Breeding in a Community Tank - it's like the lottery

[CACAdmin]

Although I have started to try to pair off some of my platys to breed (isolating them in smaller tanks), most of the breeding occurs in my 70g community tank. So with each pregnancy, I eagerly await to see if I can figure out who 'papa' was...lol. It's like the lottery, you just never know what the outcome will be.:rolleyes:

My big beautiful Red Wag female (who was so heavy with fry she could little more than wobble around the tank) gave birth yesterday. And so I have been searching the tank for fry in hopes that Mr. Red Hifin was the papa. Well, tonight I spotted a couple and nope, it wasn't him!:(

The fry are so tiny it's hard to tell but the few I saw were wags but maybe gold or marigold. So now I'm hoping it was my spotted hifin male. If so, maybe, just maybe there will be some hifin Red Wags.

OK, Melody, what are my odds?

[Melody]

I have no idea....lol...depends on which odds. Her preference in males would probably be towards the elaborate finnage, and most of the fancy Livebearer females seem to prefer red/orange colors (like Guppies). I wouldn't put too much into what color they look to be at less than 24 hours old and I wouldn't count the red guy out based on a couple of fry either. Some get a red overlay later too.

Is this Oleg's Hifin? His have nice red coverage but its a brighter red than your Redwags, whom I think have some Velvet in them. Point being, they could appear to be more orange/gold as newborns and then darken into red if they're favouring Dad's coloring. Sunset colors look gorgeous on wags too, so either way they're bound to be nice fish.

As for wags, I think the wag/comet trait is dominant. I know that even if you have a comet in the mix, you'll usually get thrown wags, so its a strong trait if nothing else. The spots appear to be strong too, I find, but I have nothing official on that. Could get some nice painted wags even, if the spotted guy was the Father.

I don't think I'm being too much help...lol. Too many possibilities and I still have a lot to learn about advanced genetics - I just know enough to fake it well at this point. :laugh:

[CACAdmin]

Thanks, Melody, whatever you know is much more than I do at this point.:smile:

As for the Red Hifin Male... yes, he's one of Oleg's and is looks to be velvet to me but what do I know?...lol. Thanks for giving me hope... I know it's really hard to tell when the fry are this small (actually about 36 hours old... I'm amazed that I actually was able to spot any... they are sooooo tiny... not much more than eyeballs with a tail...lol. (However, the wag tail is unmistakable.)

Thanks for giving me at least some idea what I might expect. Once they get bigger, I'll post again about what the outcome actually is. I love to try to guess, though.

[Melody]

Guessing is half the fun. That's why I like crossing everything. I'm sure I drive breeders nuts. They work so hard to perfect and set a strain and what's the first thing I want to do with it? Outcross it to something else to see what happens. :rolleyes:

[CACAdmin]

Outcrossing is fun... and the trying to predict the outcome is like trying to solve a mystery (with only some of the clues).

As for my fry, tonight at feeding time the gravel at the front of the tank was alive with more than a dozen wee ones (and I'm sure there are lots more). My tank is a jungle of plants and some Texas Holey rock, too so there are lots of hiding places for the fry (even with lots of hungry mouths around). It will never be any kind of show tank but it sure does the trick when breeding. :yes: Sometimes weeks after I figure I have netted out all the fry, I find lots more.

As for the newborns, I'm eagerly waiting (as always) to see what colors and finnage they display.