Tag Archives: Poecilia

Poecilia (Mollienesia) sphenops RED

9. September 2022

The breeders in Southeast Asia have realized a new color variation of the good old Black Molly, which they call “Red”. This is not a solid red fish, like for example a red swordtail, but the breeding form “Red” of the Molly has red spots in different intensity on the scales. When viewed from above, this is particularly noticeable because most fish have more of these red spots in the top three rows of scales. In addition, there is a red colored chest to varying degrees.

So that no rogue thinks that this red coloration is a product of Photoshop, we have photographed some of the long time known golden Mollies with the new “Red”. In direct comparison the difference is very clear.

The beautiful new “Red” are available in traditional shortfin and lyrafin.

For our customers: normal finned Molly “Red” have code 432152, lyra finned code 432154 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply wholesale.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia velifera Blood Red

1. March 2022

The golden albino breeding form of the sailfin molly (Poecilia velifera) was created in the early 1980s. At that time it was celebrated as a sensation. Nowadays it is one of the most popular breeding forms of this molly. 

Particularly color-intensive golden sailfin mollies are called “Blood Red”. These animals are currently brought to the market in very good quality from Southeast Asia.

For our customers: the fish have code 432864 on our stocklist. Please note that we supply only wholesale.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia wingei Campoma No31 Snake Blue

6. December 2021

Infinite is the variety of colors, patterns and color combinations possible in wild guppys. In natural biotopes no two males are alike. There are multiple mechanisms, genetic and biological, that ensure this. This is also true for the two wild guppy populations assigned to the species Poecilia wingei: Campoma and Cuminá.

However, if individual males of such natural populations are placed and mated separately and their offspring as well, it is possible to breed a largely uniform color variant in a very short time (one guppy generation takes less than 8 weeks). Such a selection breeding is Campoma No31. It is not a special species, but a color variant of the Endler Guppy. We can offer these cute animals in pairs.

For our customers: the fish have code 419017 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply wholesale.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Guppy Endler

8. October 2021

No fish species is as changeable as the Guppy. There are no two males in nature that are exactly alike in color. This is true for all four Guppy species (Poecilia reticilata, P. wingei, P. obscura and P. kempkesi), which therefore cannot really be distinguished from each other externally (genetically, however, they can).

In the case of the Endler Guppy (Poecilia wingei), there are now so many breeding forms in which the males look identical that the impression can arise that this guppy species is also uniformly colored in nature. This is not the case at all. The animals we offer as “Endler Guppy” originate from non-directional swarm breeding, i.e. a larger number of males and females swim together in the breeding aquarium and have the free choice of mate. The resulting colorful society represents the natural color variability quite well, however, even with this breeding method appearances of domestication develop, because all natural predators are missing. Thus also these “pure”, on wild-catches based breeding-strains have meanwhile often clearly larger fins and become also altogether larger than their wild-living cousins. The females prefer bigmouths – excuse me, I mean of course big fins. Nothing can be done about that…

For our customers: the animals have code 419063 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply wholesale.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia wingei Blue Star

25. August 2021

Poecilia wingei is widely distributed in the hobby after its best known local variant as Endler´s Guppy. It remains much smaller than the normal Guppy and is very popular with many aquarists because of its graceful body shape. 

Just as with the common Guppy, numerous local forms can be observed with P. wingei. The ancestor of the “Blue Star” was caught in 2010 by Phillippe Voisin and friends in Venezuela, some also call it French Blue Endler. We can offer this beautiful fish in good numbers of pairs right now.

For our customers: the animals have code 419106 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply wholesale.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Guppy Neon Green Lyretail

9. July 2021

Aquaristics is unimaginable without the multitude of colorful livebearer breeding forms. However, this also means that there is competition between the different breeding lines for the buyers’ favor. A good name clearly sells. And even if, strictly speaking, the Neon Green Lyretail is neither neon green in color nor has a lyre tail – who cares? The little beauty has been sold under this name for a good 20 years and enjoys great popularity.

For our customers: the animals have code 418883 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply wholesale.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia wingei Endler Campona No48 black green snakeskin

31. May 2021

If there is one fashionable fish that has defined the last decade, it is the Endler guppy, Poecilia wingei. This small guppy species has countless fans all over the world and efforts are made to preserve the “pure” strains of wild caught variants. However, in the wild these wild variants are by no means uniformly colored, on the contrary, they occur partly strongly mixed, and often only a few specimens with particularly striking coloration have been taken. By selection breeding, strains can be obtained relatively quickly, in which the males look very similar.

