Livebearers Are Becoming Weaker.

In many older books and magazines, you’ll read how livebearers like Endler’s Livebearers and Guppies are great for beginners because they’re hardy. While this used to be true, it is no longer true. Some of the wild stock have become weaker over time. Unfortunately, most livebearers are now mass produced. As we all know, when things go into mass production, the quality will decline. I’m hoping to share some tips with you to make livebearers a success despite all the challenges.

How Livebearers Are Bred

First, let us understand how the majority of livebearers is bred. For economic reasons, most livebearers are bred in climates where it stays warm even through the winter. Florida, Thailand, Hawaii are all popular spots for people to have a fish farm. The next step is to have a pond where the livebearers can be bred. You can simply place large numbers of livebearers within a large pond. You can then harvest the livebearers as they reproduce. This process makes it very easy to produce a very large amount of livebearers with much less work than aquariums.

However, these systems have several negative consequences. One is inbreeding among livestock. There is no way to control the breeding of siblings or children, and genetic defects can spread unchecked until they are sold to wholesalers. Each farm will have its own way of breeding the fish. Some use cages to prevent culls from breeding etc) Many fish farms now harvest the fish from the ponds and then select quality specimens from sorting tanks in a warehouse. Even though they may look good, their genes can be affected. The “potbellied” varieties of platies and mollies, which are all genetic deformities, have been commercialized to illustrate this point. These were an accidental result of downbreeding.

Parasites

The second problem with the pond style breeding is the introduction of parasites. While the farmers try their best to set up nets and keep pests out of their farms, the fish are exposed to outside influence such as bird parasites. This can have a devastating effect on populations of fish. Fish farms are quarantining the fish for a few days before shipping them out now to watch for parasites. However, if the fish isn’t stressed, they will be able to keep the parasite dormant. It is when the fish becomes stressed during shipping that the parasite is able to grab hold.

Breeding Facilities

A third problem is the concrete used to build ponds. Concrete can leach chemicals into the water, which can raise pH and Hardness. Brackish water may be used instead of freshwater because it is cheaper. This isn’t necessarily bad, but uninformed hobbyists and stores are falling for it. The fish are coming from a high pH and hard water to local water tap conditions normally. This can put the fish into osmotic shock. Which can kill the fish in a few days or leave it very weakened for underlying conditions to finish it off.

Buying Livebearers

We now know the breeding methods of the livebearers that we want to keep, but what can we do about it? One option is to buy locally bred fish. Even if their stock came from a fish farm, the fry will at least avoid osmotic shock from the huge change in water parameters.

Wild Livebearers

Another option is to acquire wild livestock. These animals will be genetically more pure. However, this won’t help you with “Fancy” strains of livebearers. They could still have parasites or go through osmotic shock though. Also, you may want to consider if the species is endangered in the wild and what that may mean to you. Some aquarists intentionally breed wild, endangered fish to up the populations while others avoid them in hopes of keeping more in the wild.

Mimic Natural Water Parameters

This is the option most people choose. Setup your aquarium closer to the breeder’s water parameters.

It was accidental at first. Mollies were one of the first fish to be severely mass produced and hybridized to get all the great colors we have today. As a result, those mollies didn’t live very long. Breeders discovered that mollies could survive in brackish water after quickly researching the subject. Many stores and hobbyists soon added aquarium salt to their tanks to make their tanks brackish. Miraculously, the mollies now did much better! We thought we had figured it out, but some people were using Aquarium Salt and others were using marine salt. Later, we discovered that the benefits of marine salt were derived from the minerals.

Keeping Livebearers Healthy

The battle plan to keep healthy livebearers coming from a fish farm starts with setting up your aquarium for the right pH and hardness of water. Then find out what day your local fish store receives fish. Acquire your fish ideally before they go into the store’s tanks (assuming your local fish store are not livebearer nerds who already set up these types of conditions), take them home and quarantine them in your own setup pH and hard water. Once they are acclimated, they will thrive. Then, slowly but surely, you can bring them to the pH level of your tap water over a period of several months. Eventually, you’ll have fry and they’ll have never known anything other than your tap water. Then you can provide your hobbyists with a stable livebearer.

The trick to the common day livebearer is to minimize stress so that our super colored, extra long finned, genetically down bred fish don’t have to test their immune system. Each new strain of livebearer brings its beauty and deformities with it.

I hope that you have a tank and are ready to give livebearers another chance. They are my favorite type of fish to work with. They can be kept alive for many years once they are stabilized.