Redtail Black Variatus

[@audrameyer9558]

I am a big fan of those beauties! Real nice, thank you!

[@goliadfarms7029]

Thank you. There is nothing prettier than a tankful of these fish. Charles

[@eddyortiz8110]

Very nice Charles pretty fish.💛🌿

[@goliadfarms7029]

Thank you. Charles

[@stevenbisset8717]

healthy look platys, nice work Charles 👍

[@goliadfarms7029]

Thank you. I hope to get this strain back into full production this year. Charles

[@peterferguson2344]

I love all the live bearers especially the platy and swordtail 🤓👍

[@goliadfarms7029]

I also like them. They offer many chances for selection and improvement. Charles

[@skyshark425]

The irony that I will be in Houston next week but have to fly back to Michigan to meet you in kzoo.

[@goliadfarms7029]

That's interesting. I look forward to seeing you in Kalamazoo. Charles

[@thehairywoodsman5644]

as always , your fish are stunning !

[@goliadfarms7029]

Thank you. We work at it. Charles

[@christinamorris2823]

gorgeous fish

[@goliadfarms7029]

Thank you. It's one of my favorite strains. Charles

[@Orlosthedruid]

man, no joke, I love live bearers. variatus is one of the most favorites. also love guppies, swordtails, Yucatan mollies...love them

[@goliadfarms7029]

What's not to like about livebearers? They have all those fin types, colors of the rainbow, interesting behaviors, etc. Charles

[@geopie3879]

Thank you Carl, Suzy, and of course Charles. I've never seen platys that massive. Selective breeding clearly works. Do you poly-culture this species? If so, what other animals/species do you use?

[@goliadfarms7029]

Yes, we've started polyculturing them with cichlids, swordtails, mollies, and shrimp. I expected to get some sword/platy hybrids, but they've been few and far between. Apparently having sufficient mates to choose among, they prefer their own type even though most aquarium strain swords and platies are already hybrids. I suspect genetic mate selection preferences. Charles

[@laurag1076]

Hi guys. Love from Australia 🇦🇺

[@thehairywoodsman5644]

Howdy from Texas !

[@laurag1076]

@theHAIRY WOODSMAN u follow kenan aswll right?!

[@goliadfarms7029]

Hi from South Texas! Charles

[@thehairywoodsman5644]

@@laurag1076 I don't think so.

[@usmcgrunt02]

Miss your videos. You guys OK?

[@goliadfarms7029]

We started posting videos again today and hope to post a couple a week for now on. Today's video provides explanations. Charles

[@royallen9579]

I am old and confused. If a hi fin male is mated to a hi fin female and that is lethal to the zygotes, how do any survive? I thought you indicated that you get 3/4 hifins from this mating?

[@goliadfarms7029]

Hifins produce two types of gametes (sperm and eggs): normal dorsal and hifin dorsal. The reason for this is they are heterozygous for hifin (i.e., they carry the hifin allele on one chromosome and the normal dorsal allele on the other). So, when they are mated 1/4 of the embryos inherit two copies of the normal dorsal alleles, and they have normal dorsals. One-half inherit hifin and normal and are hifins. One-fourth inherit two copies of hifin, and they are dead. On average that will produce 2/3 hifins. If hifin wasn't a homozygous lethal, then mating two heterozygous hifins would produce the 3/4 hifin ratio. Charles

[@tktropicals4997]

I got gmfeeder guppies for my cichlids. I got 50 of them. I put them in my 55 gallon tank with guppies grass and 1 sponge fiters and heater. Trying get them breed so I have a supply of them. Are you sad when you feed them to your fish.

[@goliadfarms7029]

Guppies seem to thrive in the 300-gallon breeding vats despite the cichlids. I don't feed guppies to cichlids in 55-gallon vats. Be sure to provide plenty of cover like floating hornwort for your guppies. Charles

[@tktropicals4997]

@@goliadfarms7029 thanks I have guppy grass in the 55. They like that.

