Where Should I Put My New Endlers?

I have a 10 gallon cherry shrimp tank that I've started recently. Unfortunately, I had a pretty bad ostracod outbreak. It was manageable at first, but their population exploded recently with the introduction of the shrimp. I'm going to add some N-class Black Bar Endlers into the tank, which I got from The Endler Shop. They should be coming this week. They ship colonies in an odd ratio, claiming that male:female ratio doesn't matter with Endlers, so I'm getting 5 males and 3 females. That debate aside for a second, I need some advice on what to do. I know that I'm going to get babies, and I already know that my LFS will take them, but I also have a 55 gallon tank I can support some. Unfortunately, I have some Gold Panda Lyretail Mollies in there. I figure I have a few options.

I could put all of the Endlers in the 55 gallon, along with the Mollies. It's possible that they crossbreed, but I've heard it's not common. I take only males from the 55 gallon and put them in my 10 gallon... that way I don't have to worry about breeding in the small 10 gallon and I have a little bit of cushion in the 55 gallon. I guess my worry with this plan is that if I do get hybrids, have I ruined my Endler genetics, or can I just be reassured that this will happen infrequently, and I should be able to tell the difference between any hybrids that occur and actual pure blood Endlers? Would I be able to tell hybrid females from pure bloods? I would also have to figure out what to do with hybrids, as I'm not sure I could sell those to the LFS. The good news is that my Mollies and other fish would prevent too many fry from surviving and my population control would be pretty good, as has been present with my Molly fry.

The other option is to put them all in my 10 gallon, and I could maintain my pure genetic line in that tank and put the overflow in the 55 gallon, then sell that overflow to the LFS. The downside to this is that my 10 gallon only has a sponge filter in it along with 20 red cherry shrimp. 8 Endlers will quickly multiply, so I'm going to be doing a lot of shuffling. I do have an old Aqueon Quietflow 10 that I could add on in case I need more filtration.

The final question is whether or not I should worry about Endler male:female ratio. The website I got the Endlers from insists that it's not as important with Endlers as it is with other livebearers. Aqadvisor also doesn't put that into it's formula, although it does with guppies, mollies, and others. However, this forum and most of the other forums I've seen do recommend at least a 2:1 or ideally a 3:1 ratio. I'm starting at a 3:5, but I could adjust this by shifting around surviving fry. I considered putting the 3 females in a tank with one of the males and putting the other 4 males in the other tank, but I'm worried that my genetic makeup wouldn't be as diverse if I did that, and I'd run into defects if every fry came from one male. Also, I'd have to figure out which tank I would do that with, and all the possible issues with hybridization would need to be considered.

So, after all that, I guess my question is, which tank would you put them in? Also, should I split them up? If so, how many males and females should I put in the tanks? Am I just way overthinking this?

 

I’ve never bred livebearers, BUT if there are suitable females for the males of a species, I don’t think they would pursue a female from another species. Animals tend to avoid inbreeding and cross breeding when possible. Also, I think, though I am not sure, that the crossbred offspring would be sterile. Livebearers also store sperm to prevent inbreeding, choosing the best sperm to fertilize eggs, so I would assume sperm storing would also prevent cross breeding.

I don’t think separating males and females is a good idea. With guppies, keeping male only will cause them to constantly harass each other and you’ll get some unnatural behavior, and I would think this rule to apply to Endlers.

You can keep some in the 10, but they’ll grow out eventually. Even if you were to get a medium sized fish to eat the fry, like a betta, enough fry would survive to maintain a growth in population

 

Right, although I wouldn't want a fry-eating fish in there as it would likely terrorize my shrimp, who were the original main focus of this tank.

I guess my choice is either to put them all in the 10 gallon. With a shrimp colony in there, I'm not sure I'd want to keep more than 11 full grown Endlers. I could then place the extras into my 55 gallon, which has lots of fry eaters like Zebra Danios and Mollies. Currently only about 1 fry lives per birth of my Mollies, so that would keep me from getting overrun and reduce how often I have to go to the LFS.

The second option is that I put them all in the 55 gallon and only move excess males to the 10 gallon. Everything I've seen says that Endlers are fine in a male-only tank. The only issue with this strategy is that all of my females would be in with the Mollies. My Molly ratio is currently 2 males and 2 females (one of my "females" was a late bloomer and phenotypically became male when it hit sexual maturity)... I have 2 tiny fry in there that are too young to sex yet, but I'm hoping they're both female since my two males are constantly trying to mate with my very pregnant females. I just worry that they'd mate with my Endlers and I'd get stuck with a bunch of hybrids that, while sterile, I wouldn't be able to give to the LFS.

