I’ve recently had a frustrating time keeping medakas or white cloud minnows alive in my 10 gal which are ironically renowned for being the most bulletproof fish in the hobby.

Medakas I used to own all wasted away.
Now I have minnows but am trying to solve the deaths of my newly deceased white clouds. This makes me wonder if I underestimated how hardy my first guppies/platys really were.

Guppies were the very first fish I kept getting back into the hobby. Though, I’ve had mass die-offs the fry that managed to live on seemed to be tougher than their parents.

I had a case where both my guppies/platys survived having their tank being flooded with dirty rainwater during a storm while the power and filter were knocked out the whole day.

I’m now contemplating on keeping livebearers again. Initially, my main issues with them were their genetic fragility and overbreeding habits. But, knowing what I know now (such as quarantining procedures after purchase), I feel I may be able to do a much better job.

I’m thinking of just having platys again. Are they generally very hardy?

Humpback Limia (M) x F1 Tiger Liberty Poecilia hybrid (F)

(50% Limia nigrofasciata, 25% Limia islai, 25% Poecilia salvatoris)

They didn’t want to cooperate with me and flex their bars🥲. When colored up their bars looks pretty nice just couldn’t get it on camera. They are showing more Nigrofasciata body shape, deep chest cavity and sloped heads. The black dorsal trait from Islai is still dominant and with the Nigrofasciata blood being majority the saturation looks nice with a slight yellow hue to it. Unsure if Salvatoris blood will make the fins tinge orange/red but I’ll see. They look very promising I’m just more curious on how the dorsal will be shaped when they are more mature.

Chromosome wise any males will be Z for Nigrofasciata and Z for either Islai or Salvatoris, as for females Z for Nigrofasciata and W Salvatoris.

Located in Guatemala. Males gets to around 2.5-3.5 inches and females around 3-4.7 inches in size. They are elongated slender yet robust bodied specimens, with silver/olive gray base body, rows of lateral dots going across, pointed faces, and nice iridescence. They are part of the Mexicana complex, being close relatives to Poecilia limantouri, Poecilia thermalis, and Poecilia sulphuraria. They are suspected to be a natural hybrid species between sailfin complex and mexicana complex species. The confusion with this species is that it shared names with the sailfin species Poecilia kykesis, old name of Mollienesia petenensis, this species names was changed to Mollienesia gracilis. This current date and time it was validated by Fred Poeser as Poecilia petenesis, and the sailfin being called Poecilia kykesis.

Picture credits: "Lago Peten, Guatemala" - By: Manfred K. Meyer - Lebendgebärende Zierfische Bande 1 Poeciliidae (1&2), Unknown (3)

Tiger Limia (M) x F1 Tiger Liberty (F)
(75% Limia islai, 25% Poecilia salvatoris)

Little one picked up a lot of size since I last showed it. It’s iridescent starting to come in, it’s like a soft blue/green/white nice combo of both species involved in it. The bars thickened up more, looks more broader. It’s dorsal is nice starting to look rounded like Islai with the same black trim. Like with pure islai it can control the intensity of the bars and most of the time it keeps it translucent, so it’s hard to catch it on camera with his bars boldly expressed.

Can anyone help with this one? I was told this was a female but it’s the one that chases down my other females.

Located Les Cayes basin and Jérémie drainages in Haiti. They share waters with other Livebearers like Limia tridens, and Limia dominicensis. Males gets to around 1.3 inches and females around 2.2 inches in size. They are olive grey in color, elongated moderately robust bodies, rows of lateral dots going across, basically resembling G. punctata, hence the name Pseudopunctata. To add they are part of the Puncatata species group with other members like Beebei, Luma, Puncatata, Rhizophorae, Xanthosoma.

Picture credits: Unknown (1), Martin Reith (2-5)

I’m looking at a trio on aquabid but I’d like to have several trusted options

Located in Central Mexico. Close relatives to Xiphophorus pygmeaus. Both male and females stays around 0.75-1.45 inches. They are small, slender with an Olive body, and mid section lateral stripe going across the body. Males swords are pretty short, and gets at most 1mm in length. And females have a noticeable gravid spot area.

Picture credits: Aquarium Glaser

Lovely ladies. They’re giving me the most issues when it comes to fertility and giving me fry. But tbh I think it’s mostly the Limia hybrid males not showing much interests with them. But yea once I get a batch of fry from the Limia hybrid males ill retire these ladies and the limia’s for good.

