We got this very nice Poecilia latipinna during a recent collecting trip to Mustang Island. I wrote about the trip in a previous blog. Pictured is a young male and a young female. The male will undoubtedly be spectacular when he matures. The other young males collected are just as nice. They are ... Read More
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Collecting Trip to Mustang Island
Recently my family rented a house on Mustang Island at Port Aransas, Texas for a family outing. Mustang Island is a barrier island just north of and similar to the more famous Padre Island. While there, I managed to arrange a quick collecting trip to two sites. The first was a bayside sand flat and ... Read More
How We Raise Livebearers
This blog results from an email I got from a hobbyist, Christy. She wrote: “Hello, I'm a small hobbyist and I was wondering if you would share your breeding setups for platies and mollies. It sounds like you get a good number of fish from your tanks with the schedule and setup. Best of ... Read More
Poeciliopsis gracilis, the Porthole Livebearer
The photo is of a pair of Poeciliopsis gracilis, the porthole livebearer, male right and female left. We acquired our starting breeders of this species from Rusty Wessel in 2008. Rusty collected the fish from Rio Copan in Honduras. I recently wrote a column about them for Tropical Fish Hobbyist. ... Read More
Paramecium
The photo is a bucket of water and mulm from a cichlid vat that sat overnight. The milky cloud above and to the left of the net is a large number of Paramecium multimicronucleatum. This is the largest Paramecium and a single one is almost visible to the naked eye. And, as you can tell, swarms of ... Read More
Flame Variatus
The first photo is of a male Flame Variatus and the second of a female. This is a commercial (domestic) strain of Xiphophorus variatus. Like most commercial xiphophorines (swordtails, platies, and variatus), this fish is likely to be of hybrid origin, although the strain clearly is primarily X. ... Read More
Redtail Blue Tuxedo Variatus
The photo is of a male Redtail Blue Tuxedo Variatus, a commercial (domestic, if you prefer) strain of Xiphophorus variatus. Like most commercial xiphophorines (swordtails, platies, and variatus), this fish is likely to be of hybrid origin, although the strain clearly is primarily X. variatus based ... Read More
Redtail Black Variatus
The photo is of a male Redtail Black Variatus, a commercial (domestic, if you prefer) strain of Xiphophorus variatus. Like most commercial xiphophorines (swordtails, platies, and variatus), this fish is likely to be of hybrid origin, although the strain clearly is primarily X. variatus based on its ... Read More
Xiphophorus mayae
The photo is of an adult male Xiphophorus mayae. This is a wild swordtail species we acquired in 2012 at the American Livebearer Association (ALA) convention auction in Fort Lauderdale. ALA’s annual convention auction offers a great chance of picking up unusual and rare livebearers. The 2014 ... Read More
Blue Opal Wag Maculatus
The photo is of an adult female Blue Opal Wag Maculatus. This is a commercial (domestic) maculatus-type variety that we are developing. First, why do I say maculatus-type? Because, while it has the general shape and fins of Xiphophorus maculatus, it is of hybrid parentage. Since it has a wag ... Read More