Photo of a possible Limia vittata/Poecilia mexicana hybrid. The upper fish is a female Limia vittata. The bottom fish is a possible female Limia vittata/Poecilia mexicana hybrid. I have tried for years to produce a molly/Limia hybrid to no avail until maybe now. Why would I attempt this? ... Read More
breeding
Developing and Setting a New Fish Strain
Photo: A young breeder male Skyblue Dragon Blood Peacock Cichlid. One of my favorite aquaculture activities is the development of new strains of fish with new colors, fins, shapes, etc. That isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy maintaining wild-type fish and pure species as they appear in nature, but ... Read More
Gold OB Peacock
Photo: A breeder male Gold OB Peacock in a five-gallon bucket as he is being processed before being moved back into his breeding colony. WARNING!!! This is a rather long and geeky fish blog for my fishkeeping friends. I decided to kill two birds (or fish, whatever!) with one stone by 1) ... Read More
Giant Green Sailfin Molly
Photo: A large male Green Sailfin Molly from four years ago and one of our breeders used in our attempt to create a giant molly. For about eight years, I’ve been working to develop a very large Green Sailfin Molly, which I creatively named Giant Green Sailfin Mollies (“GGSM” for short for the ... Read More
A Possible Female Guppy/Molly Hybrid
Photo: A possible Poecilia reticulata (guppy) x Poecilia mexicana, Campeche (molly) hybrid in front of a grid to show size. We found the fish in the above photograph January 15th of this year. Before I describe the fish and argue why I think it might be a hybrid, let me give you some ... Read More
Teas, Fish, and Chickens
Photo: Greenhouses without their covers immediately after Hurricane Harvey. Note the trees in the background stripped of their leaves by the hurricane force winds. So, what do tea, fish, and chickens have in common? This blog will tie them together. Our farm and hatchery have had two ... Read More
Developing a Strain from a Single Fish
Photo: Two very young male Bronze Sailfin Mollies showing the improved coloration I selected for. They are too young to sport nice sailfins, but they grew up with large dorsals. As evidence of their youth, look at their gonopodia (anal fin), which are just beginning to develop. How many times ... Read More
Poecilia formosa – Amazon Molly
Photo: Two Poecilia formosa, Amazon mollies, collected from Coleto Creek at Highway US 77 in Victoria County, Texas. December 12, 2017, four of us plus two German Shepherds went collecting on Coleto Creek in Victoria County, Texas (see my blogs: ... Read More
Lucania goodei, the Blue Fin Killifish
Photo: A group of Lucania goodei, the bluefin killifish, in a sorting jar. While collecting fish in Coleto Creek in Victoria County, Texas (I’ll be blogging about this collecting trip shortly) with our nephew (Darin), his wife (Anne), and three-year-old daughter (Sylvie), Darin picked a ... Read More
Fancy Red Tuxedo Swordtails
Photo: Female Red Tuxedo Lyretail Swordtail. As is typical of our strain, females don’t have as bright red coloration as males. We’ve started working on adding three fancy fin types, lyretail, hifin, and plumetail to each of our commercial swordtail, maculatus, and variatus lines. I’m going to ... Read More