American Livebearer Association :: Forum

Re: Pike Liverbearers [by shadowhyrst]

Fri, 24 May 2013 18:49:54 -0100

General Discussion::Pike Liverbearers
The fry can sometimes be induced to eat some flake food, but it was always my experience that the best way to 'raise' them was to ensure the food that they were going to get was well fed--packaging the flake food sort of. One just had to sacrifice lots of baby fish and then larger ones as time went by.

Re: A convention to convention journal (2013-2014) [by joefish72]

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:23:08 -0100

General Discussion::A convention to convention journal (2013-2014)
WEEK4: This has been an uneventful week, and that is just the way I like it. There are no signs of ill fish, nothing fighting, and nothing had babies.

I have been thinking about the Characodons that I lost and I'm pretty sure I figured out my mistake. Like most times I bought more fish than I had proper tanks for. So I put that group in a bare tank, and I know better. From what I guess is they just stressed each other out until that one female remained. That single fish seems quite content to be alone.

I have several tanks in the works, being heavily planted, so I can get this female into the correct conditions before she drops. I'll add her and some heterandria formosa so she is used to being around smaller fish. I have found the formosa to be excellent fish for conditioning just about all livebearers to the presence of small fish. They work very well with goodeids because the adult formosa are similar in size and coloring of the goodeid fry.

Re: w/c poecillia gilli (rio oyate) [by mattandtomlivebearers]

Wed, 22 May 2013 03:17:19 -0100

General Discussion::w/c poecillia gilli (rio oyate)
They look like the Poecilia gillii that I have. However, they are a fish common to Costa Rica, but Costa Rica is right next to Nicaragua. There does appear to be a difference in size description depending on the reference. I have seen anywhere from 2.5cm to 10.5cm. My females are currently 6-8cm in size. I did obtain these P. gillii from another ALA member. Where they were caught I do not know.
If anybody else knows more about this species, please contribute.

Re: ALA Convention 2014 [by Devon1953]

Sun, 12 May 2013 21:59:31 -0100

General Discussion::ALA Convention 2014
I for one would like to know also so That I can start planing also.. the sooner the better..

Re: Platies Prone to Melanoma Get DNA Decoded [by ktk05]

Thu, 09 May 2013 14:45:54 -0100

General Discussion::Platies Prone to Melanoma Get DNA Decoded
Very cool! Though my platies never give brth to 100+. Has anyboday here experienced such a large brood?

Re: BAP Support [by Melody]

Sun, 05 May 2013 15:40:47 -0100

General Discussion::BAP Support
WOW! We know where Livebearer enthusiasts need to be for variety - an ALA convention! Thanks for sharing the list and thank you to all who participated.

STUDY: Fish win fights on strength of personality (X. birchmanni) [by Melody]

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:32:09 -0100

General Discussion::STUDY: Fish win fights on strength of personality (X. birchmanni)
This won't surprise hobbyists, but it's interesting. I don't know how many times I've sat in front of an aquarium mumbling, "You're three times his size, put him in his place!" when a barely legal Guppy bullies bigger fish.

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Scientists at the University of Exeter and Texas A&M University found that when fish fight over food, it is personality, rather than size, that determines whether they will be victorious. Photo: University of Exeter.

The study, published in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, found that small fish were able to do well in contests for food against larger fish provided they were aggressive. Regardless of their initial size, it was the fish that tended to have consistently aggressive behaviour - or personalities - that repeatedly won food and as a result put on weight.

Fish win fights on strength of personality

Re: Large Platies [by repfarm]

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:24:40 -0100

General Discussion::Large Platies
On sexual activity stunting growth, I was a python breeder for some years. If you kept a female from breeding for a couple years longer than most people did, the female would grow larger, live longer, produce larger offspring, and more offspring. Reproduction is a very taxing process.

Not a fish of course, but I think the example helps confirm the idea that reproduction stunts size.

Quote:

joefish72 wrote:
I agree with both side of this debate. If the genetics limit the size of a fish there is no degree of care that will alter the maximum size. On the other side if a fish has the genetic potential to be large but is given poor care it can stunt the growth.

One theory I have is that sexual activity also stunts growth. My thought is that once the fish begin to breed they put more energy into mating than growing so this also stunts growth. I don't have the exact scientific proof as I am not a scientist but I have experimented and found data to support my claim.

My female swordtail pictured above has sibling brothers that are much smaller because they sexed out early. Because I separate my males and females the males continue to grow and they reach a size almost as big as the females.

More than once, I took a brood of swordtails, separated 15 into separate tanks, and raised them to 7 months old, and none of them sexed out yet. I introduced a breeder male and they sexed out the next week. One group I kept together, the other group I separated as I always do. The males in the group that stayed together, they only grew slightly larger than when they sexed out, the other group was just over 3 inches when they stopped growing. These fish came from the same parents and all other broods from the same two parents have reached the 4 inch mark when raised apart for 18 months.

My theory may be just a coincidence but I believe further work could prove it correct.

Re: Livebearers Bulletin [by platymef]

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:15:43 -0100

General Discussion::Livebearers Bulletin
[quote]
Mrbill wrote:
The first "red Jet Swords" (with a distinct separation between red and black) were the result of Myron Gordon's experiments crossbreeding a red helleri with a cortezi. The illustrations label the fish as "montezuma" but the illustrations CLEARLY show cortezi - short sword, stocky body.

Bill, yes I have copies of the original articles and photographs of that experiment. Yes, that was at the time when there was confusion between X.Montezumae, X.Cortezi and other species which weren't common to the hobby then.
There were photographs of "Red Jets" from SWordtail x Platy crosses, but as you said the separation between Red and Black wasn't as distinct nor were the swords as nice (judging by the photos only.)

Darrell

Re: Heterandria formosa gold morph and wild [by ubstamps]

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:23:33 -0100

General Discussion::Heterandria formosa gold morph and wild
Press on and good luck!