Breeding Hi-Fin platies

[Jabberjaw]

I've been looking for Hi-Fin platies, and don't find many. Does anyone breed them? I've started breeding variatus hi-fin platies because they are hard to find. Are they hard to find for a reason? Should I give up and not bother to try to breed these or have I found my niche? I was thinking about trying to create more hi-fin platies, maybe the dalmatian platies, getting hi-fin out of those? think it's possible? Does anyone have hi-fin platies they'd like to trade or sell? Advice and criticism please.

[TheSwissAquarist]

First of all: Welcome to the forum!

Second: They're quite easy to find I think. Look on Aquahuna or Aquabid. Sadly I've never seen a hi-fin Dalmatian platy. Could be doable. 

[Jabberjaw]

On 10/20/2022 at 1:38 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

First of all: Welcome to the forum!

Second: They're quite easy to find I think. Look on Aquahuna or Aquabid. Sadly I've never seen a hi-fin Dalmatian platy. Could be doable. 

Thank you! I've been a lurker for awhile ad have watched almost all the videos/podcasts.

I've been looking and there isn't any. Aqua Huna is always out of stock, and Aquabid is hit or miss. {I also look on Ebay} I look every day for guppies and platy's and it's all the same fish, nothing i don't already have or new. I'm not looking for mutts, I'm wanting more hi-end which you don't find on Aqua Huna and don't want to import. . I'm looking for someone breeding hi-fin or playing with hi-fin genetics that can offer advice or want to swap lines in the future, or even buy fish from if they have something neat and nifty 😄

 

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/20/2022 at 10:12 AM, Jabberjaw said:

Thank you! I've been a lurker for awhile ad have watched almost all the videos/podcasts.

I've been looking and there isn't any. Aqua Huna is always out of stock, and Aquabid is hit or miss. {I also look on Ebay} I look every day for guppies and platy's and it's all the same fish, nothing i don't already have or new. I'm not looking for mutts, I'm wanting more hi-end which you don't find on Aqua Huna and don't want to import. . I'm looking for someone breeding hi-fin or playing with hi-fin genetics that can offer advice or want to swap lines in the future, or even buy fish from if they have something neat and nifty 😄

 

Try asking a LFS if they can do a special order for you. I managed to get some Midnight Rams as a Birthday gift for a friend like that.

[WhitecloudDynasty]

Not sure if you know this but breeding highfin to highfin create dead babies. Any babies that get 2 gene won't make it, so you'll have to breed a highfin to another fish that's not highfin but carry the gene.

[Jabberjaw]

No I didn't know that, even variatus hi-fin?

So i need to get both hi fin and regular fin and breed them together? 

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/20/2022 at 3:58 PM, Jabberjaw said:

So i need to get both hi fin and regular fin and breed them together? 

Yup, according to @WhitecloudDynasty.

[WhitecloudDynasty]

On 10/20/2022 at 9:58 AM, Jabberjaw said:

No I didn't know that, even variatus hi-fin?

So i need to get both hi fin and regular fin and breed them together? 

Correct, but you want regular fin fish that is already carrying the highfin gene

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/20/2022 at 4:41 PM, WhitecloudDynasty said:

Correct, but you want regular fin fish that is already carrying the highfin gene

Clear as mud !🙃

So basically do highfin x regular and breed that result with highfin?

[Jabberjaw]

On 10/20/2022 at 10:41 AM, WhitecloudDynasty said:

Correct, but you want regular fin fish that is already carrying the highfin gene

Ok, i can do that. Is it the same with variatus? They're a little different. 

[WhitecloudDynasty]

On 10/20/2022 at 11:17 AM, Jabberjaw said:

Ok, i can do that. Is it the same with variatus? They're a little different. 

Yes its the same, that one reason I stop working with them

[Jabberjaw]

Wow no wonder they're very difficult to find. I'm going to need more tanks lol

[WhitecloudDynasty]

It's sworttail but works the same.

When I try breeding 2 highfin together I normally get very low fry count

[Jabberjaw]

Wow that's taking me back to science class way back. I remember learning stuff like this way back then. This is good to know and makes a lot of sense. So I guess I need to buy short fins the same kind as my long fins to help offset the HH Gene. Thank you very very much I would have been frustrated and because I wouldn't have understood why I wasn't getting that many fry.

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/20/2022 at 6:09 PM, Jabberjaw said:

Wow that's taking me back to science class way back. I remember learning stuff like this way back then.

We learn it with peas these days😏.

[WhitecloudDynasty]

On 10/20/2022 at 12:09 PM, Jabberjaw said:

Wow that's taking me back to science class way back. I remember learning stuff like this way back then. This is good to know and makes a lot of sense. So I guess I need to buy short fins the same kind as my long fins to help offset the HH Gene. Thank you very very much I would have been frustrated and because I wouldn't have understood why I wasn't getting that many fry.