[@goliadfarms7029]

@@tktropicals4997 Guppy grass should work just fine. Charles

[@robertforrest7956]

What can I say but 😍😘❤️❤️

[@goliadfarms7029]

Thank you. I'll be donating some of the juveniles of this strain to the ALA convention auction next weekend in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Charles

[@Dan_Slee]

Struggling to understand how High Fin x High fin is a more profitable endeavor than High Fin x Normal. Yes you will produce twice as much High fins in comparison to low fins in HF x HF. But you are losing 25% of your total offspring. Lets say you have a hypothetical 400 offspring. That would already cut the total offspring down to 300 (200 HF and 100 Normal). Same scenario, HF x Normal and 400 hypothetical offspring. You'd produce roughly 200 HF and 200 normal. I understand that the HF sell for more, but you are still producing the same amount of HF either way... but losing out on half of the normal offspring. Unless you have a hard time selling normal offspring at an economical price to begin with... seems like a losing scenario? Would love to hear your thoughts on this inconsistency Charles @Goliad Farms . Edit to add: HF x Short fin as well would allow you to sell more high fins and retain less of them for breeding since the females could all be normals and the males the HF contributor. Holding back less HF means you can sell more... by a dramatic amount.

[@goliadfarms7029]

There are costs to raising fish in terms of food, space, and labor. We would rather use vat space and food to raise the more valuable hifins. Normals bring a significantly lower price. We set the breeding colony size to fill a vat with juveniles each breeding cycle. The higher the percentage of hifins, the more valuable that set of juveniles will be when grown. A reason to use hifin females with hifin males is that you can readily select the better hifins of both sexes. You can't visually determine the value of a low fin female for the production of hifins. Being able to determine the quality of a female hifin allows for faster improvement. A game changer in this calculus is the true-breeding hifin gene (allele) we have found. This dominant allele (could be on another gene entirely) is not a homozygous lethal, so it is possible to produce a line of hifins that breed true for hifin. We were in the process of breeding this into our hifin lines when the Texas Winter almost wiped out our true-breeding stock. We saved some fish and will start that process over again. Charles

[@goliadfarms7029]

I talked with Susie (wife and business manager) about this. She says because non-hifin variatus and maculatus platies don't bring the minimum price that makes them profitable to raise, there are only three reasons we raise them (in order of importance): 1) They are a necessary side effect of the genetics and production of hifins. 2) As a favor to our longtime wholesale customers. 3) Because I like them. Charles

[@Dan_Slee]

@@goliadfarms7029 Thank you for the well explained reasons for going with the HF x HF breeding strategy, and economical and opportunity reasons make total sense. Thanks as always for taking the time to read and reply!

[@Exquailibur]

One of my favorite livebearers I've seen were sailfin mollies that were all black and pretty big, I haven't seen black sailfin mollies in person since then. I have started to get more interested in livebearers but I am thinking I want just one variety, I so far find myself enjoying platies and mollies the most. Mollies are larger which is a huge plus for me, but I really like blue platies. What I really like about livebearers is the body shape though, its really distinct and really only some killifish have that same shape for the most part. Though I might be open to goodeids and maybe even pike livebearers at some point, they are very interesting in their own right. The issue is I dont really know where to find information on goodeids and I've never even seen them in person, I have heard they prefer cooler water which reminds me of white clouds and paradise fish.

[@goliadfarms7029]

We are trying to restore our Black Sailfin Molly strain. We lost almost all of them in the Texas Winter Storm and its aftermath. Years ago a pair of Black Sailfin Mollies I took to a multi-club convention in California (I think it was called West Coast Weekend) took best of show against cichlids, killifish, etc. We raise some Goodeids but lost most of them in the Texas Winter Storm. We saved Ameca splendens and Xenotoca eiseni 'Rio Tamazula' (now know as Xenotoca lyonsi by some authorities). They do well in our warm greenhouses with summertime water temperatures in the upper 80sF. I've found they don't survive even our mild winters outside, dying in water temperatures below 50F. If you are a member of the American Livebearer Association, you'll find Goodeids offered for sale. Charles

[@Exquailibur]

@@goliadfarms7029 That's really interesting, all told I am new to livebearers and African cichlids. This channel has allowed me to learn a huge amount, I actually got into the fish hobby through the plants weirdly. I really like terrariums and since I started incorporating water features into them I naturally had to learn the basics for aquariums, I then began to learn all about the interesting aquatic plants and even learned many are also easily grown terrestrially. But if I wanted the larger fully aquatic plants I would of course need an actual aquarium so may as well have fish too, because of that and my soft water I mostly keep South American tetras and catfish as well as species from south Asia. I have learned I can add minerals to the water using limestone and other rocks which previously was an issue for keeping livebearers and other hard water fish long term. I rigorously research and plan out any organism I plan to add to a system, the fact there are so many livebearer varieties between species, hybrids, and strains is amazing but also different than the fish I currently keep and its honestly more like the plants I keep in that way. I find a lot of joy in trying to create an ecosystem that can support itself, the bonus is that this also make it easier to care for them.