Live Bearers

Tips for Buying Guppies, Mollies, Platys & Swordtails

Because live bearers are so popular and very easy to breed, they can be found in almost any pet store. So finding live bearing fish is not hard, the task is that of finding ones that are healthy. Guppies, mollies, platys and swordtails will breed very easily with no effort to induce breeding on the part of the owner. Because of this, many owners of live bearing fish soon find their tanks becoming crowded. To make space in their tanks they take the young live bearing fish to the local pet stores. What this does is it causes the pet stores to have mix of locally bred and commercially bred fish. But what is the problem with this? Commercial breeders do what is called selective breeding of live bearers. They take the time to pair up healthy males and females from different strains to ensure that fry are healthy and there is no chance for problems that come with inbreeding.

When buying live bearers it is a good idea to not only check the overall health of the fish but go to the larger chain pet stores to reduce the chance of getting fish that might develop problems that come from inbreeding. Large chain pet stores do not accept fish from local in-house breeders and thus reduce the chance of any problems from inbreeding. Besides the large chain pet stores another good place to get healthy live bearing fish are local live bearer clubs.

When buying live bearing fish it is a good idea to look for signs that the fish might be sick. Always choose the fish from the tank that are active with vibrant colors. Stay away from fish that are hiding or lying around on the bottom. Stay away from fish that have signs of injuries or deformed bodies. Never buy a fish that shows signs of live bearer diseases even if it is a special type that the store doesn't always have available.