Salty Sardine

How much salt to add, like what specific gravity or percentage salinity? Also do they need to be marine salt as opposed to aquarium salt?

How would you rank them in order from the most simple to the most challenging to keep a breeding population going? In my experience, I have little to no trouble with keeping endler and platy going. My white-ish swordtails look like they're heading in the same direction with their fry growing up quick. It's the mollies I had trouble keeping for some reason, they don't seem to fare well as other livebearers in 200L tank full of java fern and moss. They just kind of slowly vanish without leaving any offsprings. Is there something specific to mollies care that I wasn't aware of? Supposedly their care should be same as for other livebearers, but it didn't feel like the case for me. Apart from guppy, platy, swordtails, mollies, and leopardfish, are there other type of livebearers available in New Zealand? I read about halfbeaks in older topic but I don't think I ever seen them in aquarium however. Gambusia is a major no-go for obvious reason

I already have 4 male paradise fish, all grown up from juvenile and making bubble nests, sp I'm interested in getting a female paradise fish (preferably mature size) to breed them. However, the local aquarium stores (e.g. hollywood fish farm) only have the male paradise fish available, for whatever reason, their supplier just doesn't stock female paradise fish.

Oh that's unfortunate that breeding for yellow trait in leopardfish didn't worked out, but it's good hear someone's firsthand experience with breeding them. Were you able to breed for different traits with these fish such as for example, greater number of black spots for a melanistic-looking fish, or are leopardfish just immutable?

When you mention that they're half golden, you mean like they're tinted yellow rather than have discrete golden patch? I think I seen few handful in my pond colony (out of around 150~ fish) like that. Just wanna check if this proposed plan make sense or in need of some refinement or adjustment, or there's another more streamlined course of action: 1) catch the leopardfish from pond 2) separate the leopardfish by gender to prevent indiscriminate breeding 3) sort the most yellow fish out of each gender (return the rest to the pond, continue to keep them separated by gender?) 4) put those yellow fish in their own tank 5) wait for them to produce fry and grow 6) remove less-yellow offspring from the tank (send them to pond with other?)

Do we have golden form of these leopardfish in NZ? If not how feasible is it to selectively breed for brighter yellow color in these fish (google Phalloceros caudimaculatus auratus for what I'm referring to) Can I just round up all the most yellow-looking leopardfish into one tank and remove any drabber looking one as they show up over time. Or do I need to have more thorough plan of separating the breeding pair/trio into their own tank like one would do for fancy guppies? By the way, is it still legal to keep these fish, i.e. they haven't gone the way of gambusia. I looked through old topic regarding leopardfish but they're seem rather dated and I'm unsure if the regulation (or the lack of) around the leopardfish has changed lately or not.