A beautiful sport of Molly from Singapore is Copper Lyretail, a very colourful variety. Obviously the species Poecilia sphenops formed the basis of that strain. The combination of the colour copper and the lyretail led to males in which the anal fin is much too broad to serve as a gonopodium. So the pure males of that strain cannot become fathers. To keep the sport alive it is necessary to cross the pure females with males from another sport that have a normal gonopodium. The offspring has to be selected, as it will not fall pure, or, in some cases, even a second step is necessary to obtain Copper Lyretails at all, eg a back cross or a sibling cross, to get specimens with the desired genetic combination.
While breeding Copper Lyretails is pretty demanding, keeping them is quite the opposite: these mollys are very hardy and lively fish!
For our customers: the fish have code 432363 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