The “Campona No48” is such a cute dwarf. One of its peculiarities are the white pelvic fins in the male, which in certain stages of courtship are stretched far forward that they could form a straight line with a white line in the dorsal fin. As with all Endler forms, the black pattern elements are additionally particularly prominent during courtship.

For our customers: the animals have code 419019 on our stocklist. Please note that we supply exclusively to wholesalers.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia velifera Silver

6. April 2021

Silver mollies are among the most popular livebearers. Most of the silver mollies in the trade are a breeding form of Poecilia latipinna. Since the species Poecilia latipinna, P. sphenops, P. mexicana and P. velifera can be crossed and color characteristics and certain fin shapes (e.g. lyratail) are transferred to the hybrid young, the desired characteristics can be transferred to the parent species by backcrossing the hybrid young to the parent species. This is what happened with the silver colored sailfin mollies (Poecilia velifera), which, like sailfin mollies in general, are not easy but splendid fish for advanced enthusiasts.

For our customers: the animals have code 433034 on our stocklist. Please note that we supply exclusively to wholesalers.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia velifera Green

5. March 2021

From the sailfin molly, Poecilia velifera, which originates in the hot coastal regions of Mexico, there are mostly cultivated forms in the trade: Golden, chocolate, leopard, dalmatian, black, etc.. The “green” wild form is much rarer, although they are very colorful animals. All sailfin mollies on the market are bred ones.

The huge dorsal fin of the males is not bred to the sailfin molly, it is a species characteristic. It is not useful for anything – except showing off. Sailfin females are obviously totally into showing off (quite different from human females; who would have ever heard that a woman falls for a guy just because he looks good, drives a swanky car and has a fat watch on his wrist) and so the huge dorsal fin developed already in nature by the breeding choice of the females.

For our customers: the animals have code 432604 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply wholesale.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia velifera “Dalmatiner”

8. January 2021

At least three species of mollies are the parent species of the numerous breeding forms that exist of these fish today: Poecilia sphenops, P. latipinna, and P. velifera. Possibly P. mexicana was also involved, but this is unclear, as this species was long considered a synonym of P. sphenops.

Some color and fin characteristics could only be established in the strains through species crosses, but others occur naturally in wild mollies. These include the gene for black coloration, which is found in many natural populations of all four species mentioned. In its maximum expression it leads to the so-called Black Molly. 

Very popular at present are the black speckled mollies, which are called “Dalmatians” after the dog race. In the wild, only one black speckled specimen occurs among thousands of normally colored animals, but the color morph, being inherited on only one allele and in both sexes, can be well established in selection breeding (when a morph is inherited from several alleles, possibly even on different chromosomes, breeding becomes complicated).

The largest of the Dalmatian mollies is the sailfin molly – and the most beautiful! 

For our customers: the animals have code 433053 (lg) and 433054 (7-8 cm) on our stocklist. Please note that we supply only wholesale.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia sp. Central America

8. May 2020

Right now we can offer a very special delicacy for the friends of livebearers: a scientifically still undescribed wild molly!

It is a F1 offspring of a wild collected species from the Poecilia sphenops relationship. The parent animals were collected on a scientific expedition. The description of the species is in progress, so we have committed ourselves not to give any further information about the animals, in order not to endanger the scientific work. We have received about 50 specimens from our breeder. They are currently 4-5 cm long, but will probably grow a bit larger.

For our customers: the animals have code 280577 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia (Limia) tridens

15. March 2019

There is no agreement on the systematic position of the livebearers living on the Caribbean islands. According to anatomical characteristics, the genus Limia is today mostly regarded as synonymous with Poecilia, but they have so many independent characteristics that Limia is almost always mentioned as a subgenus. 

Aquaristically this is not so important whether Limia is a genus or a subgenus; it is much more important that they are beautiful animals. We currently have P. tridens in our assortment as pond offspring from Southeast Asia. All Limia species love warmth and should therefore be cared for at temperatures above 24°C. So that strongly coloured, dominant males form, these animals should be kept in swarms if possible, i.e. several males with several females. All Limia species need vegetable supplementary food; algae, vegetable-based flake food, scalded salad, spinach or dandelion cover this need.

For our customers: the animals have code 424873 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply wholesalers.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Guppy Endler Cross “Santa Maria Bleeding Heart”

8. March 2019

Since 2015 we know this very attractive Guppy, which is a cross of the species Poecilia reticulata and P. wingei and which is attributed to the Japanese breeder Kenichiro Tamura. From the common Guppy, this fish has inherited the more robust shape, especially of the females, and the less intense courtship behaviour, while the petiteness of the males and the caudal fin pattern comes from the Endler heritage. 

