Breeding platium half beaks

[Nik_n]

I recently acquired a group of 6 platinum half beaks, a mix of both male and female. I cannot say for sure (some look like sub dominant males). But I can surely say that I have one male (the biggest and most colourful one) and at least 2 female (smallest and less colourful). The other three fish all have some colour in their fins but not as dominant as in the big male. 

These fish are currently housed in my 60l community planted aquarium. They have plenty of cover and seem to be taking well to both frozen and dry foods. My plan is to fatten them up and condition them for spawning in the future.   

I did some research but found little solid information on how to successfully do it form a hobbyist perspective. I plan to condition the fish in the main tank and set up a spawning tank for the breeding group. Has anyone had experience breeding these fish? How do I determine when they are ready to spawn? What would trigger them to spawn?

Any advice is greatly appreciated   

[TheSwissAquarist]

Half beaks are livebearers, so... provide a decent amount of cover and wait!

[TheSwissAquarist]

I seem to remember that @AnimalNerd98 has/had some…?

[Nik_n]

On 11/18/2022 at 7:31 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Half beaks are livebearers, so... provide a decent amount of cover and wait!

Yea I found that they won't always give birth to live young. And since they are in a community tank, any eggs or fry would get eaten immediately so I will definitely setup a breeding/grow out tank. I was mainly interested in how to determine when these fish are ready to breed/release fry 

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 11/18/2022 at 10:52 PM, Nik_n said:

Yea I found that they won't always give birth to live young. And since they are in a community tank, any eggs or fry would get eaten immediately so I will definitely setup a breeding/grow out tank. I was mainly interested in how to determine when these fish are ready to breed/release fry 

Try conditioning them with BBS & live black worms or high quality frozen food and you may soon see some of the females get swollen bellies.

[AnimalNerd98]

I’ve been researching them as well and haven’t got any fry yet. I suspect that I have all males 😢 I’m planning on getting some more halfbeaks this week. From what I have gleaned, they have long gestation periods and don’t have huge broods. It’s not quite clear how to tell when they’re ready to drop fry. What I suggest is putting the females in a floating pond basket after witnessing spawning behavior with some floating plants in a grow-out tank. When the fry are released, some will swim out of pond basket away from the mothers and you can raise them up in the tank. This is my plan going forward, good luck! Let me know if you discover anything! 

[Nik_n]

Thank you! I'm currently conditioning them but haven't seen any mating behavior. To be honest, I haven't even look for any. Good luck finding females, for plain white  ones  with as little of colour as possible.