Gambusia Holbrooki / Mosquito Fish

[Johnny B. Goode]

Wild caught gambusia holbrooki. Before anyone yells at me it is completely legal to collect non game species where I live. I took 6 of them. Got 2 males and 4 females. They have been very fun to observe so far. They took right to flake food immediately with no issues. I've had them for about a week now. I've been treating them with prazipro and Fritz maracyn oxy just to be sure and get rid of any parasites.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Johnny B. Goode

[Tihshho]

What their setup look like? Is that a stripe going down below the eye?

[Gator]

In the early 1900's, Mosquitofish were native only to Cuba, but because the US was in the clutches of an outbreak of Malaria and Yellow Fever, the State of Florida brought thousands of Mosquitofish to Florida to eat the Mosquito larvae hoping to stem the tide of the two diseases, with little effect.

Unlike other non-native species, Mosquitofish have never negatively affected the environment where they are found.

Though female Mosquitofish look like female Guppies and are livebearers just like Guppies, but are capable of having over 100 babies each time they give birth, they're also food for Bluegill (Bream), Crappies (Specks), Bass, and Mudfish.   

It's not illegal to catch and keep Mosquitofish in the home aquarium, I used to catch them in swamps and lakes in Florida to feed to my Jack Dempsey's, but don't try to breed a female Mosquitofish to a male Guppy. Female Mosquitofish are very aggressive and will nip the fins off of the male Guppy to the point of death and the male Mosquitofish isn't as colorful as the male Guppy.

I once bred a female Mosquitofish to a male Guppy, she killed the first three, but not the fourth. It took a while before she finally gave birth but when she did, she had 187 babies. She swam around with her head down at a 45 degree angle for the first 24 hours after giving birth, then at a 30 degree angle for the second 24 hours, and swam normally after that. I believe that carrying so many babies put a great deal of pressure on her swim bladder so that it took a couple of days to recover. She died about a week later and I'm still wondering if female Mosquitofish die off a week after giving birth in the wild.

If you're wanting to breed Mosquitofish to satisfy your curiosity or to have access to cheap feeder fish, have several plants that grow to the surface since you're not going to be able to provide the shoreline shallows where you caught your Mosquitofish. I don't know if a female Mosquitofish will kill a male Mosquitofish or not, but mine may have done so because of the bright colors on the Guppy's fins.

Keep a record of everything you see your Mosquitofish do and everything you do to the tank, one of the Land Grant Colleges in your State may be interested in your research, in Florida the two Land Grant Colleges are the University of Florida (Go Gators) and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), I'm particularly interested in whether or not the females die shortly after giving birth.

Good luck.

Sincerely

Gator

[Atitagain]

On 9/4/2021 at 8:47 PM, Johnny B. Goode said:

Wild caught gambusia holbrooki. Before anyone yells at me it is completely legal to collect non game species where I live. I took 6 of them. Got 2 males and 4 females. They have been very fun to observe so far. They took right to flake food immediately with no issues. I've had them for about a week now. I've been treating them with prazipro and Fritz maracyn oxy just to be sure and get rid of any parasites.

Interesting concept of bringing local wild caught into the aquarium. I know obviously is been going on a long long time but just on my radar recently. Gonna put on the list for future projects, I’m already down to many rabbit holes right now!

@Johnny B. Goode keep us posted be cool to see if they breed.

[Solstice_Lacer]

I think friend of the coop Ryan from wild fish tanks has experience with these fish. Idk if he's on the forum, but he's on YouTube

[Johnny B. Goode]

On 9/4/2021 at 9:57 PM, Tihshho said:

What their setup look like? Is that a stripe going down below the eye?

It's just a planted 20 with a ton of floating plants. That is a stripe below the eye. Funny thing about that is I can only see that stripe on the female fish. The males are just sliver with black speckles in the fins.

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 9/5/2021 at 8:19 AM, Gator said:

Female Mosquitofish are very aggressive and will nip the fins off of the male Guppy to the point of death

It seems your observation has implications for introduced guppies in Florida:

"Native mosquitofish attack to keep invasive guppies out"

Here is the link to the original study for those interested.

[Gator]

My observations are of fancy-tailed male Guppies and one female Mosquitofish in a 29g tank in my living room. The difference between female Mosquitofish and female Guppies is that the gravid spot on a female Mosquitofish never lightens up or goes away after giving birth as it does in a female Guppy.

The female Mosquitofish I had in my 29g was bought at one of my LFS and I knew it was a female Mosquitofish because of that gravid spot, my LFS did not know and still doesn't, I wanted to see if I could breed it to a male Guppy, and I did very well.

The male Mosquitofish does look similar to a male Guppy, but without the colorization on the body and fins, they have a Gonopodium like a Guppy and in the same location, but they look more like the feeder Guppies you might find at your LFS and this is what I used them for when I caught them in the wild, feeding Jack Dempsey's, free live fish food.

I'm sure people have in the past, released live Guppies into the nearest body of water once the Guppies reached critical mass in their tanks, anything's possible. Back in the '60's people released live Piranha into some lakes in Florida, and in the '80's and '90's, people were releasing live Lionfish into the Atlantic off the coast of Florida. Those Lionfish have now become a nuisance species in the coral reefs of the Atlantic, Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico.