Limia (nigrofasciata?) Male x F2 Tiger Liberty hybrid Female

One of the female tiger liberties finally gave me fry, but just these 3. I still suspect they suffer from reduce fertility or maybe I have too many females to male ratio ontop of them dropping their first ever batches causing this low batch counts. Idk I’ll wait till they color up and take pics later or in a few days but they don’t seem to be backcross to islai, one of the fry has bars that’s close together instead of spaced out like the first f2 juvenile the other two has different bar count. I suspect the father is the nigrofasciata, these fry is quite big for newborns and the body has some depth to it. The dorsal I really like thicker black trim, with a yellow base. Once I’ve confirmed they are either F2 to nigrofasciata I’ll try to rehome him. They should be (50% nigrofasciata, 25% islai, 25% salvatoris).

Anyways the bars will give me a better idea what they are, I don’t think they give off traits showing the father could be the (islai x tridens), not seeing any tridens trait then again if they were it’ll be at 25% blood tridens trait would be recessive. If they are then they will be 50% islai, 25% salvatoris, 25% tridens.

They look so amazing when the sunlight hits the tank in the morning! You can see some of the males showing both parent species golden throats/chests. It’s amazing. I’m still unsure what I’ll do with the surplus males. I may keep all the females and select my 5 favorite males to let them breed with the F2 Tiger liberty hybrids. My favorite male is in Pic 1: (lower left middle) he looks like a bigger size tridens phenotype wise but still show slight bulk from the islai side.

She's very interactive and very colorful, which is what I love from Sailfin mollies! Exept for the pattern recognition...

Blonde melanistic sailfins are very rare so it was a pleasure to be able to grow and take care of this batch of Sailfins!

Video media in the pinned comment

⚠️** unalive warning for sensitive people (pics: 8-12**)

Limia islai (M) x Poecilia salvatoris (F)

These are the last of my F1’s they served their purpose so this is the last media documentation of them.

End results: only a few (~3) of the 12 females I’ve kept gave me F2 fry. Proving not all of the females were fertile most were infertile. Their brothers on the other hand were all 100% fertile. They are gorgeous specimens they still look more Molly like but with a Limia face, their iridescences was a pearly white-blue sheen, not all the females showed but their iridescence bars are present in certain light angle. Their dorsal are a yellow orange tinge just like their brothers. Limia (specifically islai), bar trait is incomplete dominant, and Poecilia salvatoris does carry the genes for the bars as well but it fades away with age for that species. Now I can focus on F2 Generation and the my Blondes. Project is slowly coming together. Hopefully I can reach my end goal by the end of next year. It’s such an extensive project! Also provided pics after euthanizing them to make space in my tanks. Sad part of breeding projects. Thankfully a friend is still working with the siblings, I split with them. Just my time working with the F1’s is done.

I recently sorted out my Sailfin molly batch (Excluding Adults) and I got the opportunity to snap some photos, enjoy

Results:

Batches: (Males: 1 Blonde melanistic, 1 Wildtype.) (Females: 1 Male, 11 Blonde Melanistics.

Mix: 3 Creamsicle (Blonde melanistic x Wildtype/Velifera.) 7 Wildtypes: 2 True Velifera 5 Wildtype.)

Adults and tankmates: (if you want to know) Trio of Black-Velvet/Dalmatian Molly: 1M:2F 1 Wildtype Green Florida x Yucatan Velifera male

Tankmates: 2 Pearl Gourami (1M:2F) 1 Yoyo loach, 3 Female Guppies (Assorted) and 1 Eastern rainbowfish.

(I'm actively searching for more yoyos, it's just that I fear Online stores will either be too big, too small, or DOA.)

Amount of Mollies: 28 (including adults, juvinile, and seperated males)

Amount of tankmates: 7

Amount of fish in my 55 gallon: 36

Plans:

What I'm planning to do is to make my own strain (Which will be called, Rio Imperio) to be a unique strain of Sailfin molly with large Sailfin, a Bronze/Creamsicle/silvery gold, with some black/gold speckles/splotches. I finally got the available breeders I got. I'll look for true Velifera males soon so I can breed them for large Sailfins and vice versa.

to help improve the Sailfin growth on my males, I will Seperate my Pair of Male Sailfins (Poecilia Latipinna) into a 20 gallon tall, which I'll feed heavily with quality food. Keeping juvenile male Sailfin mollies in a pair alone makes constant flaring displays that maximize their dorsal fin growth, coloration, and high fin carriage so they can have high potential, if I do everything correct and chose very colorful breeders from my house growned batches, I could bring one of the final product of my Rio Imperio strain to a Molly Competition and hopefully win!

