I had had on and off success with livebearers for years. Some were great, others I couldn't keep alive for more than 6 months ever! I dig around on the internet looking for what I'm doing wrong etc. Always come up with nothing. Being that I've bred and kept many "hard to keep" fish, how could I be failing so much with mollies, guppies, platies, swordtails?
Finally after delving into livebearers for far too many hours. I started building a hypothesis. That while they're a mass produced fish, maybe there was just no chance they could be healthy.
So after researching that even more, I find that it's due to the shock of the fish being raised in a cement pond somewhere warm. Where the ph and hardness is sky high from the cement leeching into the water. Then shipped to my soft water area.
I even had a tank of mollies that I had picked up, just to try and get them stable for my grandmother. About a week after in my water with sensitive other fish, they started developing white patches on the fins. This is associated with stress. I then added a large piece of reef bone to the tank, basically a large piece of coral. 4 days later all spotting has cleared up and the mollies have erect fins and are doing much better.
After this experience I start talking to other livebearer enthusiasts and many of the oldschool guys already knew this was a common problem. However I have never heard about it being a problem on the internet.
So I wrote an article on it to help educate people on the hardships of the common day livebearer.
Have a look on my blog if you want to read the whole rightup. But really it's just higher hardness = more success with farm raised livebearers.
Finally after delving into livebearers for far too many hours. I started building a hypothesis. That while they're a mass produced fish, maybe there was just no chance they could be healthy.
So after researching that even more, I find that it's due to the shock of the fish being raised in a cement pond somewhere warm. Where the ph and hardness is sky high from the cement leeching into the water. Then shipped to my soft water area.
I even had a tank of mollies that I had picked up, just to try and get them stable for my grandmother. About a week after in my water with sensitive other fish, they started developing white patches on the fins. This is associated with stress. I then added a large piece of reef bone to the tank, basically a large piece of coral. 4 days later all spotting has cleared up and the mollies have erect fins and are doing much better.
After this experience I start talking to other livebearer enthusiasts and many of the oldschool guys already knew this was a common problem. However I have never heard about it being a problem on the internet.
So I wrote an article on it to help educate people on the hardships of the common day livebearer.
Have a look on my blog if you want to read the whole rightup. But really it's just higher hardness = more success with farm raised livebearers.