Right now I'm leaning toward the first option. Starting with 8, that only leaves a few more that I can keep in the tank, but it should be fine with fry until they're large enough to net and move to the big tank. If I start to run into filtration issues with the sponge filter, I'll just put my old HOB filter on it with a pre-filter sponge on the intake. That method involves a lot of fish moving, but it might be the best way to keep at least some of my genetic lines pure in case the mixed breeding is more likely than we fear.

The last decision is whether I move fish to try to maintain a 1:2 or 1:3 ratio of male:female or just ignore it. There still seems to be conflicting opinion over whether Endlers need more females than males. Having a lot more of the less attractive females in my 10 gallon seems less ideal, but I want to do what's best for the fish.

 

About the hybridization... if you've got both genders of both species in the same tank, you should not be worried about a hybridization taking place. The chance that they will hybridize is when you've got a single sex of one species in there and "only" the opposite sex of the other species. As long as both sexes are present of both species, the females will choose a mating partner of her own kind. It doesn't matter whether the males of a certain species will chase females of another species the whole day. The female will decide whether she'll mate or not. The chasing of the males doesn't say anything about mating, even if they will stick their gonopodium forward. It's the female that decides what will happen.

I've got some tanks overhere with a combination of endlers and mollies. No problem at all. Those mollies will even leave the endler fry alone overhere for they've got so used to the smaller tank mates, that they're of no interest to them anymore.

The ratio m:f doesn't have to be more females in comparison to males. This goes for more kinds of ovoviviparous and viviparous livebearers. But to hold on to the endlers and guppies... Endlers and wildguppies can be kept at an 1m:1f rato or even more males than females without a problem. A lot of people think that a ratio of 1 male to more females is something that goes for all livebearers. That's an incorrect thought. To be honest, it's a generalization that people made up for all livebearers. Serious livebearer keepers and breeders like me, do know that a lot of other livebearers are doing well at a ratio 1m:1f or more males with less females. Not all ovoviviparous and viviparous livebearer males wil harrass the females at all times. Most people are influenced by how to keep the fancy strains of guppies, swordtails, platies and mollies. And reflect that onto other kinds of livebearers. Nobody can blame them for thinking that. But it's certainly a lack of knowledge of how it really works with livebearers (both ovoviviparous and viviparous).
But will it harm to keep a ratio 1 male to more females? Of course not...

But again, you'll read most of the time that it's always desirable to keep more females in comparison to males in one tank when it comes to livebearers. To serious keepers and breeders this is just a too easy answer to give. It really depends on the kind of livebearer in order to say that this is a legitimate answer. If someone claims different, it's a lack of knowledge for certain...





Above: Gold dust mollies and Campoma blue star endlers living in one tank without any problems. Fry of both species are left alone.

 

Thank you for the response. What you said is what I'd come up with while researching on my own. However, every forum, including this one, has people suggesting keeping the 2:1 or 3:1 M:F ratio with endlers, so I just was hoping to get a really experienced person, like yourself, to weigh in on it.

The whole situation becomes a lot less complicated if I don't have to worry about ratio or Mollies ruining my N classification.

 

Thank you for the response. What you said is what I'd come up with while researching on my own. However, every forum, including this one, has people suggesting keeping the 2:1 or 3:1 M:F ratio with endlers, so I just was hoping to get a really experienced person, like yourself, to weigh in on it.

The whole situation becomes a lot less complicated if I don't have to worry about ratio or Mollies ruining my N classification.

Like I've already mentioned, it's a generalization what people tend to give as an advice when it comes to livebearer male:female ratio. And in general they do base it on what they know of the fancy strains of the known big 4 ( guppies, mollies, swordtails and platies). And reflect that on all livebearers. Most of these people don't even know that livebearers can be split into two main groups: ovoviviparous and viviparous livebearers. And a subgroup can be added to this as well → the superfetative livebearers. Most known livebearers within the commercial trade are ovoviviparous livebearers such as the big 4 mentioned.
But even within the big 4 there are "certain" strains that can be kept at an odd ratio as wel. A lot of people just don't realize that.