All Females?

[EzE8]

I have a tank set up for about a year with platies, guppies, mollies and swordtails. It is doing good and I even have had some second generation babies born. My problem is, out of the 200 or so babies I've had it seems that there have only been 3 males born. Am I out of my mind? what's going on?

 

[WILDER]

Yes I've heard of this before, I had mainly females babies, but had alot more than 3 males.

 

[Mogurako]

There might have been allot of males that you didn't know about. Some livebearer males love to be 2nd morps. I have one male who after 7 months is now just showing signs of becoming a male. His sword has barley started to form and has the black line on the bottom of his fin. Its crazy cause hes like 3inches w/o his non existant sword and is the same thickness as my big breeder females. sometimes only time will wether they are male of female.

Jesse

 

[yhbae]

I remember reading an article about how pH affects sex ratio of swordtales. Another article experimented with various mbuna species with similar results. I believe higher pH significantly increased male proportion.

Under near neutral pH (mine is 7.2), I too get at least 80% females.

 

[Mogurako]

My ph is pretty high and i usally get mostly females also, i wounder if the ph could affect how fast they sexualy mature because that would make sense of all the 2nd morphs.

Jesse

 

[yhbae]

My ph is pretty high and i usally get mostly females also, i wounder if the ph could affect how fast they sexualy mature because that would make sense of all the 2nd morphs.

Jesse

What is your pH?

 

[Dragons Bay]

My first platies saw only grandaughters. Now my tank is only full of females. Just as well, because my tank will not hold any more babies.

 

[Mogurako]

My ph is pretty high and i usally get mostly females also, i wounder if the ph could affect how fast they sexualy mature because that would make sense of all the 2nd morphs.

Jesse

What is your pH?

I just tested my water:

hardness is 200ppm
Total alkalinty is 120ppm
Ph is 7.8

Jesse