How To Breed Swordtails From Scratch

[AstonN24vantage]

Hi all. I wanted to show everyone that wanted a little bit of a challenge how to take a not pregnant swordtail and make it pregnant. This is for people who want to breed their swordtails, the 100% way. So to start off, today i bought a nice looking female from Petco. I do not remember what the name of it is, it was something that Petco won a contest for naming. I believe it had fire somewhere in it, and possibly twinbar, as it says on the reciept. Anyway, she will hopefully be mating with my only other swordtail, a nice mickey mouse male. I'll get pics of the female and maybe somebody can ID it, but that will be a bit later. Petco invented this breed, I believe, and I think it is fairly new, so while in the process I may end up creating some sort of weird new breed, which since my first day of fishkeeping I've been wanting to do. She is extremely new, just a few hours in fact, so I assume that it will take a few days to "get to know the fish" and to get more acclimated. I will make the temperature go up slightly, to help them breed, however swordtails will breed under normal conditions just fine. I just want to speed the process up a bit. More updates will come soon, as soon as there is a change.

 

[Alasse]

Was the female you got in a female only tank? If not she will already be preggers and can store sperm for a few more pregnancies. Once she has finished that you can then gaurentee matings with your male and that the fry will be his

 

[AstonN24vantage]

She was in a female only tank. I did a bit more research and I found out something pretty cool. Apparently, the more attractive the male, the more likely she is to mate with him, not just because they are cool looking, but also because of their genes becoming active when they see a pretty male. I am assuming, and hoping, my mickey mouse is on the pretty side, because then the females can't think straight and go right up to him and mate. It's pretty cool!

 

[Alasse]

She will breed with any male that comes near her, honestly they are not fussy. Males are the same.

Good luck with your breeding program, cant wait to see your results!

 

[AstonN24vantage]

thank you! me too!

 

[AstonN24vantage]

nevermind. the female somehow died on me. #40##.

 

[OldMan47]

Sorry to hear about your female Ashton. The darned thing could have at least given you one drop first. Did you get a picture so that we can all see what is new out there that Petco is offering?

 

[AstonN24vantage]

no sorry. but i did however get a pair red eye red wag lyretail swordtail that shall be called Abu Dhabi. so i guess i could continue? pics will be posted of her asap. it was a 25 buck pair!

sorry for low quality - stupid ipod. anyway, i think that its easier to see her than the backround though.


also recently had 2 great guppy drops

 

[OldMan47]

That is a nice looking fish you have Ashton. I would call it a lyretailed red albino from what I can tell.
The male fish of the same line may not be capable of mating. Sad to tell, but male swords and platies from lines that have long fins and extended tails like that often also have an extended gonopodium. The down side of that is that they are unable to use the over-sized organ effectively with a female. People who breed such fish must often resort to things like artificial insemination of the females.

 

[AstonN24vantage]

how would i go about artificially mating with the female?

 

[AstonN24vantage]

so he can't breed with her? and i need a un-lyretailed sword?

 

[fish48]

they can't breed with a extended gonopodium you will need a lyretail male with a normal gonopodium.
your female lyretail may alredy be carrying fry you will get a percentage of of normal and extended gonopodiums
then you can carry on breeding with the same strain however if she is not pregnent you will need to put a normal
red male swordtail with her you will still get a percentage of each.

 

[AstonN24vantage]

fair enough. that sucks! i put 25 bucks into the hope of making millions! screw that

 

[AstonN24vantage]

male just died yesterday.... looked like just some stress. so i moved female to other tank where hopefully she will mate with the mickey mouse already in there.

 

[fish48]

a fish like that is to good to mate with a mickey mouse lol