Pat Ibbetson

So you want to know more about me? I don't know why you would but here's the basics...

First and foremost, I am a true fan of underground electronic music, going all the way back to 1983 when Juan Atkins unleashed Clear on the world. I got addicted to 'Black Crack' back in '87 when acid house took over the UK club scene and Pump Up The Volume hit the airwaves here in the states. I began DJing in 1990 after being inspired by early progressive techno hits like Chime and Not Forgotten. Even though I had been listening to techno for 8 years, it took the beautiful combination of minimal techno, bottom heavy house and futuristic defiance of genre rules that progressive techno embodied to get me behind the decks. Since then my musical tastes have evolved (as has electronic music) through Belgian 'Rave' music, UK Hardcore, Frankfurt-ish techno, to where I am now, as a pioneer of the new style of electronic music known as Wet&Hard. If you want to know more about Wet&Hard please visit my slow ass website...

My other main interest outside of music is fish. No, not the kind that you put in your mouth (I never have and never will eat fish), the kind that drain your wallet at the aquarium store. I have always had this strange fascination with fish, and now that I can afford real equipment, I have gone completely overboard. I love all fish, but during the last three years I seem to have developed a perverse fettish for wild Poecilia species and other livebearers. Although my wife and I have some rather normal pet-store variety fish in the house like Bettas and Fancy Goldfish, it is the wild Poecilias that I am most proud of.

For those of you that are not complete fish geeks, the Poecilia genus is the Molly family. I currently am being bankrupted by 9 different species in the family which I will briefly describe below:

Poecilia wingei - Endler's Livebearer

These are decendants of fish collected from Laguna de Patos, Cumana, in northeastern Venezuela. They have a very similar appearance to wild Guppies, but then again so do all the fish in the genus. Compared to the common guppy, they need warmer water, are generally much smaller, and act like complete tweakers.

Poecilia latipinna - Sailfin Molly / Topote velo negro

This is Spot, a male Sailfin Molly. He's not wild, but is of the pet-store variety, which explains the well defined dalmation coloring. Hes a perfect example of a high-quality Sailfin Molly you will find in specialty aquarium stores. He's about 4 inches long, has a very friendly personality, and does nothing but eat and fuck all day.

Poecilia mexicana - Shortfin Molly / Cave Molly / Yucatan Molly / Topote del Atlántico

This is one of my 'shortfin' mollies. They are rather dull, and if you didn't know better you would think it was just an all-black Guppy. Black mexicana mollies don't really get bigger than 2" in length... which is this same size as the common Guppy. They don't have nearly as much personality as Guppies, and are rather fragile when compared to other Poecilia species. This is one of those fish that I am keeping simply for the challenge involved, because otherwise they are completely boring.

Poecilia reticulata - Guppy

This is one of my many Guppies. Yeah everybody has had Guppies... but have you tried breeding them to reverse engineer the 100 years of breeding that has gone on in captive populations to get a more wild look? I make it sound like I'm doing it on purpose but the reality is I'm just too lazy to seperate the juveniles. The amazing thing is... its working. I have gotten some amazing cobra patterns on the males and have even gotten some red, blue and purple blotches to appear on their bodies (wild guppies have similar patterns to Endlers, they just have more colors).

Poecilia sp. - Roatan Island Molly

This should be my pride and joy, but I'm having a terrible time taking care of these guys. They are a recently discovered species (2003) that was previously unknown to science. And since nothing is known about them, they are a complete fucking bitch to take care of. Their parents were collected during the summer of 2003 from the lagoon down the beach from a popular nightlife establishment. The wild males are well over 6" in length (which would make them the largest of the Poecilia species) with a blue body and red, black and gold fins. Unfortunately, the red coloration won't develop in an aquarium, so I'll have to live with blue and gold. The problem with these guys is, they come from an island in carribean that has no mountains, so the place is literally a desert. To complicate things, they come from a freshwater pool ON the beach. Now what the hell am I supposed to feed these fuckers?

Lurking in the same tank are some wild Gambusia nicaraguensis (Nicaraguan Mosquitofish) which were collected from the same pool on Roatan Island, and some Alfaro Huberi (Rainbow Rocketfish) which have turned out to be more evil and predatory than piranahs with the personality of a brick. A juvenile male is visible in the upper right corner above. These were collected in the summer of 2003 from the Pico Bonito in Honduras.

