FW live bearers

fishman830

fishman830

Active Member
I have a 10 gal tank, a bunch of fish in there. and awhile ago.. i bought some fish.. a male and a female platy.. sure enough(you can tell the sexes apart very easily) they mated.. and now the female's belly is packed.. so pretty soon within maybe 2 weeks i can expect some fry! i'm excited. i've raised them before from the time they were born till their death
 
beaslbob

beaslbob

Well-Known Member
Just to share some experiences. Usually the parents tend to eat almost all the babies so they sell all the live bearer nesting or breader boxes to keep the babies away from the parents.
Skipping a few steps: I established a FW tank with sand and live plants in 1979. After three weeks I had a male and female red wag in there. Tore the tank down for a move in 1986. There were still descendants from those original 2 platties in the tank. Babies hid in the live plants and survived. No water changes, no air stones, no filters, just the plants. The only algae was a thin crusty algae I scrapped off every six months or so. I have done the same thing about 4 times since then. Only the tanks were only running for 1-3 years. So it wasn't unusual.
 
fishman830

fishman830

Active Member
i have no filtration.. just an airsoft and some fake plants.
Also i run no heater, I've tryed breeding those same fish with a heater with no luck. then the time si tryed w/o a heater i had better luck
 
beaslbob

beaslbob

Well-Known Member
Well you may want to try some live plants. I think the hiding places combined with fw pods on the live plants help. I never use a heater also.
Also with live plants you will have little to no algae.
 
reef_magic

reef_magic

Member
FW live plants are a lot nicer than SW macros.....i have lots of plants in my FW tank.
i also like to raise baby livebearers! they are so neat and so cute and little :D i also tried bettas....pretty darn hard b/c my male DID NOT like any other fish and he killed 3 females.....they did do their "mating dance" once though, no eggs however :nope:
but, my first babies were green swordtails. i had em about 2 weeks, when i come home from school to find a tank of bioled babies due to a crappy heater malfunction. now im workin on guppies :D
ironically, today i pciked up another female betta:D
this is a new male and a whole enw setup......cant wait for the magic to begin :yes:
 
fishman830

fishman830

Active Member
I've had success in the birth of zebra danios and the eggs of discus have been laid.. unfortunayl somone in the tank ate them!
 
reef_magic

reef_magic

Member
how big is ur FW tank fishman?
i also picked up a live plant for my FW tank.....i found a baby snail hitchhiker! i hope to God it doesnt mass produce with my other one
when do snails reach sexual maturity?
 
beaslbob

beaslbob

Well-Known Member

Originally posted by Reef_Magic
how big is ur FW tank fishman?
i also picked up a live plant for my FW tank.....i found a baby snail hitchhiker! i hope to God it doesnt mass produce with my other one
when do snails reach sexual maturity?
Just like lr and macros in salt, I have always gotten snails from FW plants. Even without live snails the plants usually have snail eggs. They will reproduce quickly but not to the point where every inch is a snail. I just let the seek whatever population level the tank can support. And they are basically the cleaner crews for FW.
edit: further snales do not have to reach sexual maturity. They reporduce asexually as well as sexually.
 
shels

shels

Member
My rubber eels decided to breed and have babies. Came home late one nite and we had 7 baby rubber eels swimming around. They still had their sacks attached to the back of there heads. They looked like they had superman capes on. That was 3 years ago, then one of the babies had babies about 6 months ago. (She had 3). It really is an amazing thing.
 
fishman830

fishman830

Active Member

Originally posted by Reef_Magic
how big is ur FW tank fishman?
i also picked up a live plant for my FW tank.....i found a baby snail hitchhiker! i hope to God it doesnt mass produce with my other one
when do snails reach sexual maturity?
it's only a 10 gal..lol
 
phreakemup

phreakemup

Member
I've been gone for a while... I come back, and bob is still preaching about plants plants plants.. They solve this, and that... Sure, if u have some plants in there, it's more of a natural enviornment, and what nto, but plants are not a necessity, and should not be solely depended on, for an ecosystem... I have been dealing w/ FW for a long time now.. (probably not as long as bob, but times are chaing my friend) and sure, I have a planted tank, but I didnt put the plants in there, to take care of all my filtration needs.. they are in there aesthetics, and for some of my filtration.....
Phreak
 
fishman830

fishman830

Active Member
when i had discus in my 55 i had a HOB filter and one of those sand canister what evers.. and that's it then i had some plants in there. the tank flourished.
 
beaslbob

beaslbob

Well-Known Member

Originally posted by Fishman830
when i had discus in my 55 i had a HOB filter and one of those sand canister what evers.. and that's it then i had some plants in there. the tank flourished.
I fully agree.
(obviously :D )
It is so obvious to me that using plant life to consume animal waste has to be the best method. Just like in nature.
In FW I don't use any other filtration.
I salt I do have circulation and move the water through a calcium carbonate source. Currently crushed oyster shells.
But when you even just allow the hair and slime algae thrive, the tank is so much easier to maintain. If you want a different look then use plant life you like or hide it all in a refugium.
But without that plant life you will have many problems.
 
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