What exactly was crossed with whom here is not known to us; there have been Endler-Guppys with black saddle spots for quite some time, e.g. the “Yellow Half Tuxedo” (https://www.aquariumglaser.de/en/fish-archives/brandnew_guppy_endler_yellow_half_tuxedo_en/), the very clear division of the body in respect of coloration shows only the “Rio Morichal” (https://www.aquariumglaser.de/en/fish-archives/wild_guppy_rio_morichal_en/) among the common guppys.

Anyway: Santa Maria Bleeding Heart is a beautiful, lively and cute fish and according to our breeders it is even purebred. We offer the animals with suitable females.

For our customers: the fish have code 419109 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply wholesalers.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Black Molly = Black Molly?

19. January 2019

Sometimes we also take a closer look at the everyday species; one tends to judge fish like the Black Molly in trade only according to the aspects: 1. are the fish healthy and stable? and 2. are they well grown? 

But Black Molly is certainly not the same as Black Molly. Depending on which wild species dominates in the respective strain – as is well known, Black Mollys were created by multiple crosses of different species, whereby the blacklings (Melanos) that already occur sporadically in nature were crossed into existing aquarium strains of Molly species – they sometimes differ considerably from each other.

Currently we offer e.g. Black Mollys from Sri Lanka, which are very similar to the wild species Poecilia latipinna. Especially beautiful here are dominant males, which have a red seam along the magnificent dorsal fin.

Another Black Molly form we get from Vietnam. It is closer to the species Poecilia sphenops and P. mexicana, the dorsal fin is much smaller than in the one mentioned before. The alpha males develop an orange border along the caudal fin, which is very attractive.

Not as Black Molly, but as Black Velifera one calls the splendid animals, which come after the species Poecilia velifera. They are clearly larger than the other Black Mollys. 

For our customers: Black Mollys from Sri Lanka have code 432003, those from Vietnam 432132 and black velifera 433004 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

New highly selected guppys: Koi Red Tuxedo Red Nose and Full Black

21. November 2018

In this case “new” does not mean that there were no colour varieties like this before, but that we have a new breeder, who gives us these and other high end breeding guppies in pairs and colour hits, so that we can pass on really fantastic animals. Of course there is also a certain variance within the high end breeding guppies.

For our customers: Koi Red Tuxedo Red Nose has code 419088, Full Black 419089 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply wholesalers.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Guppy “Red Smoke”

12. September 2018

Glasbelly guppies do not produce guanine due to a genetic peculiarity – this is the silver dye that makes fish glisten. This makes them more or less transparent, as the guanine normally reflects the light and prevents transparency like a mirror. Mostly Glasbelly guppies are bred as albinos. If the black melanin also falls away, the view becomes perfect.

Not everyone likes albinos and therefore there are other established Glassbelly strains, but almost all are blonde, yellow-red in colour. We have now received a number of Glasbelly smoke guppies from a German breeder for the first time. They lack guanine, but not melanin. We think they are distinctive animals and also very vital.

The line was created by mating a normal coloured male with an albino glassbelly female. The young were all wild-coloured, i.e. with normal guanine expression, so the genes of the father were dominant as expected. However, according to Mendel’s rules, the second generation produced a proportion of glass belly with black eyes from which the „Red Smoke“ was bred. The strain isn’t fully bred yet, but that doesn’t matter. For ornamental fish breeding, it is a well-known fact that the path is the goal!

For our customers: the animals have code 419091 on our stock list. Please note that we only supply wholesale. Only available in limited quantities!

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia caucana

5. September 2018

With an overall length of 3 – 5 cm the Cauca Molly (Poecilia caucana), originating from Colombia, Venezuela, and Panama belongs to the smaller livebearers. Remarkably is the yellow – orange coloured dorsal fin and a violet metallically shining along the body as well as the orange band in the proximal part of the caudal fin in males. 

The water equivalents (pH values of 8,2- 8.6, LF 360 and 420 Mikrosiemens/cm), based on different places where the animals are found in the area of the Rio Cauca, makes them to suitable aquarium inhabitants for the most Central European tap waters. These fish appreciate higher temperatures between 26 and 28°C. 

As an algae eater the Cauca molly is constantly on the search for food. All usual kinds of fish food are greedily eaten. With appropriate care a new generation will appear sooner or later. THe fish we can offer currently are bred ones from Southeast Asia.

For our customers: the fish have code 424713 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusiveky supply the wholesale trade.

Photos: Frank Schäfer, Text: Klaus Diehl

Guppy Endler Red Chest Saddleback

28. May 2018

A few years ago we were able to import for the first time guppys that exhibited a black saddle bar over the back, starting at the base of the dorsal fin. These fish were called Yellow Half Tuxedo (see https://www.aquariumglaser.de/en/fish-archives/brandnew_guppy_endler_yellow_half_tuxedo_en/).

