Which livebearer should I go with? Platies or Guppies?

[sarah5775]

I am looking for advice from people who have kept different kinds of livebearers.

Last winter my 29 gallon tank was decimated when my heater failed and the temperature went down to 65.

Surviving are:

2 neons
3 black longfin tetras
3 gold barbs
and I recently added 4 zebra danios

I have had mollies for a while in the past. But I've had no success breeding them. I would see the females get big and round, then be thin again, but I never saw a single fry, even though I had a ton of java moss in the tank. I assumed they all got eaten. I don't want to go the fry tank route again, it always ended badly- I think the problem was I didnt' cycle the tank properly. No matter how often I changed the water, my fry always died- only six ever survived out of about four pregnancies. Now of course, they're all gone.

I've been running an extra filter in the 29 gallon for months, planning to set up a second tank, a ten gallon, which I have sitting there (gravel, ornaments, stand, everything ready)

I've wanted an all-livebearer tank for a long time. I plan to add java ferns and a ton of java moss to the ten gallon and make it an all livebearer tank. I think that without the barbs and tetras, some fry will survive. And if the ten gallon starts getting crowded, I can move some fish over to the 29 gallon.

My question- what type of livebearers should I go with? I think a ten gallon may be too small for mollies. Am I right? I am thinking guppies or platies. Which would people recommend? Which is more hardly and easy to take care of? I am looking forward to peoples' opinions. Let me know what you think!

 

[FishEggs]

how about Endlers? i have them in my 40 gal planted community tank and they survive fine with a pair of zebra danios, white cloud minnows, and scissor tail rasboras. i was actually hoping that one of them would keep the numbers down but i have 20 or more fry surviving in the tank. i also have quite a few in my QT tank which is a 5 gal and even they are breeding. I havent figured out what to do with them yet and i don't want any more in my main tank. they are like guppies in fact i believe they are related and they can cross breed with guppies.

 

[haykay]

I second the endler notion very small and stunning! my endler is more beautiful than any of my guppies (in my opinion)
guppies tend to be a bit bigger, and have LOTS of color stains. again great choice and very personable

Platies - cooler water than most other tropiclas and get the biggest out of the 3 livebearers mentiond. Come with great color but not quite the diversity you get with guppies

I personally am not a fan of mollies (too many bad experiances with a mean few) and eventually the 10 probably will be a bit too small but you could always start with one male and 2-3 females and then hope not ALL the fry survive..

 

[sarah5775]

I haven't seen endlers in any of the five pet stores around here. I think they just don't sell them around here (NJ)

I don't imagine you could send me some, Fish Eggs

actually, seriously, I'd buy a few off you, but I dont' think you can ship fish.

Maybe guppies??

 

[FishEggs]

Lots of online pet stores ship fish. it just has to be next day delivery or something like that. What part of NJ are you from? I used to live in South Jersey and my parents still live there. We could maybe work something out. Here is what the males look like. the females look similar to guppy females and get much bigger than the males.

 

[SpeedEuphoria]

You can ship fish in the mail, I just got some from a member on here, everyone is doing well. I got 9 to start for my 10G.

The only difference between guppy's and endlers, is that guppy's are larger and will eat fry(I witnessed it multiple times). I hear that the Endlers will Not eat fry, but havent had any fry born yet to confirm(should be soon as I see a female getting swollen).

 

[FishEggs]

it doesn't seem like they eat the fry since i have them all in the same tank (5 gallon bare QT) and there are plenty of fry in there.

 

[thominil]

hi there,

Might i recommend platys i got like three four months ago (red wags) they died but had 8 babys ine my 10g so had 2 get a 29g =(.

 

[Phoenixphire55]

I'll chime in and say platies seem cooler. I've seen them in a lot of really cool different colors. Plus guppies always seemed lame to me

 

[kimo]

"I second the endler notion very small and stunning! my endler is more beautiful than any of my guppies (in my opinion)
guppies tend to be a bit bigger, and have LOTS of color stains. again great choice and very personable"

Endlers are just a sub species of Guppies. They will interbreed and the first thing you'll notice is loss of color in the Endlers... You have to use the same tricks of inbreeding guppies to recover the color. If you keep both Guppies and Endler's and still want the good color, try to keep the strains seperate and pure.