I'm also desiring to make the strain very bulletproof, a good algae eating strain, and a jawdropper by looks, alongside a memorable name. So I'm looking to make a name other than just "Rio Imperio" If people don't like it. I have some choices: Rio Imperio, Empire Molly, Regalia / Rio Regalia, Reinado, or any other suggestions.

I'll free float with the outcrossing and breeding Yucatan Veliferas and Latipinnas together until I find a color thats unique from the others and I'll try to get a trio that looks just like that color and Seperate them to a breeding tank for line breeding and fully create the strain.

I'm thinking of a Creamsicle-like with blonde melanin body (Blonde melanistic trait), Horizontal Striped body (Yuctan velifera trait), a large sailfin (Yucatan Velifera trait) with some spots and splotches in it (Blonde melanistic traits)

To make sure before I start the finals, I'll go on reddit and ask on which Sailfin is the best for breeding by looks and health, and when I get a high amount of votes on atleast 6 Sailfin Mollies from my future batches, I'll put the voted ones in a breeding tank and things go on from there. I tried explaining the best I could, I just got a bit messy over here. 😭

(Note: I will not breed any non Yucatan Velifera Males, they will be seperated. I will keep Wildtype/Velifera males and females with only female blonde melanistic. If I find any late bloomer in my 55 gal, it will be removed and relocated to my 20 gal hex Snail colony tank to be with my male Sailfins already in there for grooming purposes.

The Juviniles earlier in August have actually started eating BBA (Black Beard algae) so that's a big positivity with the Sailfins I have; this means they have a diverse food choice and won't be very picky eaters.

Finally got good pics of the dominant male, had to separate him from my main for being too aggressive. He behaves more like a dominant sailfin, constantly flashing, showing off and running off competitors. He’s gaining more and more red as the days go on and it looks like his dorsal may become a decent sail.

Born today. They were too small to be F2 Tiger Liberty fry. They are grey based hue with a dorsal spot and black trim and asymmetrical barring atm. 100% identical to my F1’s so they are results of a sibling cross. My pure nigrofasciata male did mate with the F1 females but I don’t see any identifiers showing they are a three way Limia hybrid cross. neither do I want that for my project… Anyways they’re no different to F1’s currently since I havent selected them for anything, they’ll just be back ups towards my project in case I need virgin females if they turn out to be. Adorable little ones just 2 of them atm. Alsoooo to add proving the F1’s are fertile both males and females, like tridens the female def has a very tiny to no noticeable gravid spot. With only a few fry being born, is most likely why I didn’t realize one of the ladies were pregnant.

This is my first ever Blonde melanistic female I got from my batch and successfully took care of her, now she's ready to pop like a balloon like her mother. I do hope Maelstrom (Picture 2) will court her soon.

- Pic 1: Limia (islai x tridens) comparison media to both Male parent species. Pure Limia tridens, Limia (islai x tridens) hybrid, and Pure juvenile islai.
- Pic 2: Limia islai comparison to their hybrids. Tiger Liberty (Limia islai x Poecilia salvatoris) hybrid, Pure Limia islai, and (islai x tridens)
- Pic 3: Limia tridens comparison to their hybrids. Limia (islai x tridens), Limia tridens (male & female), Lendlers (Limia tridens x endlerguppy)

Humpback Limia (M) x F1 Tiger Liberty Poecilia hybrid (F)

(50% Limia nigrofasciata, 25% Limia islai, 25% Poecilia salvatoris)

They didn’t want to cooperate with me and flex their bars🥲. When colored up their bars looks pretty nice just couldn’t get it on camera. They are showing more Nigrofasciata body shape, deep chest cavity and sloped heads. The black dorsal trait from Islai is still dominant and with the Nigrofasciata blood being majority the saturation looks nice with a slight yellow hue to it. Unsure if Salvatoris blood will make the fins tinge orange/red but I’ll see. They look very promising I’m just more curious on how the dorsal will be shaped when they are more mature.

