you are saying. Thank you for clarifying that you are getting Gambusia. Interesting that they should be in the goldfish tank, though they should survive the temperatures the goldfish are kept at.
"my gambusia were so pregnant that it looked to be the coloring of the fish" and what coloring is that? How is its color different from what it would normally have?
"but i mean i dissapearing line over the eyes as in the mosquito guppies dissappearing colors. it didnt have them above the eyesit was pointing at an angle going down. in this link is the line im talking about"
Ah! You mean the line BELOW the eye, which I was calling a teardrop in the cases of a few other Gambusia species. Though I didn't Google a shot of a common Gambusia with that, I'm pretty sure I have seen that kind of line extending from the eye to a point below it too. Ok, that helps make the case that you have Gambusia.
"im not attaching mosquito fish to plain guppies." So what are you referring to as "mosquito guppies"? Are you using that term interchangeably with Gambusia and only Gambusia?
"but its been a real downer since they swiched from endlers, they had some pretty ones." I'm still pretty sure that you saw feeder guppies even though at least one other correspondent to GL feels that they pulled Endler's males from a feeder tank. That person could distinguish Endler's from the feeder guppies. You didn't see any difference in the fish in the guppy and Endler URLs.
Interesting about the moving of male guppies to the straight salt water. Fish seem to be able to be moved to higher mineral levels (as opposed to lower one and to a higher pH as opposed to a lower one. They will probably be fine.
Understand though if you drop them into water with much lower mineral content without acclimating them they will seem fine for a while too. But some of their gills may hemorrhage and this may leave them vulnerable to suffocation or attack by disease organisms a week or three later. Please make your changes gradually going in that direction.
I'm impressed with your desire to isolate your females from the males. That six drops may be kind of an average between 4 and 8.
Are the males in the salt water because they are sharing the tank with marine fish? Sometimes we need space and have to improvise. Why else would you go to the trouble and expense of putting them in that? They are known to have been carried by flooding streams in Trinidad to the ocean. There was a time when guppies were popular candidate for cycling marine aquariums. Being secondary freshwater fish the guppies can live brackish or marine water until the larger predatory population in the marine habitat catches up with them.
"my gambusia were so pregnant that it looked to be the coloring of the fish until it gave birth(i got 300 babies from the first pregnancy)"
This may be where the confusion came in. They would be the first to agree that their record figures for most fish will be increased, but the ALA (American Livebearer Association) keeps records of record spawns for over 175 different species and commercial strains. The record recorded for Gambusia affinis is listed as 68. Their record for Gambusia holbrooki was posted as 113. (Both were registered by Canada's Jim Robinson.) None of the other 21 Gambusia listed come close to that. The only livebearer in the list with more than 300 fry in a drop was a domestic swordtail.
Here's what I think happened. You saw a pretty good sized female Gambusia dropping her fry. Probably a couple other fish, most likely guppies also dropped batches of fry. Actually there would likely have to be several batches of fry to get 300 o the head. You probably have mixed guppy and Gambusia fry together.
No wonder some resemble Gambusia and some resemble guppies. That is because some are Gambusia and some are guppies. :)
This is why aquarists in many specialties (those who keep livebearers, killifish, cichlids, Betta species and even just guppies) strongly urge aquarists who have different strains of a species and closely related species never mix their fish, except maybe under closely controlled experimental conditions. Otherwise they will be plagued by a huge mess of mixed youngsters.
"i can breed my japanese blue gambusia/guppy.i just got about 25 new crossbreeds, me and my mom watched her give birth because she wont eat her babies it makes it a heck of alot easyer because i still have all 25which is really a big break though for mebecause her sister is with her and her babies."
Please don't use gambusia/guppy. Aside from spelling, that fish is one or the other. If she has blue in her tail, she is a guppy.
"...i can breed my japanese blue gambusia/guppy.i just got about 25 new crossbreeds, me and my mom watched her give birth because she wont eat her babies it makes it a heck of alot easyer because i still have all 25which is really a big break though for mebecause her sister is with her and her babies."
I would bet that if you raise the 25 fry from that fish, they will not be crossbreeds. They will also be guppies. :)
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