Botanica
Aquarium Advice Freak
Hello all! The other night we were visiting my brother and sister-in-law and noticed the HUGE amount of breeding that the live bearers have been doing! I just so happened to have a fully cycled 20g sitting on my kitchen counter waiting for fish...so I went fishing! . I have no idea what they all are...who cross bred with who...or even how many total I ended up with! They are all different shapes and sizes and colors and ages. I took a large clump of his massive hornwort that they were hiding in (my brothers tank is a 220g with angels, gouramis, rainbows and rams...not exactly fry friendly) to float in my tank for the tiny ones to feel at home. My tank has black gravel...not great to find the fry in...but there isn't anything trying to eat them so I guess it will be fine.
Here are my questions....first of all...do I need to worry about genetic defects in these fry because of the mass in/cross breeding going on in my brothers tank? His tank has 2 kinds of swordtails, 5 kinds of platies, and 3 female Dalmation mollies that seem to be always pregnant and huge even tho there is no male Molly. Can these guys cross with mollies?
Another question is how big do they have to be to sex them? The ones who seem large enough to tell all look female. Could I have gotten all female?? How early will I be able to tell the swordtails from the platies? And how soon can they breed with each other? I'd like to separate them if I can...
Here are some pics of what I could get...giving you an idea at the diversity of size, color, age etc. Thanks everyone for any advise!
Here are my questions....first of all...do I need to worry about genetic defects in these fry because of the mass in/cross breeding going on in my brothers tank? His tank has 2 kinds of swordtails, 5 kinds of platies, and 3 female Dalmation mollies that seem to be always pregnant and huge even tho there is no male Molly. Can these guys cross with mollies?
Another question is how big do they have to be to sex them? The ones who seem large enough to tell all look female. Could I have gotten all female?? How early will I be able to tell the swordtails from the platies? And how soon can they breed with each other? I'd like to separate them if I can...
Here are some pics of what I could get...giving you an idea at the diversity of size, color, age etc. Thanks everyone for any advise!