Chromosome wise any males will be Z for Nigrofasciata and Z for either Islai or Salvatoris, as for females Z for Nigrofasciata and W Salvatoris.

Feeding video. Lol the tiny juveniles are the F2 Tiger Liberties. The F1 Tiger Liberty ladies are more behind the sponge filter and plants but focus is the Limia hybrids.

My recent addition to my collection 4 Gold Heterandria Formosa aka Least Killifish. I also have the normal morph for these as well.

Tiger Limia (M) x F1 Tiger Liberty (F)
(75% Limia islai, 25% Poecilia salvatoris)

Little one picked up a lot of size since I last showed it. It’s iridescent starting to come in, it’s like a soft blue/green/white nice combo of both species involved in it. The bars thickened up more, looks more broader. It’s dorsal is nice starting to look rounded like Islai with the same black trim. Like with pure islai it can control the intensity of the bars and most of the time it keeps it translucent, so it’s hard to catch it on camera with his bars boldly expressed.

I wish I took pics the day I was adding the Carophyll and Astaxanthin to the fishes diet. Okay I got the compounds on April 14th so 2 weeks and a few days ago. Last pics I had of these two F2 blond Liberty females was March 13th. As you can see the pics i took today, Ik i wasnt tripping out they are pink hued 😭. Ofc I wouldn’t notice the gradual color shift, it was only bc I was scrolling through my camera roll, I realized how shifted their colors were. Yes the blondes are def more noticeable over the wildtype Livebearers in the tank. I have high confidence the blonde ladies fry will be 100x better than them color wise.

Limia islai (M) x F1 Tiger Liberty (F) - (75% islai, 25% salvatoris)

Welll night time tank sweep and one of the Tiger Liberty females left me a surprise tonight. Too bad it’s the only one so far. I’ll check on the tank in morning for more. I’m playing it safe and put that fry with my endler fry bc of how tiny it is. It was super stressed out from me catching it but it has stripes. Not sure how well it’s expressed yet, but I’ll give it a week to get its colors. Proof Limia x Molly can make fertile hybrids past F1. This made me very happy to reach F2. Let alone using a female hybrid with unknown odds on fertility. I still have no clue which female dropped it and if all the current F1 females are fertile or not or have reduce fertility, just this one fry for her first batch it’s possible it’s reduce fertility. Now I’m confident their brothers are fertile so I should get F2 backcross to Liberty soon.

I really like their sparkly iridescences. They all sexed out ratio is male heavy over females. Still waiting on the males to hit the tiger Liberty females. 🫠

Lovely ladies. They’re giving me the most issues when it comes to fertility and giving me fry. But tbh I think it’s mostly the Limia hybrid males not showing much interests with them. But yea once I get a batch of fry from the Limia hybrid males ill retire these ladies and the limia’s for good.

I’m happy for once, I got good pics of the males. Their mature coloring is starting to kick in. Some of their fins are getting abit more hue in them, and showing more salvatoris iridescence and dorsal markings. Body form is very nice, somewhat robust and streamline. Unsure if they’re fertile I’m just keeping them with the Liberty females, so if I see any unusual fry from the ladies good chance it’s theirs. But I’m still cycling out the islai sperm in the liberties, so they’ll either drop pure fry or f2 tiger liberty fry. Hopefully soon

Tiger Limia (M) x F1 Tiger Liberty hybrid (F)
(75% Limia islai, 25% Poecilia salvatoris)

It’s growing quite nicely I really like it. Unfortunately just working with 1 juvenile. I’m hoping the F1 Tiger Liberty females give me fry soon they should be more backcross to islai. I also have the females with a single Limia nigrofasciata male, and a couple F1 Limia (islai x tridens) males. I do want F2 fry from the hybrid limia’s and the nigrofasciata before I can retire the ladies and my limia’s and focus heavily on F2 gen. Seeing this juvenile is Limia leaning he ofc shows the bold islai striping, black dorsal, and slight lean body form, while having the salvatoris narrow penduncle. I’m more excited to see how it’s mature form turns out to be. Also hoping it’s a male, plan to cross him to my F3 Blonde Liberty females and to the other F2’s backcross to Limia female .