Can't find any Sunburst Cobra Endler females

[Kirsten]

Call me crazy, but these are just the coolest endlers I've ever seen. They look like a combination of cobra or leopard endlers with some black bars or other larger color-smear varieties. They look like if Twisted Sister were a small livebearing fish and I am here for that:

Problem is: they only seem to be available as males. Nary a lady endler to be had with this combination of spots and color. Are these some crazy hybrid that's non-reproducable? Should I buy random female endlers for these rock stars to hope this color combo is heritable?

Edited November 30, 2020 by Kirsten
Typo

[Daniel]

I bought cobra endlers with females from Aquabid this summer without knowing I was buying them. The item for sale was this: 'I will send you whatever I feel like'. I paid my $30 and got some nice swordtails, cobra endlers (male and female), and some water sprite and a couple of other things. I think I got my monies worth.

These are in the Dirt aquarium in the dirted tank project:

So they are definitely out there.

 

[Daniel]

Mobetta (a respected seller) has groups of juveniles of this (so you will get a mix of sexes) on Aquabid:

[lefty o]

twisted sister endlers. gotta like it.

[Andy's Fish Den]

I've noticed on a lot of wholesalers lists that they only have males listed of various guppy and endler strains. I think it is either because the breeders and suppliers don't want people in the hobby to be able to span them and get them out into the hobby for a cheaper price, or that they don't breed true enough. I think it may be more of the first option, as they will have listed pairs of strains that have been around a while like black bar endler and the moscow guppies.

[Daniel]

Most people only want colorful fish. Drab grey colored fish are sell poorly. I am not sure, but it might be that they are selling what most people want to buy?

[gardenman]

A lot of breeders will only sell males to prevent others from breeding "their" fish. It's been done like that for decades. I don't really blame them as some strains take decades to develop, but if you sell pairs all that work is gone as everyone can buy them, breed them and sell them without the investment of time and energy to develop the strain. 

If you do the math sometime the number of fish that can be created from a single pair of Endlers is pretty impressive. A typical Endler female has 10-30 babies at a time and can reproduce every 23 days.  The babies can mature and start reproducing within about three months or so. If you assume a 50/50 mix of males/females than you're looking at 5-15 new females every 23 days. In ninety days when that first batch is ready to start popping out babies of their own and 5-15 females each pop out another 5-15 females so there are then another 25-225 new females that in 90 days or so will be each producing more babies. 

If you're a breeder and you sell pairs, you're creating market competition. If you only sell males, and Endlers typically only live 2-3 years, then you know that if someone wants another one just like the one they had, they can only get it from you. If you sell pairs/trios then in two to three years there might be a hundred people (or more) offering them, 

Even the holding back of males doesn't ensure you won't have competition as other breeders will pair your male with a similar female and through careful selection they can pretty much duplicate your line over a few generations, but it's a bit more work for them than just selling them a pair.

[Kirsten]

Thanks for the tips on Aquabid and confirming I'm not crazy in seeing mostly male-only endlers for the really splashy varieties.

I'm guessing it's also a matter of availability. A newer variety means you probably want to hold more fish back as breeding stock, especially females, or maybe you're still stabilizing the color pattern and have to do a lot of culling. Turn up the heat for more males to see how true they've bred, and voila. Not to mention breeders buying 2+ females for every male.

But yeah I've really fallen down the rabbit hole and found pairs of super exotic endlers going for more than $100. There may be something of a tulip bulb thing going on with livebearers! Helped to recenter me and think realistically about my first livebearer tank. What I probably should do is see what my lfs carries so I have a better chance of selling the offspring back to them!

Edited November 30, 2020 by Kirsten