Mix breeding

[Tommy10]

I have reserved some Molly's platys and swordtails at my LPS and online it said they might cross breed and that would be bad. Is this something i need to be concerned about or is it no big deal?

 

[Andy Sager]

I have reserved some Molly's platys and swordtails at my LPS and online it said they might cross breed and that would be bad. Is this something i need to be concerned about or is it no big deal?

If your goal is to breed these fish for certain colors or characteristics, then yes you should be concerned and not mix these fish together. If your goal is to just see what and if anything happens, then NO you don;t need to be concerned. The cross breeding is only injurious to the fry (genetically speaking) not the parents.

Hope this helps

 

[henningc]

Typically you end up with some ugly little fish. Just don't re-home them or give them away. We should all hold back any hybreds we create.

 

[Tommy10]

Okay thanks guys

 

[Andy Sager]

Typically you end up with some ugly little fish. Just don't re-home them or give them away. We should all hold back any hybreds we create.

I hate to disagree but I have to There are some fish that were/are available on the market that were the results of hybridization. Some of the Platys and Swordtails fall into this catagory as well as the Mollies. SELECTIVE hybridizing has yielded some very nice fish. Willy Nilly hybridizing often yields "ugly" or sterile offspring.
But I do agree with the rest of your comment, they should not be re- homed to other individuals without them knowing the full lineage.

 

[Tommy10]

Would a local pet store buy them off me or atleast take them for free?

 

[Andy Sager]

Would a local pet store buy them off me or atleast take them for free?

If you have good lines and nice colors, some stores may buy them from you or give you store credit towards merchandise HOWEVER, if they are not nice looking ( which most hybrids aren't) they will be worth very little and probably just used as feeder fish. I strongly suggest that if you are breeding these fish to sell the offspring, do specie specific tanks and don;t let them interbreed.

Hope this helps

 

[Tommy10]

I am not intending on breeding them but if by chance they bred by themselves I was just planning ahead on what I could and should do

 

[Andy Sager]

I am not intending on breeding them but if by chance they bred by themselves I was just planning ahead on what I could and should do

I am of the opinion (and I'm sure I am not alone) that the best thing to do with them would be to offer them as food fish only and here's why:
Say you got a beautiful little fish from a cross and you give it or sell it to a store. A customer comes in and sees the fish and thinking it's a pure bred, falls in love with the fish and buys it with the intention of making more of them by breeding this one. So now they invest some more money in getting another one that looks similar and puts in the time and effort to bring these fish into perfect breeding conditions and then the fish don't produce or they produce produce offspring that are deformed, a different color or just die not too long after birth. So now the poor customer is asking the store or anyone online who might have an idea why this happened and after getting a number of different possibilities, goes with the one that says to try it again and see what happens so they invest more time and effort and money only to have a similar outcome. So now frustrated and wondering what more can be done, they decide to either give up or maybe worse, decide fish keeping isn't for them cause they obviously can't get simple livebearers to make healthy babies. (You see where this is going? ) This whole thing could have been avoided by not putting these fish into the general population of the hobby.
Now I may have over exaggerated this a little but think of it as "What if this was you on the receiving end of these fish and your intention was to breed them? "
That's all I'm saying

 

[Tommy10]

If they do breed I'll just keep them in my tank until they grow up or die/get eaten

 

[Tommy10]

Or I'll keep the pretty ones and give the difformed to the LPS as feeder fish

 

[Andy Sager]

Or I'll keep the pretty ones and give the difformed to the LPS as feeder fish

 

[Andy Sager]

Or I'll keep the pretty ones and give the difformed to the LPS as feeder fish

 

[Tommy10]

Haha thanks for the help