dark ages weaponry… ( the swords )

[Magnum Man33 147]

after a few weeks in the tank, several of the Rio Atoyac females are also starting to color up…

the non rio females in the other tank are all still silver green

 

[emeraldking12 63]

They are obviously getting more adapted to your tank.

 

[Magnum Man33 147]

ok… I’m pretty sure these 1st 2 fry… born here, but not conceived here, are both rio fry… they continue to grow, and get more spots

 

[Innesfan30 14]

No question... they are.

 

[Magnum Man33 147]

bigger male continues to color up… sorry, this tank needs a water change, and the glass cleaned…

 

[Magnum Man33 147]

coitus interuptus… I should have looked over the tank this afternoon, before I fed… the biggest male and female were coupled… hopefully they got enough exchanged, before breaking up for supper…

 

[GaryE]

bigger male continues to color up… sorry, this tank needs a water change, and the glass cleaned…View attachment 378490

It's snowing pretty heavily in that tank!

 

[Magnum Man33 147]

air bubbles, caused by the skimmer portion of the tidal hob filter, and an unfull tank… and a highly zoomed picture, combined with my lack of skill at taking pictures, I’d be lying if I said I was trying to recreate the blizzard outside at the time…

 

[Magnum Man33 147]

saw one of my female Rio Atoyac swords “pooping” out a batch of baby’s into this dwarf hair grass I added to this tank a few weeks ago… ( there is quite a bit of mulm in the hair grass right now, as I added a bag of polished river rock to the bottom ) this morning, as extra cover for the baby orange dwarf crays, and baby swords… so I’ll be looking for new babies through out the day… my previous are still growing, and starting to swim with the other adults…

 

[Magnum Man33 147]

yep… new babies swimming around today

only see a few , so I’m not sure if the rio swords only have small batches, or the immature parents only are have a few at their young ages… but yes, they are breeding for me…

 

[Magnum Man33 147]

this is the rio sword tank… and it’s doing really well, I’ve not lost any of the rio swords, and they are breeding , as are the dwarf orange crayfish… there are a couple baby super red bushy nose plecos, and that sail fin platy male in there, I’ve removed the cull sailfins , and the rest of the colony of flag fish, making it pretty much just a rio sword tank…

the variegated hoya plant has begun to shoot off a small runner, so it is acclimated to it’s new home ( runner is shooting up and out of the closest plant )

the non rio swords are not doing well, suffering the same fate as the sail fins… I’ll give the bigger hoya vines in that tank time to grow out some more, then may try a small school of “goodies” in that tank…

 

[emeraldking12 63]

so I’m not sure if the rio swords only have small batches

The number of fry in each batch will differ. From just a few to an amount of 30. Sometimes even more but usually 30 will be the max with these type of swordtails.

 

[Magnum Man33 147]

babies are too small to photograph, but a few new pictures today of some adults…

the dominant male, and a couple females…

a good shot of that dominant male…

and one of the most colorful female ( on the left )…

 

[emeraldking12 63]

Glad to know that I'm not the only fan of wild livebearers...

 

[Magnum Man33 147]

so, the newest babies seem to be doing fine, though the most I’ve ever seen at one time, has been two… so assuming they are good at hiding, likely only 2-3 more in that last birthing…

in general they are all still coloring up, another female has gotten the orangish dorsal… but this must be a genetic thing, as the 2 largest females. don’t have color in their dorsals… I’m continuing to watch this…

the newer, larger male is dominant, however the older, smaller one, hides most of the time, but with 6 females in the harem, the dominant can’t watch all of the females, all of the time… so the smaller one saddles up next to a female, whenever he can get by with it…

those 1st bigger babies, are now fully swimming with the adults, too young to sex yet, but accepted into the group…