Making Your Endlers as Beautiful as Possible

Why Are Our Endlers So Beautiful

We are often asked how we get our Endlers to look so beautiful.  To be honest with you it’s really not that difficult.  First of all healthy, high-quality Endlers are simply beautiful anyway.

The biggest key to why are Endlers are so beautiful is our selective breeding process starting with high-quality stock.  Simply put, only the most beautiful males are allowed to breed with our females.  This requires that our tanks are constantly monitored for the presence of unwanted males.

To accomplish this fry are not allowed to grow up in our breeding tanks.  Fry are separated from the adults and are placed in a grow out tank.

In a few weeks, we can start to determine the sex of the fry.  Males are removed and placed in an all male tank.  Females are also removed and placed in an all-female tank.

During this time we are continually adding new fry so the process never really ends.

As the males grow we watch for specific traits that an individual male may have that we wish to incorporate into our breeding program.  Only one in several hundred males ever make it to our breeding tanks.

This is actually how we produced our first male Snakeskin Orchid Endler.  In the case of the Snakeskin Orchid Endler, the markings were so unique that we created a breeding program specifically to produce male Endlers with the same traits.

What Do We Look For In Our Breeding Stock?

Some of the most important things we look for in our breeding stock is color and pattern.  We attempt to breed in the brightest most contrasting colors that we possibly can in our Endlers.

In the case of Orchid Endlers, we look for strong shades of blue, orange and green.  Also important in the Orchid Endler strain is for the males to have more and darker black than most Endler stains.

This black coloration helps contrast the bright metallic colors that are so beautiful in Orchid Endlers.

In Lime Green Endlers we want to have as strong as possible metallic green coloration in the males.  We also want to see well-defined spots of black and orange.

This really helps the green coloration stand out.  Ideally, the dorsal fin should show a nice splash of white or light blue.

We once tried to create a line of Lime Green Endlers that had just green in them without the other colors.  We found that without the contrasting colors that were naturally found in this strain much of the beauty was lost so we discontinued our efforts to create an all green Lime Green Endler strain.

We look for the same traits found in Orchid Endlers when breeding Snakeskin Orchids however we also look for a nice snakeskin pattern in the rear half of the body and caudal fin of the males.

In addition to the basic colorations that make each strain unique, we also look for those one-in-million natural variations that help us to produce new and interesting strains.

Is Color All We Look For?

Besides colors and patterns, we also look at fin size and shape as well as overall body shape and size.

Health is another important factor we consider when selecting our breeding stock.  Breeding weak Endlers usually results in weak offspring.

Is Breeding Everything?

Of course, breeding isn’t everything.  Proper water temperature, food, and lighting are all important if you wish to make your fish look as beautiful as possible.  We have noticed that having lots of live plants not only help our Endlers to thrive they also help to make our Endlers look more beautiful.

We believe the plants have such a large impact on the look of the fish because the plants help to stabilize the water quality and help the fish feel more at home.  Because the fish feel they have hiding places that are easy to get to they seem to be more willing to display their beautiful colors rather than trying to blend into the plainness of an empty tank.

Another thing we noticed is that the males seem to show off their colors better if the tank has a dark background and a dark substrate is used in many of our aquariums.