildtype melanistic f2 females, that’s when I can fully retire the f1’s and focus on f2 onwards.

 

[Latrell]

Terrible display pics… I was looking at the f2 culls thats temporarily growing out in the window tank when I notice this little one has a melanistic spot. I put it in the main tank to grow out, till I can get more wildtype melanistic f2’s from the wildtype melanistic f1 males. Lol I was wrong so the f1 melanistic blondes could have still thrown out wildtype melanistics offsprings, but at lower odds.

 

[Latrell]

Not much of an update but the blonde f2’s are doing well. I haven’t gotten the chance to take pics but the wildtype melanistic f2 is slowing gaining more spots.

 

[Latrell]

Got around to culling the wildtype f2’s they look nice to be honest. So far 6 of them had starting showing some form of melanistic spots and only two juveniles, I think may have potential. I put the two (pic 2 & 3) into the main tank, and put the other 4 back in the 5gal, and ofc culled the rest of the non melanistic wildtypes. First pic is the unsorted batches of f2’s.

 

[Latrell]

The three Melanistic f2’s put on a few more spots in the past month.

 

[Latrell]

Outcrossing line 1 of 2. Crossing male Limia islai to female Poecilia salvatoris. Still a work in progress as the limia’s are finally sexually matured. They started developing their gonopodium from 2 months ago. Now that it’s fully formed the males are showing increased interest in the Liberty females.

As I’m growing out the other f2 melanistic and blonde liberties, my friend (specializes in hybrid American Cichlids ) advice I give each line a code name. For now main line will be A, Second line is B (backcross to pures), any Outcrossing line ofc will be C. I split my Molly project currently into three crossings. Line A will be my F1 wildtype Melanistic males to my oldest F2 backcross Melanistic Blonde female. And when the other f2’s mature they’ll cross each other. That’s to maintain the blonde and wildtype melanistic genes. Line B the f2’s (when matured) will backcross to my pure liberties for the maintained red dorsals and body form. Line C is the Limia outcross 1 of 2 I mentioned above, for the second, I have a female islai with my f1 wildtype melanistic Liberties. I’m not having much progress with that so I may drop it if I get fry from the first outcross and work from there. Interesting to see I’ve been going at this project for a year now with a lot of good progress, and some minor setbacks. Hopefully next year the project will look better.

 

[Latrell]

Little media dumb of the two f1 brothers. Seatbelt hasn’t really grown at all he stayed sub male size, while his dominant brother actually gotten quite chunky. And his speckling is gorgeous now that they are at their prime age (1year old). It makes me excited to see how the f2’s will turn out.

 

[Latrell]

Finally something interesting happened lol. I got F3 Liberty molly hybrid fry.

The f2 female gave me 5 fry but only manage to catch 4 of them atm. The dad is the dominant f1 male in the last post. Okay as I was inspecting them 100% has some form of melanistic markings, 2/5 are blonde morph, 3/5 are wildtype morphs. Not bad actually. Hmm not sure exactly what I’ll do with them but I may lean for a male out of the batch preferably one of the three wildtypes. The blondes I prefer females. I won’t know for awhile, so I’ll do with what I have.

 

[Latrell]

Media of the F2 Blondes. Hmm not much going on with them slowly growing but not as quick as their wildtype siblings.



One of the F2 melanistic wildtypes I keep in the 5gal. He finally starting to form a gonopodium. Im abit excited to see how he looks in a month or so.

 

[Latrell]

F3 Liberty hybrid media

That spotted wildtype fry is by far my favorite out of the batch!!! Second favorite is the blonde with the black cap. The rest are okay, second blonde resembles it’s mother. And yea I was slightly wrong not all of the fry were melanistic. The other wildtypes just have noticeable bars I mistake for melanism when I first spotted them. Anyways spotted fry is def something I’m looking for that copper tone and melanism. By maturity it’ll probably be heavily mottled, better than the f2’s.

 

[Latrell]

Islai males with with salvatoris females. They’ve been at it a few months now, no identifiable fry from what I can tell, it was mostly f2 hybrid fry, to now the females are dropping pure fry again. They ran out of the f1’s milt. Now I’m at 50/50 odds the females will drop Limia hybrid fry or pure fry. I do want to avoid raising virgin females from fry for the males that’ll just take too long.

