Endler/Guppy Love-In Tank: A Bad Idea?

spingo

spingo

Tired-eyed noob
Jan 14, 2007
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elreyart.com
Hallo everyone! I've been reading and enjoying tons of AC posts over the last couple of weeks. (The latest regarding ich, brought on by a Petsmart purchase. Live and learn.)

My latest big idea: I want to put various kinds of fancy guppies and some Endler's livebearers together (maybe a little Barry White on the hi-fi) and just see what kind of kooky mixes appear. Some of the hybrids on Adrian HD's site are insane, for instance.

I'm not interested in breeding a specific single strain; I want to get some serious mix and matching happening. I just want a pack of pretty fish; I don't really care what color or pattern they are.

I'm limited to 31" width (but 36" length) for where I'd like to put this, though I could maybe put something in the other room. I'm thinking a 20 long or 30 breeder tank in a kind of ghetto-Iwagumi style (that is, without CO2 and all the fancy planted tank business, if I can find some kind of ground cover that I can manage to keep alive). I don't really like vertical tanks, but if one's needed for SCIENCE I can maybe suck it up.

I've been hitting Elmer's list of tanks pretty hard to see what will fit in the 31" space. If budget wasn't an issue, a 30 cube or 54 corner would be swell. Maybe one'll show up on Craigslist.

My questions:

- Will the colors fade if I let all of 'em cross-breed as they are wont to do?

- Will only a small percentage be attractive at all? Are most culled fancy guppies plain-looking? I'd like to be able to give away most of them, but if they're ugly, I guess they go to the store for the feeder tank.

- Will my LFS (the splendid Phoenix Tropical Fish) and potential fish offloadees care if they're hybrids and turn me away?

- Is 20g enough? (I have a 10g I'll use for the fry.)

- How many trios should I start with?

Thanks!
 
They will hybridize as you know from Adrian's work. I may be a purist but why would you want to destroy a very nice little fish like an endler by mixing it with a guppy. The guppies have been bred so much that each individual fancy guppy strain has lost some of the toughness that a wild guppy has. There are not enough endlers in the world IMO so why introduce them to washed out and less hardy guppies. The work also done by Adrian by line breeding selected endlers may have diminished their hardiness slightly but at least they are not washed out like the hybrids tend to be.
I personally have an endlers only tank and am thinking of expanding into a larger one since they are filling up my 20. Maybe my 40 breeder will hold them for a while.
There is probably a market for pure endlers and I am aware there is a market for carefully selected hybrids like Adrin produces, but who would jump on the opportunity to buy a generic hybrid other than as a feeder?
 
you can do whatever you want with fish in your own tanks, but by mixing the two species completely kills the value of the endlers. feeder guppies in my area are 10-15 cents each, while i have never seen endlers in any of my local stores. most places online they are at least $2-3 each, more with shipping. no matter what you choose to do, make sure that if you let these fish cross-breed all of your potential buyers KNOW that they are hybrids.
 
I wouldn't do it. Endler's are already hard to find purebred. Crossbreeding them, and then selling them, might result in more people doing the same thing and then pruebreds will be even harder to find. Plus, LFSs might not want purebreds anyway.
 
wataugachicken said:
you can do whatever you want with fish in your own tanks, but by mixing the two species completely kills the value of the endlers. feeder guppies in my area are 10-15 cents each, while i have never seen endlers in any of my local stores. most places online they are at least $2-3 each, more with shipping. no matter what you choose to do, make sure that if you let these fish cross-breed all of your potential buyers KNOW that they are hybrids.
Click to expand...
:iagree: 1000%


I have a good variety of pure Endler's; they are "way cool" without needing to hybridize IMHO...
I think the hybrids AdrianHD developed took a lot more work than most folks would ever want to do...and over many years.

--Don
 
I agree with the comments above. Pure Endlers are hard to find and may be endangered in the wild. Many of the hybrids will be less attractive. My Endlers are pure Endler, but there's so much variety in the species that of the about 10 males I have that have colored up (I've got tons of fry, they all start out a drab tan), no 2 are alike and I can tell them all apart. There's lots of different traits in their ancestry that I'm hoping will show up from time to time and I love waiting for the suprises to show up. The colors are so much more brilliant than the average pet store guppies, I have all the variety I want in one species, and pure Endler extras will be easier to find homes for than the less attractive of the hybrid fry. Adrian's hybrids are the pick of the crop and have had the traits narrowed down over several generations. The hybrids don't all look like that.

As for whether a 20 gallon and a 10 for the fry will be enough room, depends on how fast you can give away or sell the fry. A young Endler female may have as few as 4 to 6 fry in her first brood, but a large adult female can have 40. My large female has had 2 broods of about 20 each. My smaller females are starting to have babies, too, now, and in 2 1/2 months I went from 16 to about 75 Endlers. Like guppies, they can store sperm and one breeding can result in several batches of babies about a month apart.
 
Thanks for the responses, folks!

I meant no disrespect to Endler's, which I think are fascinating and excellent. If I bred hybrids I would never ever misrepresent 'em, and would definitely mention that they were hybrids.

I'll be doing this for fun, not money; the main reason I want to breed fish is to get first crack at insanely-colored new fish for myself and to fill up my sister's family's 75G tank for "free." I know that livebearers are prolific, so I just want to try and make sure it would be easy enough to find placement for all the kids.

> I think the hybrids AdrianHD developed took a lot more work than most folks would ever want to do...and over many years

I'm sure of this and I have no intention of going through all that hard work!

I'm sorry for any offense; I guess I was just greedy for more random genes to put into the mix!
 
I was surprised to find either pure Endlers or a hybrid that looks pure being sold at near-feeder prices in a LFS in my current home city of Surabaya, E. Java, Indonesia. We have common guppies in all the drainage ditches, here. I caught some for one of my aquariums and then decided to get some from a LFS to breed in. But, all they had were the Endler's looking ones. They use a variety of FW shrimp and small mollies for feeders here instead of common guppies, in most cases. So, I picked up for males for Rp1,000 (a little over $1 USD). They didn't have any females at the time. Might by some females, if I find them. If not, I guess I'll try and mix them with guppies. However, Endler's look so much better, I'd rather try and keep 'em purebred. The look great with my cherry shrimps, which are indigenous, here.
 
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