Endlers for Beginners
Endlers are an excellent fish for those who are beginners to the aquarium hobby. Endlers are very easy to care for and are a real pleasure to watch as they still have many of the characteristics that you might expect to see in wild fish.
Endlers are quite active. Male Endlers spend most of their day courting female Endlers and when they are not courting females they are looking for something to eat.
When males are kept alone with other males they will often flare out similar to the way bettas do and may even chase a rival away however they seldom fight with each other as they have a very mild temperament. This helps make Endlers a great choice for a peaceful community tank.
Unlike many other fish species healthy Endlers will spend their day swimming throughout all levels of the tank. It is natural for them to want to jump from one tank to another so having a lid on your tank is a must.
Selecting & Preparing an Endler Aquarium
Tank selection and aquarium preparation is quite important when keeping Endlers. When selecting the tank you wish to keep your Endlers in you will want to decide what the purpose of the tank will be. If you just want to keep a small handful of Males at your desk a tank as small as one gallon may be sufficient under the correct conditions.
In general the larger the tank the healthier your Endlers will be. This is because larger tanks help minimize fluctuations in temperature and water quality.
One thing to keep in mind if you choose to breed Endlers is that even with a small number of fish to start with you may soon have literally thousands of fish to deal with. We find 40-55 Gallon tanks are great for breeding Endlers.
Overcrowding your Endlers is one of the worst things you can do when raising Endlers. Overcrowding Endlers can contribute to poor water quality which will lead to illness and eventually death of your Endlers.
Endler kept in crowded conditions may quickly develop Ich, Fin Rot, Wasting Away Disease or Dropsy. Keeping your fish in water that is not warm enough may also contribute to illness in your Endlers.
A good Endler aquarium should have the following:
- Good lighting to help show off your Endlers amazing colors and help keep plants healthy.
- Lid to prevent jumping Endlers from escaping.
- Live plants to give the fry a place to hide and help stabilize the water quality.
- A good aquarium heater. Endlers enjoy fairly high water temperature around 75-81°F. Endlers may die at temperatures lower than 60°F.
- High quality fish food.
- Good filtration system. Ideally your filtration system should provide mechanical and biological filtration. Chemical filtration may also be beneficial.
Feeding Endlers
Endlers will quickly learn to know when it is feeding time. They often will go into a somewhat feeding frenzy as they anticipate their feeding time.
We have even observed fish getting so excited that they jump out of the water and get stuck to the glass when they are ready to be fed. Fortunately these fish quickly realize what they have done and flip themselves back into the water.
Endler Food
Endlers are not fussy when it comes to food. They will readily take flake food as long as it is crushed into small enough sizes that they can eat it. Avoid poor quality flake food as this may cause them to become constipated and in extreme cases somewhat bloated. If your Endlers become constipated feeding them blanched, shelled and crushed peas should help your Endlers.
While Endlers will readily take flake food it is a good idea to feed them a variety of foods. We usually give them a mix of crushed high quality flake food, spirulina and Golden Pearls.
Your Endlers may also enjoy frozen daphnia, brine shrimp, and blackworms. They may also enjoy chopped frozen bloodworms or algae wafers.
In general your Endlers will eat just about any food that fish can eat so long as it is small enough to fit in their mouths.
We have noted that feeding Endlers flake food that is not crushed will result in the majority of it being left on the bottom of the tank to waste. This is potentially dangerous for your Endlers as it can cause bacteria blooms as well as increase toxins in the water.
Care should be taken when offering live food as many types of live foods may present a risk of parasites or diseases that would be undesirable in an aquarium.
We make it a habit not to clean any algae that may build up on the back wall of our aquariums. The Endlers love to spend their day eating the algae that grows there. Note: Too much algae may be a sign of poor water quality.
We do not feed our fish two days prior to shipping. We do this for two reasons. We feel it is healthy for the fish to fast for a time to help prevent constipation and we have the fish fast prior to shipping to help minimize waste that is produced during shipping and help to keep them healthier during the shipping process.
Selecting Your Endlers
Depending on what you are wanting to do with your Endlers, where you get your Endlers from can be quite important. If your desire is simply to keep some pretty community fish then where and how you get your Endlers is of little importance. However if your desire is to breed Endlers there are some things you will want to know before purchasing your Endlers.
If your breeding Endlers you will want to decide if you want to breed pure Endlers or hybrid Endlers. Pure strain Endlers tent to be more expensive and more difficult to obtain than hybrid Endlers.
Many of the Endlers advertised as “pure” Endlers are obvious hybrids to those who have been raising pure strain Endlers for quite some time. If you’re new to Endlers it may be difficult to know which Endlers are pure and which Endlers are hybrid.
Endlers cross breed with guppies so easily that classifications have been set up to help differentiate Endlers and help protect those that are truly pure Endler.
Endler Classifications
Class N: (Documented Pure Strain)
Any Endler’s Livebearer (and progeny) that can be shown to have originated from their native waters in Venezuela and has not had their genetics contaminated by hybridization.
In order for an Endler’s Livebearer to be classified as Class N careful records should be kept to show the direct link to the wild Endler’s Collected in Venezuela.
These Endlers must be kept well away from any tanks containing any other type of livebearer or Endler strain or you will risk contaminating the strain.
Class K: (Hybrid Strain)
The progeny of any Endler’s Live-bearer crossed with any other live-bearer or any hybrid strain.
Class P: (Appears to be Pure But Has No documentation)
Any fish of unknown origin but appearing to be an Endler’s Livebearer based on the characteristics of size, shape and color.
If your desire is to keep Pure N Class Endlers it is very important that you purchase your Endlers from a reputable source. Preferably one that can show documentation that the Endlers that they are selling you are N Class Endlers.
This is important not only to get pure Endlers but also because most people that go to the lengths required to offer documented N Class Endlers are usually knowledgeable enough to provide good quality, healthy Endlers.
Breeding Endlers
Breeding Endlers is pretty easy, put the boys and the girls together and let nature take it’s course. There are really no special conditions that are needed to help Endlers breed. If left unchecked you will soon have lots of Endler fry and when they grow up they will in turn have lots of Endler fry. Soon you could have way more Endlers than you ever anticipated.
While breeding Endlers is quite easy, breeding high quality Endlers takes a little bit more work. Uncontrolled breeding can create weak, unhealthy and poorly colored Endlers.
Breeding high quality Endlers requires multiple tanks so that males can be separated leaving only the best males to breed. Poorly colored males left unnoticed could cause your entire breeding process to be affected as the females can hold the males sperm for nearly a year potentially producing hundreds of fry and thousands of resulting fry.
Female Endlers that are used for breeding should also be examined closely. Any female (or male) Endlers that appear to be weak or unhealthy should be removed from your breeding tanks.
If you wish to breed N Class Endlers be sure to keep your Endler strains well away from strains of other Endlers or other livebearers. Endler can easily jump from one tank to another and fry can flip out of a net into nearby tanks completely unnoticed.
There is some information that suggests that temperature may have some influence as to the male to female ratio of fry born. There seems to be more males produced when the water is warmer and more females produced when the water is cooler. We have seen this in our breeding efforts.