I had same problem, with deaths of livebearers females. I noticed that most of deaths comes from females that i bought from stores. Most of the deaths came after first birth. But after i raised youngsters to the breeding sizes, i didnt have same problem at all. Best example is: i bought "koi" swordtails ~about 6 times, each time like 8-12 fishes, most of fishes didnt reached even breeding sizes, unknown deaths. But then i grew some of those to the breeding size and they gave me some eggs or dead youngsters. And then atlast one of them bred nicely and i had like 40+ youngsters, raised 99percent of them to the breeding size, and right now i breed them with no deaths and nice survival rate.

p.s. my boght fishes, all come from diferent country (where i live there is no good breeders) and i always buy from same store mabe that is my case.

atlast i got one of these too
http://s647.photobucket.com/albums/uu ... view¤t=DSC_8524.jpg
http://s647.photobucket.com/albums/uu ... view¤t=DSC_8535.jpg
i bred it from blacktail lyratail X.Helleri. Already crosing with other lyratails, blood red red eye and Koi x.helleri.

well right now i'm working with food, i quit feeding my fish with flakes and have started making food, females in breeding tanks seems healthy and takes this food with no hesitation, but if aquarium is without plants, water quality drops pretty fast. And just tested that thing with youngsters to put them in small tank and feed with brine shrimp, they seems growing faster than in large tank and i used only ice cubes of brine shrimps+some of my own made food and some discus beef heart mix

and for salt i have some difficulties with koy swordtails, this is like 5th boght from dealer, from rest 4 boghts left only 1 male every time i buy like 15-20 of them, they seems healthy for like 1-2 weeks and then in few days all gone, i think mabe salt would help me to change anything. Mabe anyone have difficulties with them too, and could help me with them?

Hello,
right now i'm interested about salt in freshwater aquariums, i saw some articles where's written that salt is good, then i talked with some people they said that salt is bad, so i wonder is anyone of you add salt in you aquarium.

Hello,
for the first time i there creating food for livebearers i checked table from here http://www.allnaturalpetcare.com/Form ... _Fish_Food_Nutrition.html
BASIC NUTRIENT REQUIREMENTS FOR FISH
so i collected ~35 ingredients and mixed all together. Livebearers don't eat all of ingredients but leftovers eat snails, ancitrus, coridorus and so on. I just began to feed them with own food so can't tell any differences.

p.s. get so many food that had to use bath to mix it

thank you very much, with that info i just got i think i can start somethink to cook.

well i already did some research before posting here, just thought that someone from forum is already testing with food and could tell some results.I found lots of recepts but can't find any for livebearers, like i said before most of recepts is for cichlids.

p.s. found really good site about this if anyone interested check
http://americanaquariumproducts.com/Quality_Fish_Food.html

so does all of you buy fish food, or is it such big secret recepts.

most of them swordtails some platys, guppies, veliferas, molies. Would be nice to get recept for youngsters, for now growth rate of swordtails is slover than slow.

Is there anyone who there trying to make fish food for livebearers? I there trying to search for some recepts, but most of them are for discus or other cichlids.