An advancement of these guppys represents the Red Chest Saddleback. The breeder takes care that red pattern appears in the chest region. Moreover, the caudal fin pattern has much developed, compared with the typical Endler caudal fin pattern. We can offer the variety Red Chest Saddleback now as German bred ones. The strain itself has been developed by the Japanese breeder Hiroshi Sugino.

The „true“ females of the saddleback Endler guppys can be recognized by a dark spot at the upper base of the caudal fin.

For our customers: the fish have code 419125 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & Photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia reticulata Guppy Kohaku / Koi

18. May 2018

The red-white albino guppy is a very attractive fish. The females are quite uniform in respect of coloration. They all have a red head and a red caudal fin. In males things are different. Initially they are colored like the females, but fully grown males develop an individually different degree of red pattern on the body; so in large males all specimens look different.

For our customers: the fish have code 419203 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

High End Guppys

25. April 2018

Currently we can offer several High Quality German Bred Guppys. This breeder is specialized inbreeding rare varieties that are offered by pair, which means that the genetically correct female is supplied along with the male. The sports illustrated here – „Full Platinum Albino“ and „Yellow Tuxedo“ – are only two of serveral ones we have in stock.

For our customers: the fish have code 419097 (Full Platinum Albino) and 419093 (Yellow Tuxedo) on oir stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia reticulata Guppy Yellow Taxi Glass Belly

13. April 2018

These Glass Belly Guppys are very special. Their coloration lacks not only all black pigment – they are true albinos – but also the silver pigmentation of the abdomen. So one can study the complete develepment of the eggs and youngsters in the belly of the female fish. This means these fish are a perfect subject for all persons interested in natural history and especially for educational reasons in schools. In respect of demands in the aquarium these guppys are not more difficult to keep than other sports of modern fancy guppy, but one should keep in mind that albinos in general are a bit sensitive against strong light.

For our customers: the fish have code 419099 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Molly Copper Lyretail

14. March 2018

A beautiful sport of Molly from Singapore is Copper Lyretail, a very colourful variety. Obviously the species Poecilia sphenops formed the basis of that strain. The combination of the colour copper and the lyretail led to males in which the anal fin is much too broad to serve as a gonopodium. So the pure males of that strain cannot become fathers. To keep the sport alive it is necessary to cross the pure females with males from another sport that have a normal gonopodium. The offspring has to be selected, as it will not fall pure, or, in some cases, even a second step is necessary to obtain Copper Lyretails at all, eg a back cross or a sibling cross, to get specimens with the desired genetic combination.

While breeding Copper Lyretails is pretty demanding, keeping them is quite the opposite: these mollys are very hardy and lively fish!

For our customers: the  fish have code 432363 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Guppy Endler Black Bar

2. February 2018

There are so many new sports in Endler guppys (Poecilia wingei); it is really difficult to keep the overview. Sadly some of these new sports loose the charme of the wild type fish which are characterized by the very tiny males (usually they should not grow larger than 1.5 – 2cm) and the overboarding vivacity. This loss of wild-type characters happens by crossing the Endler with common guppys (Poecilia reticulata).

A sport of the Endler which is very close to wild collected fish is „Black Bar“. Ideal representatives of that sport  have a double sword tail fin and an emerald green back part of the body. We supply this sport (and many other sports) of the Endler along with the „correct“ females, so every hobbyist can try from the very start to breed what the hobbyist feels is the ideal specimen.

For our customers: the fish have code 419122 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Guppy Endler „Ginga Rubra“

20. October 2017

This charming sport of the Guppy is said to have been developed in Japan. The name of the Japanese breeder is cited as Tanaka. The „Ginga Rubra“ is a very lively and robust sport. Our specimens are German bred ones, the basic colour of our fish is blond.

For our customers: the fish have code 419016 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecila mexicana Campeche

23. August 2017

The wild mollys from Central America were always and will stay an enigma for generations of scientists. In each brook the fish look somewhat different. And as if that would not be eough, they also have within every population different shaped males: small and slender early ripe male, large and deep bodies late ripe males and males that are somewhere in between. So it isn´t sure at all, if the splendid fish we can offer now  – they were bred in Southeast Asia – really belong to the species P. mexicana or to P. sphenops or to P. limantouri. However, from a practical point of view these questions are rather irrelevant. 

It is very important to supply always the additional term „Campeche“ – this is the locality where the initial stock has been collected – for otherwise unwanted crosses cannot be excluded.