I didn’t want to talk about it here but I do have sad news. A few days ago I was in my room going to check on the 5 gal tank and notice the floor was cold. To look I see my bottom window was opened… the tank was very cold my heater wasnt working almost all my fishes in that tank died…. *sigh* I lost my dominant f1 hybrid male, my last islai female, my blonde f2 female, all my spare bluestar males, and all but 3 f2 fry… only other survivors was seatbelt the f1 hybrid, a male and female older juvenile f2’s. I found out it was my mother who had opened the window without telling me. She accidentally killed my fishes I was pretty upset about it, bc I’m very emotional when it comes to animals, especially my fishes I created and raised from fry. My reverse Limia x f1 LibertyXsphenops hybrid cross won’t ever happen now. I’m planning to just rethink what I’ll do now with the tank and the surviving fishes, that don’t have much use at the time being. I try not to think about it… it gets me upset. Their deaths won’t be in vain! My project will be accomplished even if I got backtrack. These are just the corpse I was able to scoop out the tank that day the rest was already eaten by the ramshorn and bladder snails. I made sure to do a water change using slightly cold warm water to not shock the other fishes.

 

[emeraldking]

So, sorry to hear...

 

[Latrell]

So, sorry to hear...

I appreciate it Stan. Going to get back in the grove, with the projects, this year progress will be my best!

 

[emeraldking]

I appreciate it Stan. Going to get back in the grove, with the projects, this year progress will be my best!

As annoying as it is that fish can die, it's unfortunately part of this hobby. But that doesn't take away the frustration that such things happen. Well, I'll cross my fingers for you that this year may be better with your projects...

 

[Latrell]

F2’s these are the juveniles from the blonde f1 dad back to a Liberty female. They look okay the melanistic Wt juveniles don’t have much speckling to them. But they do look close to pure. Not the male his chest cavity is still elongated and not short and round liek a pure male. The melanistic female thought she resembles the pure females. I don’t plan to keep the wildtype male just the female and the blondes. I’ll be strict bc I rather have them back crossing to pure, the blonde males back crossing to pure and/or sibling crossing tot he females. (The rest of them pictured below). Fewer hybrid male the better to keep track on who’s offspring is who’s. Hmm once the hybrid females drops fry, I’ll remove them from the breeding colony.


Now this one older f2 fry here I’ll just say him. Okay I only kept him and two other siblings, their dad was the late f1 wildtype melanistic male that passed, and their mom is pure liberty. My early observation was wrong I had assume that f1 back to pure throws out three types (blonde, melanistic Wt and plain Wt) but nope he only gave me non melanistic and melanistic wildtype offsprings, i can tell them apart from the older juveniles wildtypes he and his siblings has black dorsals and almost darker toned body when next to dark substrate. One of his siblings is starting to show a melanistic spot but I don’t have pics of it. They’re all sleeping. I’m really keeping them around to see if they’ll show the red dorsals like their dad. I hoping they are all females.

Hehe now the F3 it’s the only one of the 3 that came out to see what I was doing so I took a pic of it as well lol. Dad is the f1 wildtype melanistic, mom is the f2 blonde backcross. I do see potential in this fry and its siblings (I didn’t take updated media of its siblings). I know they’ll look less closer to pure, but stabilizing the red dorsal trait and deep color hue is a plus for the breeding project. I really wanted my favorite wildtype melanistic f3 to come out his mottled increased somewhat and nice copper body. I’m still figuring out how I’ll go about incorapting their blood into the colony, but they still have time to mature so hopefully, I can pair them with other nice looking offsprings from the liberties. Mixed feelings but I hope this fry and its second blonde sibling are females, and the mottled wildtype is male. If not I’ll replan.

 

[Latrell]

Much to say. So I’ve been raising a set of Liberty fry for close to a month now (3week+ born around January 7th). I’ve suspected pure fry since I had removed the f1 Liberty hybrid males since late September of last year, Ik about retain sperm but I do know newer sperm will outcompete the old one given time. I trusted it and culled batches of fry since while letting the islai males and pure liberty males mate with the pure liberty females. Fast forward these fry were born, time past I I look at them more, I noticed the faded stripes, and slight structure in their lower jaws, their dorsals (black and yellow) with yellow base on the Caudal fins, and other fins. are all consistent. Each day my confidence level went up on them being hybrids. I will still wait till they are a month or so older to see some more features being defined. I haven’t seen much media of pure islai fry.
This pic and the first 3 attachments are the older batches.


OKAY now these sets of fry was born the other day I also thought they were pure till I decided to check on them today. Noticed the whole batch has ranges of stripes. Also matching the older batch of fry. Making my confidence level 100% on them being Limia islai (M) x Poecilia salvatoris (F) hybrids. And also today a third Liberty female dropped hybrid fry but I was too late I saved 2-3 fry (that u could find the rest u assume was eaten), they still have a yolk sac. I mixed them with the recent batch since they’re close in age. Once these are bigger they can go with the older batch in the 5 gal to grow out some more.
This pic and the last few attachments are the recent batch of fry.


Video media:

 

[emeraldking]

Looks like you've got another hybrid batch on your hands...

 

[Latrell]

Looks like you've got another hybrid batch on your hands...