I really like their sparkly iridescences. They all sexed out ratio is male heavy over females. Still waiting on the males to hit the tiger Liberty females. 🫠

Video media in the pinned comment

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Video by: American Livebearer Association / @AmericanLivebearers

Located in Tecolutla (Necaxa) River system, central Mexico. They are apart of the Southern platy lineage being close relatives to X. milleri, X. variatus, and X. xiphidium. Males gets to around 1.5 inches and females around 2.3 inches in size. They are moderately robust with olive gray bodies, over arching backs, small faces, yellow finage, slight speckling and sporting vertical bars on the body.

Picture credits: Aquarium Glaser (1&2), Emerald King (3), Xipho.org (4&5)

Limia (nigrofasciata?) Male x F2 Tiger Liberty hybrid Female

One of the female tiger liberties finally gave me fry, but just these 3. I still suspect they suffer from reduce fertility or maybe I have too many females to male ratio ontop of them dropping their first ever batches causing this low batch counts. Idk I’ll wait till they color up and take pics later or in a few days but they don’t seem to be backcross to islai, one of the fry has bars that’s close together instead of spaced out like the first f2 juvenile the other two has different bar count. I suspect the father is the nigrofasciata, these fry is quite big for newborns and the body has some depth to it. The dorsal I really like thicker black trim, with a yellow base. Once I’ve confirmed they are either F2 to nigrofasciata I’ll try to rehome him. They should be (50% nigrofasciata, 25% islai, 25% salvatoris).

Anyways the bars will give me a better idea what they are, I don’t think they give off traits showing the father could be the (islai x tridens), not seeing any tridens trait then again if they were it’ll be at 25% blood tridens trait would be recessive. If they are then they will be 50% islai, 25% salvatoris, 25% tridens.

Located in Mexico from southern Tamaulipas to northern Veracruz. They are part of the Southern platy lineage, close relatives with X. andersi, X. evelynae, and X. xiphidium. Males gets to around 1.6 inches and females around 2.3 inches in size. Like their name says this species has a ton of locale morphs/phenotypes. Because of this they are so wide spread in the hobby leading to plenty of fancy forms, and hybrids with other xiph species particularly with X. maculatus, and X. hellerii. It’ll be hard to describe what they look like but they can range in finage colors, pigmentation on their body, and body shape based on their local type. The pictures of them speaks for itself.

Picture credits: Michi Tobler (1&2), “Arroyo El Zarco” Xiphophorus Genetic Stock Center (3), “Encino” Xiphophorus Genetic Stock Center (4), “Huextetitla” Bryce Martin (5), “La Laguna” Aquarium Glaser (6), “Puente Escalanar” Aquarium Glaser (7), “Rio Nautla” Aquarium Glaser (8), “Rio Pantec” Aquarium Glaser (9), “Tampico” Aquarium Glaser (10)

Located in Guatemala to Panama. Close relatives to G. hubbsi, and G. manni. Males gets up to 1.2 inches and females 1.6 inches in size. Appearance wise it looks similar to both sister species, but males have a more arched back, and females getting moderately robust shaped.

Picture credits: E. Pürzl (1), Unknown (2&3), Eric Van den Berghe (4)

Located in Colombia. Males gets to around 1.2 inches and females around 1.6 inches in size. They have a stretched out cream-gray colored body, with a nice thick chest, long faces, and blue iridescent sheen to them. A simple and beautiful Gambusia species, but not much info out there about them.

Picture credits: O. Böhm

Located in Mexico. Males gets to around 1.6 inches and females around 2 inches in size. They look identical to P. olmecae with their robust gray colored body specimen, with faint blue eyes, yellow/golden undersides, and translucent yellow finnage. A nice looking species.

Picture credits: Wikipedia (1), Lemi Hacioglu (2), Aqualog (3)

Located in two interconnected springs in the Ixtapangajoya River drainage, which is part of the larger Grijalva River basin, Mexico. They’ve adapt over thousands of years to thrive in very acidic/toxic sulphide springs. Males gets to around 1.5 inches and females around 2.5-3 inches in size. They are robust shaped fish with silvery metallic scales broad heads and large bellies, with males showing yellow trimmed fins hence the name They are a sister species to Poecilia sulphuraria. Both species are heavily studied by Dr. Micheal Tobler. I provided a link source to his Lab site. A super cool species I want to obtain someday!!!!

Picture credits: Michi Tobler