feeder guppies or Endler's Livebearer??

[daveedka]

Feeders usually have a very high mortality rate, largely due to the conditions they are kept in before you receive them. One of the problems with buying feeders and q-tanking them before feeding them to your fish is that they often die at an alarming rate. It is more likely just a result of any one of a million or so things that they have been subjected to before you brought them home. It's highly possible that something else is killing them, but just as likely IME that they are just dying off. Have heart though, if your females are pregnant, then they will spawn and you will quickly have more than you ever wanted. IME fish born and raised in my own tanks instead of the mass vlume LFS feeder tanks do a lot better. there will come a day soon when you will be looking for ways to get rid of them.
Dave

 

[chrisinha]

Feeders usually have a very high mortality rate, largely due to the conditions they are kept in before you receive them. One of the problems with buying feeders and q-tanking them before feeding them to your fish is that they often die at an alarming rate. It is more likely just a result of any one of a million or so things that they have been subjected to before you brought them home. It's highly possible that something else is killing them, but just as likely IME that they are just dying off. Have heart though, if your females are pregnant, then they will spawn and you will quickly have more than you ever wanted. IME fish born and raised in my own tanks instead of the mass vlume LFS feeder tanks do a lot better. there will come a day soon when you will be looking for ways to get rid of them.
Dave

yep, two females look very pregnant... let's see. thanks for your input. i feel better now!

 

[SnakeIce]

I didn't know that the endlers had been in the hobby that long unidentified. my tfh livebearers book predates the article I found anouncing the exsistence of the species by a couple of years. the article made it sound like the exsisting wild population was so limited in area taht I didn't think they had been introduced to the hobby unknown before the official discovery.

honestly when I first saw pictures of the wild forms of endlers I was drooling over the possibility of getting a line of all green males... that was the color that set them off from the guppies. obviously that would take time and was befor I knew how limited their numbers are.

 

[daveedka]

I've only read a limited number of articles, and some claims are definately arbitrary. a couple that I read claimed that they were not identified as being seperate until a few years ago, others claim that they weren't discovered at all until a few years ago. Every thing I have read agrees with the fact that they are limited in natural habitation and therefore limited in availability. either way, many of the feeders I've had could pass inspection and be called pure endlers by someone unsavory enough to do that. others bear little or no resemblance in color or markings. More and more we see pictures of these fish on the boards, but honestly 7-8 years ago, I was raising and feeding out these little guys while fully believing that they were simply common guppies. Someday I plan to get some pure endlers and keep them just for fun. For now the cross bred fish are it. Another thing that seems to be an argument is the ability of the cross bred fish to reproduce. some articles claim that the hybrid fish won't reproduce others claim they will. All of them I have had were prolific to the point of being scary. But recently I have culled out all new males, and left every female. my goal is partly to limit in breeding, but also to see if the smaller females when bred with fancy guppies continue to reproduce for multiple generaations. I switch out male guppies pretty regularly to keep the g3ene pool fresh, so it should be a good test.
dave