Yup! Once they mature I’ll see how stable the bars are and test for fertility. I might have to backcross to islai again to stabilize the traits. I prefer to outcross them to the Liberty hybrids, then work from there if their bars sticks to sexual maturity.

 

[Latrell]

F3 fry doing well. His copper tone is holding up nice, especially the mottle is slowly increasing as it grows. I didn’t take pics of its other siblings. I’m not sure what I’ll do with them, but for this one, I want to pair it with a tiger liberty to enhance the copper base and see if the splotches will combine or counter the tiger bars. If they don’t turn out well. I’ll scrap that cross and go my other path, and not breed it. I’ll wait to see what this fry sex out too before deciding I’m nervous the tiger liberties will be a skewed sex ratio and I may end up with all males, and if that fry become male I can’t go along with it.

 

[Latrell]

“Tiger Liberty hybrid fry”

I’ve been calling the islai x salvatoris that name since they’re both Molly and Limia. Both batches growing together. The 1st set doesn’t always express their bars as much as the younger 2nd set. Not confident on vertical bars inheritance. I know with liberties the fry has the bars but goes away with age. Some of the fry showing more high golden-yellow hue and others showing that copper tone seen in islai. They’re quite chunky too. Not much else to say, I’ve spent too many hours watching them, these past couple days lol. They look to be promising.
.

 

[Latrell]

Blonde Liberty hybrid f2’s are growing nicely. The older ladies are getting chunky. They’re with the pures so if they drop fry they’ll be f2 x pure.


Heres the melanistic wildtype f2’s brother and sister to the blondes. The male looks nice and robust not what I’m looking for but I’m waiting to see if he shows any red hues in his fins. I doubt their dad was a non dominant blonde f1. The female looks nice not sure ill keep her long term she’s just a deter for the Limia males atm.

Here’s the f1 Tiger liberties I split the group up. Took a few from the batch 1 and 2 placed in the main tank to see if the bars shows up more, the rest is still staying in the 5gal to grow out. The slight downside seems Liberty blood is phenotypically dominant, the fry can color off their bars or just not sticking on them like their Limia fathers. I can see it but just hard to show on camera. The last two pics is a fry from the main tank. The bars is faded. I assume a good chunk of the them will lose the bars with age and it’ll just be iridescent streaks like their pure liberty side. Keeping an eye on that will keep the ones expressing their bars more the rest I’ll let go.

 

[Latrell]

Tiger liberty’s in the 40gal

The recent batch of tiger liberty hybrids seems to be more darker and showing off their bars more comfortably than the older batches, I had kept in the 5gal to eventually moving a few back into the main tank. Background def affects their coloring. Since raising the older batches in a bare bottom tank that only gets natural sunlight they looks slightly more pale and don’t really express their bars as much. Last pics is the older batch they did darken up since moving them but def not showing their bars that well compare to the recent batch smh.

Tbh I still think Liberty blood is slowly creeping and suppressing their bars as they age.

 

[Latrell]

F2’s doing okay. Male fins tinged but I’m not expecting any reds. His sister also dropped unexpected fry!


Accidental but fully expected fry. The F2 mother was just suppose to keep the islai males occupied but I didn’t expect her to give me fry so soon. Not 100% confident but these 3 fry are Islai (M) x F2 wildtype melanistic Liberty (F). Something I didn’t plan on making let alone use for my project, I’ll just save them for now. I’m slightly curious if they’ll inherit either the splotches or bars, or maybe a combo of both idk. Most likely give them to a friend who would appreciate them. Also Idek what to call them they are technically F3 Liberty hybrids and also tiger liberty hybrids at the same time. Since it’s an outcross Ig they are still F1/F3 hybrids.

To keep track of the genes these little ones is 50% islai, 37.5% salvatoris, 12.5% sphenops


I was going to show this blonde f2 female from the main tank, but I forgot to post. She’s starting to develop eggs. The father to her fry is pure liberty which is perfect. I’ll wait to see if I get even just 1 blonde fry from her. Good chance she will drop majority wildtype fry which I’ll cull i just want the blondes. After she drops and I get the fry I want I’ll this time for sure will retire the last of the f2’s from my breeding pool. The offsprings should be 87.5% Liberty, 12.5% fancy sphenops. I’ll lose track of gene percentage as time past but keeping an early track record is a must. I do notice the blonde f2’s are quite translucent.

 

[Latrell]

Update for the tiger liberties:

Doing more observations I’ve come to hypothesize on trait inheritance for them.

- Black dorsal, islai side is Dominant and consistent
- tiger bars, islai side is incomplete dominant it clashes with the salvatoris iridescent streaks which are bars as fry but fades as they mature, resulting in faded bars in the hybrids that’s not bold but still noticeable. They can turn it off leaving iridescent streaks, not all of them shows it so it’s inconsistent.