These wild type mollys are a real challenge for hobby breeders. In contrast to Black Mollys, Silver Mollys and so on the young fish grow extremely slowly. But the adult fish reward the keeper with their lively behaviour and the brillant colours. By the way: the ability to change the coloration is breathtaking. Within seconds the males change from the silvery neutral pattern to the blue-black display-pattern. If the fish are disturebed they can become pale at a glimpse. But the good news is: after only a few days of settling the fish only hardly can become disturbed….

For our customers: the animals have code 280558 on our stocklist. Please note that we xclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & Photos: Frank Schäfer

Poecilia wingei, Endler´s Livebearer „White Peacock“

10. April 2017

The breeding of the different sports of Endler´s Livebearer has become a popular branch of the hobby. There are a lot of sports, some artifical – developed by cross-breeding or selective breeding – some are different looking populations that appear in the wild. The White Peacock is such a wild type. The ancestors of the fish in the trade have been collected by Armado Pou in 2004 from the Laguna de los Patos North Lake, according to the informations available from specialized web pages. For sure the fish are now much more uniformly coloured than the animals living in the wild, but they still have their extremely lively habit and they have stayed so wonderful small and dainty. Displaying males become much darker in coloration, compared with the neutral coloration. We obtain our fish from our proofed breeder in Thailand. The matching females are also available.

For our customers: the animals have code 419117 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

The story of the Cologne wild guppy

15. February 2017

It was back in 1977 when first reports about this „German wild guppy“ appeared in aquarium journals. This was in the „Informationen der Deutschen Guppy-Förderation Nr.3“. Shortly after that Franz-Peter Müllenholz wrote a report for the magazine TI (No 42, June 1978) on that fish that lived in a brook near Cologne. The water was very polluted, there were deformed animals, but most of the fish were very healthy and lively. Müllenholz also pointed out the very selender figure of that fish. Werner Ladiges, editor of the TI, doubted that these guppys really established a constant population. But two editions later, in TI No 44 (December 1978) the theme was continued. In a short note it was made clear that a power plant led the cooling water in that brook, so it became heated. In March, the water temperature was as high as 19°C. This is the salient point, fot the lowest temperature tolerated by guppys over a longer period (some weeks) is about 14-16°C.

In scientific literature the existence of these guppys is even longer documented (Friedrich, 1973). He also named the brook: it is the Gillbach, and the power plant is os the cole plant Niederaußem (the largest power plant of that type in Germany). The guppys were (and still are) also present in the lower Erft, in which the Gillbach flows. The lower Erft is heated by hot water pumped up from up to 400 m depth from cole mines. Here do not exist only guppys, but also many other tropcal organisms: Amatitlania nigrofasciata, Ancistrus, the snails Melanoides tuberculatus and Planorbella duryi, the annelid worm Branchyura sowerbii, the planaria Dugesia tigrina, the shrimps Neocaridina davidi and Macrobacrium dayanum, as well as a nuber of tropical water weeds: Azolla filiculoides, Egeria densa, Lemna aequinoctialis, L. minuta, Myriophyllum aquaticum, Pistia stratiotes, and Shinnersia rivularis (Friedrich, 2005). Most of these organisms are for sure relaesed by aquarists, but in some cases it is not clear were they originate from.

The Cologne wild guppys are interesting animals. And the good news is: one has not to travel to Cologne to get them. Currently we have these „Cologne wild guppys“ in stock, they are aquarium-bred specimens, but the ancestors were collected in the Gillbach. So these fish found back their way in the tanks of the hobbyists – a quite interesting process from a scientific point of view that gives insights in co-evolutionary processes of mankind and their domesticated animals. In the Gillbach and the Erft the guppys will become extinct as soon as the introduction of heate water ends – that´s for sure. But maybe they can survive as a curiosity in the tanks of aquarists? Nobody knows…

For our customers: the fish have code 419028 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Literature cited:

Friedrich, G. (1973): Ökologische Untersuchungen an einem thermisch anomalen Fließgewässer (Erft/Niederrhein). – Schriftenreihe Landesanstalt für Gewässerkunde und Gewässerschutz NRW Heft 33, Kempen-Hüls. 

Friedrich, G. (2005): Die untere Erft – Ein subtropischer Fluss. LUA Gewässergütebericht 2005: 101–103 

Ladiges, W. (1978): Betr.: Guppypopulation in der Nähe von Köln. TI Tatsachen und Informationen aus der Aquaristik 12 (44): 42

Müllenholz, F.-P. (1978): Guppypopulation in der Nähe von Köln. TI Tatsachen und Informationen aus der Aquaristik 12 (42): 42-43

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer