How to Breed Livebearers

You pretty much can't mess up trying to breed livebearers. They do it like crazy. Insert slot A into Slot B. ;) Livebearers are the group of fish that give birth to free swimming fry. The eggs are fertilized internally. As a result, when the mother gives birth, the baby fry drop and start swimming immediately.

Examples of COMMON Livebearers for sale at any fish store:

• Fancy guppies, wild guppies
• Mollies
• Platies
• Endler's Livebearers
• Swordtails
• Variegated Platy

How to Breed Livebearers

Requirements

• A nice decent sized aquarium, 10G+
  
• A suitable filtration system
• Heater
• Live plants for the fry to hide in (cabomba, java moss, hornwort etc)
• Decorative cave
• Breeding box/net
• A male and female fish. Sometimes more than one female is required to avoid harassment.

After this setup is complete, just let your fish do their business! Some people think breeding boxes ("cages" where females are kept so that when they give birth, the fry will drop down to a different compartment and can be "saved" from hungry fish) stress out fish and are cruel. I share a similar view. Personally, the best way to go (for livebearers) is to just let them be. Let them do whatever they do naturally.

***Remember ***

You are responsible for the fry! Livebearers produce up to hundreds of free-swimming babies. Please think about how to deal with so many babies BEFORE you start the breeding process.


Common Ways to Deal with Fry

- Put them in a separate, fry ONLY tank and let them grow.
- Sell them (if you're a breeder)
- Give them away to friends, family, people you meet on the street...
- Let them get eaten by hungry fish
- Let them get eaten by their own parents
- Cull them (Kill them) as humanely as possible
- Give them to the local fish store
- Sell them as feeders
- Give away the female fish to prevent further births

Feeding the Fry

- Baby Brine shrimp
- Finely crushed tropical flakes
- Liquid fry food
- Chopped up worms

Or you could do what I do: let them all fend for themselves in the big community tank. It may sound cruel but there's reasons why I do this:

- Ensures only the fittest fry survive
- Keeps population under control
- It's almost impossible to feed a fry raised in a community tank because they get so easily scared that they just dart away and hide
- Can't find them because they're so tiny




Strong babies show visible signs of growth sometimes overnight! They are so cute!! :)