Anyone keep endlers?

[NoGi]

So anyone else here keep endlers? I think I'm hooked on them.

[Zorba]

Yep me too, They are a lovely little fish with a great personality

[NoGi]

Love to see some pics when you get a chance. I'm only just starting out with endlers and learning the basics at the moment. 

[Baccus]

I have endlers and even though i love their colours and activity, what I hate about them and its now driving me balmy along with running out of room is the sheer numbers of non stop babies they produce. I have resorted to introducing some much larger rainbow fish to the tank of endlers (its a 4ft so the rainbows arent being squished into a nano tank), to try and "naturally" reduce the numbers of endlers making to adulthood and further breeding.

On a side note I have discovered that pacific blue eyes are particularly good at keeping endler numbers in check. In one tank that for over 6 months has had 2 mature female endlers and a very active male endler not 1 endler fry has been seen.

Some of mine

This was my favourite boy, notice his love heart in the tail.

 

[lodo]

May I suggest selective breeding, keeping only fish with your favourite traits, and culling the rest. Shops would usually accept guppies as they are a high selling fish. If you could produce a line of that first fish you'd be onto a winner

[Baccus]

I was trying to be selective in which males I kept and get rid of the ones I didnt want but the endlers didnt sell so great at my local pet shop so they really reduced the numbers they where willing to get off me and the frequency. Of course that delay just enabled the endlers to keep producing more and more babies that in turn where near impossible to move on.

[NoGi]

Probably really obvious but how do you sex endlers? And is it normal for the young (fry?) to be colourless?

[revolutionhope]

males can be sexed first in my experience - by appearance of colour. u csn pick the females by the gravid spot on their bum :-) fry are always colourless as are the mature females. love n peace will

[Baccus]

Young males should start to show the beginings of colour fairly early, but you can also sex them the same way as male guppies with the gonopodium, which will also start to elongate fairly early in their development.

[joshwillis55]

I bought a pair and now have at least 50 fry from the two fish

[joshwillis55]

Here's a pic of my starting couple

Edited July 12, 2015 by joshwillis55

[NoGi]

So the females are always colourless? Can you mix females from different breeds or are they usually genetically similar to the males in their colony?

[revolutionhope]

hey nogi I've seen female endlers with patterned tails (black/brown markings) but never a coloured one.

not to say it isn't possible though.

ps not sure if this answers your questions but all guppies can cross with each other, endlers or otherwise. and i read that even some other live bearers of different species can interbreed but one or another cross will have sterile offspring (cant remember which out of mollies guppies and platys)

[NoGi]

not sure, still a little confused lol. When all the females look the same between variants, how do you tell them apart visually if they are not coloured?

[revolutionhope]

i'm pretty sure there isn't a way to know visually. people have problems distinguishing female endler guppies from regular female guppies!

i know im not being helpful when i say this but you could also tell them apart visually when you see what their male offspring look like ;-)

[newbreed]

@NoGi I seem to be following your trend! I have just gotten back into livebearers starting with the wonderful endlers!

Some of the girls from different strains do have different colouring to them.

looking forward to many many pics from all the Endler breeders.

heres one of my favourite pics at the moment. French Blue Star endler.

[NoGi]

@newbreed yeah very dangerous to get into, just as addictive as shrimp.

[Lezoh]

I've got the blonde endlers and red chillis.... Love them just as much as shrimps! :D

I have them together with my ninja and red cherry shrimps. =)

[JacksonL]

I picked some up last week, loving them so far and in a week all my females are pregnant, they really do breed like rabbits.

they were sold as Chilli endlers but one of the males is clearly a black bar, I should pay better attention at the shop!

[Cryptocorynus]

On 1/22/2016 at 10:53 AM, JacksonL said:

I picked some up last week, loving them so far and in a week all my females are pregnant, they really do breed like rabbits.

they were sold as Chilli endlers but one of the males is clearly a black bar, I should pay better attention at the shop!

You should get that Black Bar out of there - or better still, toss the females - if you're wanting to keep the Chilli line pure. I've heard endlers and guppies are one of those fish where a male that has previously mated with a female can have his traits carried through in the offspring of the female and another male, so it's not just a matter of getting rid of that batch of fry. Mind you, I had some of the best (by "best" I mean fish that looked most like the variety) Opals I have ever seen come out of female Opals that had been contaminated with a stray male of a different variety, so it's not a bad thing in terms of the phenotype. It's only something you need to worry about if you are really serious about having pure lines. I love that Black Bar, by the way! I've never been able to get the black outer edge of the tail fin that evenly distributed on mine - I always end up with a few blotches. 

Edited May 14, 2016 by Cryptocorynus

[ineke]

A big problem with keeping the lines pure when an unwanted male has been in with the females is the ability of female to apparently hold onto packets of sperm then use that to fertilise their eggs at a later time. From what I read this was natures way of enabling females to to not fertilise their eggs in time of drought and low food supplies and then fertilise the eggs once the rains came. This also accounts for the talk of changing sex when people are sure there have not been any males in their colony yet suddenly there are fry in the tank. I think I read it in Herbert Axelrod's book on guppies and that should apply to Endlers too. I believe this can apply to mollies and swordtails as well but I'm not 100% sure.  Axelrod was one of the first authorities on keeping guppies and wrote extensive books on them the books might be a bit old fashioned now but they are still being published  .He advocated feeding little and often and back in those days copious water changes but that was before the modern filtration we now have. I'm not sure where Endlers and Guppies stand as far as genetic make up or how close their genes are but they are very similar..

As to sexing by colour alone that no longer applies as there are strains of Guppies where the females have large colourful tails so I would think that would apply to Endlers too?  

[Cryptocorynus]

15 hours ago, ineke said:

As to sexing by colour alone that no longer applies as there are strains of Guppies where the females have large colourful tails so I would think that would apply to Endlers too?  

I've found that small enndlers can be successfully sexed by looking for colour on the body. Females with body colouration are very rare. I have done this without ever having any issues. As @ineke says, some female endlers (just like some female guppies) have tail colouration (female Black Bars come to mind) so sexing from tail colouration alone is definitely not a reliable way to sex these particular fish. 

 

One of my female Black Bars, showing that tail colouration in endlers is possible. Also, notice how the colour is contained to the tail and dorsal fin with no colour on the body. 

Edited May 15, 2016 by Cryptocorynus

[Anthony Rae]

Hi Nogi

I have been playing with these Magenta crosses for a while now

 

[NoGi]

Wow very nice. Thanks for sharing the video.

[zn30]

On 4 November 2015 at 7:52 AM, NoGi said:

@newbreed yeah very dangerous to get into, just as addictive as shrimp.

Agree overrun by these at one stage then somehow crossed with standard guppies and traits went out the door, became great feeders for my Saratoga.