Colony Breeding: The Easiest Way to Breed Livebearers for Profit
You don’t need much to raise livebearers, such as platies, mollies and guppies. In fact, many hobbyists joke about how easy it is to add water to your tank. But what if you want to produce large numbers of fish to sell for profit at your local fish store or aquarium society? What if your budget is tight and you don’t have the space or funds to build large tanks or ponds like commercial farms? Keep reading to see how we’ve produced hundreds of livebearers in a single fish tank with minimal effort and cost.
1. Pick Your Starter Fish
Most people get fry because their pet fish “accidentally” bred and some of the babies survived. You should make sure that you have the best parents and the best quality product if your goal is to provide local markets with high-quality fish. Look for fish with the ideal colors, patterns, shape, and size. To spot defects such as bent spines or missing fins, look at them from both sides and the top. Finally, get a ratio of one male for every two to three females. The bare minimum you should start with is a trio of one male and two females, but you will be more successful if you can start your breeding tank with six, nine, or 12 adult fish instead. You can increase your fry production by increasing the quantity of fish. However, larger quantities also mean that the females are less stressed and not being constantly harassed from the males.
Endler’s Livebearers have a few species that aren’t as colorful, so it’s important to have at least two females for each male. This will allow them to produce more fry.
2. Set Up the Breeding Tank
We will use a method called “colony-breeding”, where the babies are raised in the same aquarium as the adults. Yes, you can get higher numbers by raising the offspring in a separate aquarium, but that requires more tanks, more aquarium equipment, more space in your room, and more time spent feeding and cleaning tanks. Although it produces less, this setup is the most efficient if you have limited time or money.
Keep in mind that we are trying to build a machine for making money, not a display tank. Adults will prey on their young, so we need to fill the aquarium with large amounts of algae, thickly grown plants, or even Easter grass. The tight spaces between the dense vegetation or material allow the young fish to escape but are too small for the adults to easily reach. These spaces allow females to escape for a while to take a break from males. It is important to not be able to see the middle of the mass because you want so much cover. Our preferred type of cover is live aquarium plants because not only do they offer shelter, but they also look naturally beautiful and help purify the water by consuming toxic ammonia from your fish’s waste. Our favorite plants for breeding fish include water sprite, Pogostemon stellatus ‘octopus,’ and java moss. For more ideas, read our article on the top 10 aquarium plants for breeding fish.
Ideally, the plants should not be too thick so that it is hard to see through.
The most popular livebearers available at the pet store often come from tropical climates, so you may need an aquarium heater if your room temperature is below their limits. In some cases, raising the temperature can increase metabolism, encourage more breeding, and speed up fry growth, but be careful not to heat the water so much that it shortens the fish’s life span. A filter is another useful piece of equipment to clean the water. We always use sponge filters in our breeding tanks because they have gentle flow, provide more oxygen to the water, and won’t suck up the babies. If you are using a hang-on-back or canister filter, make sure to cover the filter intake tube with a pre-filter sponge so fry won’t accidentally swim up into the motor.
Most livebearers live in harder, alkaline water, which is why many fish farms breed their livebearers in cheaper brackish water (a mixture of fresh tap water and ocean water) that has high pH and GH. But when customers take the fish home and put them in purely freshwater tanks, they end up going into osmotic shock and having massive health issues. To produce high-quality livebearers that are raised only in fresh water, we don’t recommend adding salt to your tank because then the fish will be harder to sell to local hobbyists and live plants won’t be able to survive in high salinity. However, if your tap water is very soft, we do recommend dosing mineral supplements like Wonder Shell or Seachem Equilibrium to prevent the fish from having problems with livebearer disease or the “shimmies.”
3. Don’t overfeed the Tank
In general, you want to feed small foods that spread easily throughout the tank so that the fry don’t have to leave their safety zone among the plants or get outcompeted by the adults during mealtimes. Our favorite foods for young livebearers include live baby brine shrimp, crushed flakes, freeze-dried tubifex worms, frozen mini bloodworms, daphnia, and Easy Fry and Small Fish Food. The key is to heavily feed the tank – preferably with multiple feedings throughout the day – to boost the breeding and fry growth rates. This helps the adults eat more, so that there is less predation of their offspring. We like program an automatic fish food feeder to go off several times a day while we’re at work, and then we personally feed the livebearers once in the morning and once at night to observe their condition.
An auto feeder helps to ensure your fish get fed and continue growing, even if you are too busy or forget.
Water quality problems can quickly arise if excess fish food is left to rot in the aquarium, so make sure to adjust the portion size as needed and keep up on your water changes. We have had success with Neocaridina cherry Shrimp as the cleaning crew for smaller livebearers such as guppies. They are not only responsible for picking up any leftovers but also provide additional live food for the bees. Plus, with all the hiding spots that you’ve provided the fish fry, some of the shrimp babies will survive and may become a second source of income that you can sell to your local fish store. Snails are a great choice for those who prefer shrimp to snails. They can also help you pick up any extra crumbs.
4. If necessary, cull
As a conscientious breeder, you have a responsibility to not sell undesirable fish to your customers, especially if they can cause health issues down the road. Therefore, it is necessary to regularly cull or remove unsuitable fish from your breeding pool. Some of the offspring may have bent backs, missing fins, or other unwanted genetic traits that should not be passed onto the next generation. Culling should be repeated every few weeks as some defects may not become apparent until the fry turn a bit older. Because the breeding tank you set up is such an ideal environment for raising fry, you will need to remove the culls before they reach sexual maturity, which can be quite early for livebearers. This practice also ensures that the remaining healthy offspring receive more food and have the best chance of survival.
Culling fish can be a time-intensive process since you must carefully examine each fry for any defects.
There are many other methods for breeding livebearers for profit, such as catching out the females and putting them into their own separate tanks, but colony breeding is easier to maintain, especially if you are limited on money, space, and time. Each strain of fish only takes one aquarium, so you can potentially enjoy multiple varieties of livebearers at the same time while still maintaining the integrity of their lines. To learn about more best practices, check out our library of articles on breeding fish.
