Gambusia sp

Gambusia sp

So I got a mosquitofish for free from one of the petshops I frequent, and I thought it would be easy to get an ID on her, but alas all I was able to find out is that she is either an eastern or a western mosquitofish - Gambusia holbrooki or Gambusia affinis.

I do have a group of G.affinis from before but as I couldn't get her ID'ed I kept her in a separate tank with some Costa Rican mollies - Poecilia gilli and Green swordtails - Xiphophorus helleri Rio Atoyac. 

I then placed her in a breeding pen, but she must have just dropped fry/or the fry were so small they escaped through the vertical bars on the sides of the pen, because when I moved the fish into a larger tank, I found 8 small fry at the bottom of the tank.

I thought they were molly fry as the females were getting large, and I still thought the mosquitofish looked pregnant.

This was October 7th and I scooped up the fry and placed in a plastic container. Sadly two of them have died due to poor water quality (the container needs cleaning out every day) and I decided to put the fry in another tank with a filter and a group of Least killifish - Heterandria formosa and speckled mosquitofish - Phalloceros caudimaculatus. I hadn't really looked too closely at the fry until then, but now that they were in an aquarium I saw they had black vertical bars across their eyes like adult mosquitofish do.

So now I am hoping the 6 remaining fry will grow and thrive in their new tank, and that there will be at least one male so that I can get a positive ID. I am hoping they are Gambusia affinis only because I can then add them to my existing group of G.affinis. Otherwise I need to get a separate tank for them as they mature.

Gambusia sp

One of the fry

Update 16.01.2020

In the end I found 7 fry in the tank, I placed them first in a tank with small livebearers: H.formosa, P.caudimaculatus and X.meyeri, then moved them in with "mum" but...as they grew they revealed their identity as being X.helleri Rio Atoyac fry !

Xiphophorus helleri Rio Atoyac fry.

So that was a "setback" although I am of course very happy to have 7 healthy and growing wild type swordtails :)

I moved the swordtail fry in with their parents where they are currently thriving, and placed the now quite round Gambusia sp. female in a separate breeding tank and..she dropped fry ! This time no doubt her own since she was the only fish in that tank, and she might have dropped more than 4 but 4 is all I could find, and I have moved her in with the swordtails and kept the fry in the breeding tank which is now their grow out tank :D

And this is what her actual fry look like new born 07.01.2020