Update:
I'm now keeping the mollies in their own salt water tank. Now that they are in full strength ocean water (with a temperature of 86F !!!!) they are thriving. They are amazing fish, although they are some of the most hiddeously aggressive fish I've ever seen. Not quite as bad as sharks, but far beyond the behavior you would see from Piranhas, large cichlids, and so forth. Although the saltwater instantly made them healthier, they didn't start breeding until the temp was raised (most "tropical" fish would slowly die in water this warm). So far two fry have grown past the getting eaten by their parents stage.

Poecilia Salvatoris - Liberty Molly - Alpha Male

Poecilia Salvatoris - Liberty Molly - w/ Endlers

Although I got these fish as an afterthought, they have turned out to be more wonderful than I could have possibly imagined. For those of you that are into Mollies, you may have heard tales of the fabled Liberty Molly, a beautiful fish that could never be found and was discounted by scientists as just another color form of P.sphenops. Well, they do indeed exist and you can see what the juveniles look like in the photos above.

The parents of the fish pictured above were collected during the summer of 2003 from Rio Cangrejal near Pico Benito, Honduras. The fish in the photos are still quite young (only 6 months old) and aren't even half of their adult size. In the bottom photo you can compare them to full grown Endlers to get an idea of how really fucking cool these fish are. They have a very distinct charactaristic, which is the yellow cresent on the tale tipped in a black line. Other molly species have the colored cresent on the tail, and can also have black tails, but NONE of them have a cresent on a tail that ends black. These fish also have a very unique pattern of red dots arranged in lines on their body. This is one of the species of Molly where there are alpha males, and he can be identified by having the tail pattern on his dorsal fin as well. The other sexually mature male in the tank doesn't have the dorsal fin markings, but instead has a gold chest like a wild sailfin molly. Another unique charactaristic of this species is that the males and females are pretty much the same size. In all other Poecilia species the female is noticable larger.

The greatest thing about these fish besides their highly unusual markings? Their personalities. Each fish has its own personality. They are all very friendly and extremely gentle. This is one of the few large livebearers that can be flock-bred. Most other livebearers will hunt down their young (or the young of their tankmates) and devour them with relish.

Poecilia Sphenops - Molly / Topote mexicano

This is the "classic" Molly that we all haven't seen in our local fish store. This is the fish that has been bred for over 100 years into the mutants you see at the LFS. This fish isn't wild, and shows a few signs of captive breeding, but he retains the body shape and fin coloring found in the wild. Overall, he's still a very good example of what these fish look like in the wild. The only thing unwild about him is the blue iridescent scales are practically invisible.

Given that he is only a few generations removed from the wild, he still behaves like a wild one, which i don't particularly care for. Wild Mollies eat a lot of algae. I don't know if it is because they particularly like algae, or if its because they have the annoying habbit of putting anything and everything in their mouths, including their tank mates. These fish are true omnivores, meaning that they will literally eat everything they possibly can. It doesn't appear that they are actively trying to maintain a balanced diet like other fish do, they are just pigs.

I wouldn't particularly recommend these fish to anybody, unless you really are prepared to take care of them properly. Their water needs to be either liquid concrete (pH 8.0+) or saltwater, and they need to be in a heavily planted tank, which is of course nearly impossible with the water they require. If you want a Molly of this type and aren't prepared to deal with their needs, just get a gold dust molly or any of the other freakish color varieties at the LFS. They'll do better in normal water, don't need live plants from their natural habitat, won't nip the fins of tank mates, etc.

Mating Pair

Poecilia Velifera - Yucatan Sailfin Molly Male

Poecilia Velifera - Yucatan Sailfin Molly Male

The two fish above are my pride and joy. They are a breeding pair of Yucatan Sailfin Mollies. They are over 2 years old and are nearly full grown. These are the most spectacular livebearers of all, even though you can't tell because my pictures suck. They are massively huge when compared to other Mollies, with females being well over 6" in the wild. The female above is nearly 7" long. This is one way to tell P. velifera from P. latipina. The most definitive way to tell them apart is that the male will have 18 or 19 rays on his dorsal fin. P. latipina always has 14 rays.

I've spent two years of my life learning to care for these evil bastards and I'm quite proud of the fact that I haven't killed them yet. They are extremely hard to care for, being that they are a saltwater fish that isn't a saltwater fish. Huh? In the wild, these fish live in fresh water next to the ocean, and travel back and forth between the two. They have to have access to native plants to eat, or the male won't develop his sailfin. They also don't like rough seas, so putting them in a reef aquarium with wave making devices wouldn't be too good for them.

They don't particularly care for algae, and instead prefer to hunt down their tank mates and eat them in the middle of the night. These are NOT 'community' fish. You can put them in a community tank, but don't get upset when they eat their tank mates. They are also hiddeously aggressive, and have drawn blood from my hands and arms on numerous occasions. I've learned the hard way that I have to feed them before working in their tank.

