Livebearers

Livebearers are fish that do not lay eggs. The fry come already hatched out of the mother
fish. Livebearers are able to give birth to young ones because of internal fertilization
which takes place inside the female. Sometimes contact between the cloacal apertures of
the male and female fish leads to fertilization. In some species, the eggs produced by the
livebearer will be heavily yoked. In other species, the young are in direct contact with the
mother and are fed and nourished by her. In this case, the mother carrying the young ones
needs more nutrition and overall care.
Fry of livebearing fish usually takes about 30-32 days to develop. Many factors will
affect this development period, e.g. the water temperature, the female's age and her level
of nutrition. The good thing about livebearer females is that they are immediately ready
to breed again after they drop their young ones. The competition to get to these females is
intense among the males.
For beginners livebearers are the easiest fish to breed. If given enough space, the
livebearers will do most of the hard work. Once the fry become noticeable and have
started swimming, they need to be removed from the aquarium unless the aquarium is
densely planted. Failure to do so will surely land a large percentage of them into the
stomachs of bigger fish. Many people breed livebearers to provide food for predatory
fish. Some livebearers will cross breed with other fish and to avoid hybridization these
species should not be kept together.