To be a breeder?

[traco1]

Before I buy every dang sword or platy out there, I've a few questions, please. If just starting out and feeling my way around, if you want to breed a certain fish, you should stick with that strain? You would not want to house, say, koi swords with lyre swords? I know the male lyre swords are great to admire but not much luck with them impregnating females. So, if you want to stay true to a strain, your tank should house only that strain?

Now when you do get fry, do you pull them and put into a separate tank after awhile to better monitor, feed and grow? And is bare bottom the way to go? As you can tell, I've learnt the way of the discus owners ~ juvenile discus are best housed in a bare bottom tank as you feed a lot daily and this helps with keeping the tank clean. Don't know if that holds true with other species?

The koi swords, the lyretail swords, the plumetail platies and endlers are all the ones I like. I do not want to have a huge amount of tanks. I have a 55 which will be planted, a empty 33 gallon, empty 29 gallon and a empty 20 gallon.

Please, any comments/info/concerns/help would be greatly appreciated. There are a lot of people on this forum who are quite knowledgeable, I'm finding. And more than one head helps define an answer.

Thanks all in advance.

Barb

[Melody]

I am the self-proclaimed queen of space utilization:laugh: . I layer my fish, top/mid/bottom, I combine those that don't cross so I can selectively breed more species, etc etc etc.

With Lyres your females need a functional male. You can have the Koi performing that duty, along with Koi females to keep your Koi strain too. If the color of fry is important to you, then you have to start separating everyone.

Platy's and Swords can cross. Most species will prefer their own kind if the opposite sex is available. Not to a point where you can heavily rely on it, but its a reasonably safe bet. However, Swordtails and Platy's are so thoroughly crossed that I wouldn't trust that theory. Plus, a recent study showed that even female Platy's prefer a male with a Sword.

If you're concerned about keeping the species pure on moral grounds, forget about it. They're already crossed so the deal is done. All red Swordtails are hybrids, all Hifin Platy's are hybrids, all Long-fin Swordtails are hybrids, all Wag Swordtails are hybrids, etc.

Endler's could be housed with either Swords or Platy's - they won't cross.

Bare bottom tanks are best for all fry, in my opinion, but not absolutely necessary. I pull some fry, some I don't. I am usually more careful with that if I am trying to establish a breeding colony, or if the species is particularly cannibalistic, like the B. Holdridgei. Otherwise it would only be if I'm working on making a recessive gene dominant or something. In those cases, its easier to move the female to a brooding tank, then move her when she's done. Easier to catch one big fish than 40 little ones.:yes:

[traco1]

Thanks for the info, Mel. I'll keep the swords and platies separate. They are going into high end fishy hotels, lots of room (at least for now at the beginning).

Also, I will be limited on how many different fish I see, limited in QT tanks that is. That definately puts a curb on the buying, doesn't it?:laugh:

Going to be a fun weekend. Planting, new fish arriving, new fish arriving in the following weeks. It must be spring!

[CACAdmin]

With limited tank space (as long as you don't need to quarantine, you can always divide an existing tank into temporary sections of varying sizes. That's what I did with my 20g. You can view what I did here: Adjustable/removable tank dividers (http://www.canadianaquariumconnection.com/forum/showthread.php?t=830). (You can see a picture of it in the last post of the thread.) There it's divided into 3 sections... currently it's divided exactly in half (2 sections). I have a very pregnant young mama and some 3-4 week old fry in one half and older fry & juvies in the other half. (Mollies and platys mixed).

[traco1]

Jay, thanks for the link. And you even aquascaped the three sections in the photo! Another something I learned and will probably be using. Thank you.

[Melody]

Yes the dividers can certainly save the day! The only thing that I didn't like with mine was the filter was only in one section, so I used box filters for each section. One pump with one of those airline multi-outlet thingies....lol....sorry, the proper name has left me.