Even though they are terribly aggressive when it comes to eating, they are strangely quite peaceful after eating. They will come say hi if you are near the tank, and they generally leave their other tankmates completely alone, instead spending time with each other. These fish are extremely hard to breed and so far I've only gotten 10 viable fry from them. Their fry don't grow very fast at all and like to do stupid shit like jump out of the tank when the lights get turned on and off. I now keep the fry in a seperate 65 gallon tank that is completely covered with a 2" layer of floating plants. It isn't very attractive, but I've only had 4 jumpers since moving them into that tank so its a definite improvement.

If you are bored of the normal fish that you got from the pet store and want a real challenge, try some of these out. They need some pretty hefty equipment to grow them out. Mine have been through 3 different tanks, with the 3rd tank being a 90 gallon with wet/dry filtration fed with a built in overflow system that is driven by a 600gph pump. The wet/dry resevoir is filtered by a 300gph marine-style canister filter.The tank is heavilly planted, which is required to succesfully raise these fish. By heavilly planted I mean its an overgrown jungle, and every month I remove a couple gallons of plant trimmings. The flora in the tank are: Cabomba furcata (red Cabomba), Cabomba caroliniana (Green Cabomba), Cabomba pulcherrima (Purple Cabomba), Vallisneria americana (Jungle Val), Sagittaria subulata (Dwarf Sag), Vallisneria americana v. biwaensis (Corkscrew Val), Echinodorus bleheri (Amazon Sword), Didiplis diandra (Diandra), Echinodorus horemanii x Echinodorus barthii (Red Rubin Sword), Ludwigia palustris (Narrow Leaf Ludwigia), Bacopa monnieri (Moneywort), Myriophyllum heterophyllum (Red Water Milfoil), Echinodorus cordifolius (Marble Radican Sword), Echinodorus argentinensis (Argentine Sword), Spathiphyllum wallisi (Columbian Peace Lilly), Alternanthera reineckii, Bacopa caroliniana, Ceratophyllum demersum, Lilaeopsis brasiliensis, Ludwigia repens, Phyllanthus fluitans, Riccia fluitans, Rotala macrandra, Sagittaria platyphylla, Hydrocotyle leucocephala (Brazillian Pennywort), Egeria najas, florida hairgrass, and some other random plants and algae that really aren't important.

The plants are fed with a pH controlled CO2 injection system, with lighting provided by 2x150w 10,000k MH bulbs and 2x96w 6,700k CF bulbs for a total of 492 watts... which isn't quite enough. The light costs me about 200 bux a month to run, and its not even strong enough. I can't imagine what proper lighting would cost me.

If you are thinking about getting some of these fish, the tank and lighting is extremely important. Why? Because the mollies eat the plants. Without the plants your males won't grow their sailfin, which is kind of the whole point of having sailfin Mollies. Unlike other Mollies that eat algae and critters off of your plants, these Mollies eat the plants themselves. Most Central American plants won't even stay alive at 3wpg, and at 5wpg they will barely be able to keep up with the fish. The fish also need a huge fucking tank. 90 gallons isn't really big enough for them. I would go with a 300, but then you will be spending a couple grand on a tank for some freakin Mollies. Its a little insane when you can get other Mollies at the LFS for 2 bux each that will happily live in a 10g tank.

Poecilia Vivipara - Guarú / Ipanema Molly

Ipanema Beach

Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro

I am now owned by 12 of these little buggers. They are quite ugly compared to other mollies, in fact our nickname for them is "ugly mollies". They are great fish however. They are quite small, and all twelve of them share a 3 gallon tank along with 5 shrimp, a handful of snails, and a giant rats nest of Bacopa.

My fish in particular were collected from Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro, part of a population that lives in Logoa and along the beach in famous neighborhoods like Ipanema and Copacabana. Obviously, they are a saltwater fish. My fish are being kept in brackish but not quite full strength sea-water. Its a pain having such a small saltwater tank, particularly with fish such as these that rip apart everything they can find leaving a huge mess behind. Above are two pictures of the exact neighborhood in Rio where these fish came from.

Altough they are rather boring given that they are so small, its really nice to have these fish, as they are the type species of the Poecilia genus.

And now that I've bored you to death with my freakin Molly pictures, I'd like to leave you with this little nugget of knowledge that will help you lead a happy and fulfilling life:

"Republicans make love the way they fight a war: They lie to get in and don&..39;t know what to do once they get there."