Just breed from what you got..and keep some of the shortfin to breed back

[PineSong]

I saw Karl Trochu's presentation at the Triple Crown this year and his hi-fin platies were amazing. Here is a link to his webpage; IDK if he sells fish but he has lots of info about breeding them. I believe if you search for him on YouTube you can see some of his talks? He does a lot with swordtails but also platies:

https://miamiswordtails.weebly.com/3--hifin-variatus.html

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by PineSong

[Jabberjaw]

 

On 10/20/2022 at 7:34 PM, PineSong said:

I saw Karl Trochu's presentation at the Triple Crown this year and his hi-fin platies were amazing. Here is a link to his webpage; IDK if he sells fish but he has lots of info about breeding them. I believe if you search for him on YouTube you can see some of his talks? He does a lot with swordtails but also platies:

https://miamiswordtails.weebly.com/3--hifin-variatus.html

 

i saw his page and drooled. I couldn't find a way to buy them. thought i'd email him and see if i could get a couple pairs or at least some advice. there's some that someone posted on facebook they have bred the lyretail gene into a platy also. they were absolutely gorgeous. (and very expensive). i think i'm going to get a bunch of 10gal to put in my fish room just to try to breed long fin into some types that i've never seen a long fin on. something to play with 🙂 i'm seeing a fun challenge, and wow if i succeed!

Edited October 21, 2022 by Jabberjaw

[gardenman]

One of the issues with longfin livebearers (especially swordtails) is you often end up with a long gonopodium that's no longer functional for the male. There are people who will surgically (well, use an X-Acto knife) to shorten the gonopodium, but I'm not sure how safe, humane, and effective that approach is. The poor guy goes from, "Hello girls! Lookie what I've got!" to being nicknamed "Stubby." And some fish end up with fins so large they can't carry them. They struggle to swim and mostly just lie on the bottom of the tank due to the effort it takes to move all those fins. Quality of life issues arise when you start going to extremes with breeding. Fancy goldfish breeders have taken one of the toughest fish alive (carp) and made it into a fragile and delicate fish prone to all sorts of health and quality of life issues through their selective breeding practices. 

[TheSwissAquarist]

I saw this little dude at my LFS yesterday, he’s sort of lyre tail all over.

[Jabberjaw]

On 10/21/2022 at 9:28 AM, gardenman said:

One of the issues with longfin livebearers (especially swordtails) is you often end up with a long gonopodium that's no longer functional for the male. There are people who will surgically (well, use an X-Acto knife) to shorten the gonopodium, but I'm not sure how safe, humane, and effective that approach is. The poor guy goes from, "Hello girls! Lookie what I've got!" to being nicknamed "Stubby." And some fish end up with fins so large they can't carry them. They struggle to swim and mostly just lie on the bottom of the tank due to the effort it takes to move all those fins. Quality of life issues arise when you start going to extremes with breeding. Fancy goldfish breeders have taken one of the toughest fish alive (carp) and made it into a fragile and delicate fish prone to all sorts of health and quality of life issues through their selective breeding practices. 

I completely agree and that is not the kind of fish that I wish to breed. You also see the same thing in bettas where quite a few of the males can't do anything so they put things in the water for them to lay in due to their inability to swim. It just really makes me feel terrible for those fish and that is not the kind of thing that I wish to breed. I want to breed something that is strong and able to live a high quality of life. I also don't believe in surgically altering anything so if I end up with males that are like that those are not males that I would use for breeding and I would definitely not want to continue carrying that gene. I know I'm going to have to do quite a bit of calling and I'm okay with that if it means that I am creating a strong line. I wouldn't want any male to have to walk or swim around  going by the nickname of stubby that just ain't right lol

[Jabberjaw]

On 10/21/2022 at 10:34 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

I saw this little dude at my LFS yesterday, he’s sort of lyre tail all over.

that's nice, but these have nothing to do with platy's. they're swordtails, a different fish. pretty fish tho. thank you

[gardenman]

On 10/24/2022 at 11:24 PM, Jabberjaw said:

that's nice, but these have nothing to do with platy's. they're swordtails, a different fish. pretty fish tho. thank you

You can see the vastly elongated and often unusable gonopodium on the guy in that photo. The good news for him is he wasn't "clipped." Odds are he'd never be able to mate though due to the length of it. Goliad Farms did some research on shortening the gonopodium of male lyretail swordtails back in 2014 with limited success.  They have a blog post from December 2014 on their experiment on their website.  

[Jabberjaw]

On 10/25/2022 at 9:20 AM, gardenman said:

You can see the vastly elongated and often unusable gonopodium on the guy in that photo. The good news for him is he wasn't "clipped." Odds are he'd never be able to mate though due to the length of it. Goliad Farms did some research on shortening the gonopodium of male lyretail swordtails back in 2014 with limited success.  They have a blog post from December 2014 on their experiment on their website.  

I've spoken to Charles Clapsaddle via email regarding platys genetics and breeding. He did mention the swordtail issue, but I'm honestly not interested in swordtails, only platy's and I doubt I will be doing any hybrid crosses. Any elongated gonopodium on males will be culled or sold as non-breeder only, but it usually isn't as big of a problem on most platys from what I've read as it is in swordtails and guppies. I hope I don't run into it with the platy's.