Besides that they still show body traits of both parents, seems islai affect the phenotype, and salvatoris affect the body type. That is expected. Anyways I don’t like how the bars fades but I like everything else about them. Def going to backcross to Limia and see if I can make the bars dominant. Backcrossing to Liberty or to the Liberty hybrids will be pointless.

(Not in pics) When I was observing newer batch of tiger Liberties (I now call Tri Tiger liberties to differentiate the two) that I posted last week. They def show a more brighter golden hue seems islai wildtype golden base and the f2 female being recessive for the blonde gene made them come out more amplified bronze base. I’m using them as reference for this project. On what to look for when I eventually cross in the tiger liberties to the blonde liberty hybrids. I think this may take me another 1-2years to feel satisfied that I created a stable line but only once I test fertility I’ll move forward.

 

[Latrell]

Tiger liberty:
Not the bestttt media this dude is very skittish and colored down. But hes the first Tiger Liberty hybrid to sex out to male in the 5gal. I threw him into the main tank to see if his dorsal darkens from certain angles the dorsal changes from a yellow orange to a orange red. I don’t plan to use him but aye he has free reign with the female liberties, he’s liberty leaning but his head shape doesn’t match up with the pure males, also the black trimming on the dorsal gives it away. I’m getting close to culling out the others if they sex out to males. I’m really praying for females to show up.


F2 Wildtype Melanistic Liberty Molly hybrid Male (F1 Blonde Melanistic Liberty Molly hybrid (M) x Liberty Molly (F)):
He’s from the first ever batches of F2’s. Had to let him go and the rest of my F2 males. I’ve kept his wildtype sister tho, for now. Besides that sister mentioned, all I have left is the other sisters (F2 blonde melanistics). That male is a stud but never really used him for anything. Last media of him. *pic collage of the other two f2 males below*

F3’s (F1 Wildtype Melanistic x F2 Blonde Melanistic):
These im keeping the wildtype seems to be female. She’s growing much faster in the 5gal, and her blonde sibling stays in the main tank, still so tiny lol. She’s my favorite Liberty hybrid currently. Pulled nice marbling from her father, but showing more of her mother shape. The blonde sibling so far is the most mottled blonde offspring in my tank, I’ll see what it sex out to, before I decided what to do with it.

 

[Latrell]

Small F2 Blonde Liberty hybrid females update:

Okay I got the Carophyll red and Astaxanthin on April 14th so 2 weeks and a few days ago.
I wish I took pics the day I was adding the compounds to the fishes batch of food I re made that already had Spirulina in it. Last pics I had of these two F2 blonde Liberty females was March 13th. As you can see the pics i took yesterday (it’s currently 1:14am, May 2nd), Ik i wasnt tripping out they are pink hued. Ofc I wouldn’t notice the gradual color shift, it was only because I was scrolling through my camera roll, I realized how shifted their colors were. Yes the blondes are def more noticeable over the wildtype Livebearers in the tank. I have high confidence the blonde ladies fry will be 100x better than them color wise. The other sisters didn’t want to hold still for media they are also pink tone shifted as well. Their oldest sister is currently gravid shes giving me a fakeout, whenever I feed the tank. I can see eggs and eyes in the belly, but she’s not ready to drop. These upcoming unborn F3’s will have the best color potential from birth which excites me.

 

[Latrell]

New set of F3’s finally. Two days ago, I could only find these two atm there’s probably more hiding or got eaten idk. The F2 blonde female dropped fry for a pure Liberty male making these F3 a second gen backcross to pure. 87.5% salvatoris, 12.5% sphenops. Im only keeping the blond fry. I’ll wait for the other females to drop fry once I get a decent amount of blonde f3’s. Ill finally retire the f2’s for good. Now if things goes well, I’ll cross the F3 blondes to the future offsprings of the F1 Tiger Liberty hybrids that’s backcross to pure Limia hopefully.



Tiger liberty comparison media:
Got around to taking comparison media of one of the Tiger Liberty males above is a pure Liberty Molly (the uncle), and Bottom pure Tiger Limia (Dad/Uncles). The Islai wouldn’t hold still so best I got lol. The Tiger Liberty is still young but def showing more Salvatoris leaning features with age. Only consist Limia trait that stuck is the black and yellow dorsal, wide chest cavity, flatter head, and slight protruding lower jaw. The bars it had as a fry now turned into iridescent streaks like Salvatoris, but the length and placement of the streaks is still more on islai side. Narrow penduncle like Islai, but stretched out somewhat like Salvatoris. Not sure if the fins of the Tiger Liberty will tinge orange/red but I’ll have to wait longer till after he matures. Can’t complain better than a plain clear dorsal.