# Endler Livebearer breeding questions



## Mihai Varban (25 Feb 2019)

A few months back I got some Endler's Livebearer breeding pairs from LFS. I decided that I'll try to get colored females as a breeding project. I thought this was possible after seeing strains of regular guppies where females are fully colored and also have fin variants. One of the females I bought had a slight leopard print pattern on her tail and fins, so I thought that's possible. Recently, after reading around a bit, I understand that Endler females will not color. Since I also noticed my females are surprisingly big, I have to wonder if they sold me guppy females with Endler males. 
While I understand it is difficult to get pureblood Endler and a lot of them have hybridised with guppies, I'd want to know if they made me pay silly money for Guppy females. This would help me decide if I ever want to shop there again. 

Tl;dr
I wanna work on getting colored endler females. Has it been done? Any advice?


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## Steve Buce (26 Feb 2019)

My endler females are pretty bland tbh, you could have endler x guppy hybrid females?

Theres a good article about endlers in amazonas march/april 2017

Also have a look on youtube at  carlos diez's channel endler beeder with 4k content

Hope this helps


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## alto (26 Feb 2019)

Rather than boycotting the shop, I’d go back and discuss ... chances are the shop ordered fish in as endler “pairs” 

Unless it’s a specilist shop, most owner/staff won’t know the intricacies of guppy/endler, endler/guppy, endler, guppy etc


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## mort (26 Feb 2019)

I agree with alto. It can be hard to get pure endlers unless you go to a specialist. Normal shops just order them and are at the mercy of the wholesaler.


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## akwarium (26 Feb 2019)

Mihai Varban said:


> I wanna work on getting colored endler females. Has it been done? Any advice?



Clean bloodlines, that can be traced back to a specific location/ wild color form, are the most highly appreciated wen it comes to Endlers.  Breeding forms are worth much less especially wen hybridized, so not sure it is worth the effort at all. 

Selective breeding can only "improve" the properties that your fish already have. If you start with females that are completely colorless it is impossible to breed colored females.


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## Millns84 (26 Feb 2019)

I had blonde endlers a couple of years ago - The females were bright yellow, almost neon. The males had similar markings to black bar endlers but with a pale yellow background colour instead of the usual silver/grey.


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## Polly (27 Feb 2019)

Regarding coloured Endlers Females, you're unlikely to find these unless they are hybrids or guppy females 

"_ For no matter which kind of endler I'll consider, the females will be basically similarly coloured from grey, tan, greenish till darkbrown. Some females tend to have some markings in their fins or even on their sides. But if you'd like to breed with endlers it does matter which female of which strain you use to ensure the right characteristics in the offspring. For I have heard of certain breeders that all female endlers have ressesive genes "at all times". This is something I absolutely disagree with looking back to my former breeding projects. In my point of view depending on the strain they can be homozygote or heterozygote."
_
From -  http://www.emeraldking-aquatics.com/livebearer2

also description of the sexual dimorphism of Endlers here - https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/poecilia-wingei/


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## Mihai Varban (27 Feb 2019)

Thank you all for all of your input and resources. This thread as a whole was very helpful to me. Hit me up if you're in London and want some free endlers


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## RonBFreee (21 Feb 2022)

My endler females look just like uncolored female guppies.


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