My Swordtail Had Babies!

[fry_forever!]

Hey! Yesterday I went to my LFS, and saw a beautiful female swordtail who was extremely pregnant. I told myself "NO! I'm not going to get her! I already have a disease in my tank, my tank is overcrowded, and she might abort her babies if I take her home!" But, despite my logical thoughts, I brought her home anyway. I woke up in the morning, turned around, and watched my fish swim around happily. And then, I saw a baby streak past. I got up immediately and scooped out as many as I could. (Which I think turned out to be about 10...) I put the babies in my 2.5 gallon tank.

Examining the babies closely, they look very skinny to me -- like SICK skinny. I am really confused...? I have never had swordtail babies before, this is my first batch, so I don't know what newborn swordtail fry are supposed to look like.

I will describe these guys the best I can, since they are too small to take pictures of.
They are tiny, tiny, tiny, and really skinny. None of their fins are clamped or anything, they are just skinny. They look premature, but if they were, wouldn't they be egg-shaped, not skinny? But they are just so SMALL, not at all like their mother! Do you think some will survive until adulthood?

I will try to post pics of the babies, but they will not be good quality at all. But, this is the mother:




And I WAS able to get some low-quality pictures of the fry:


(Click on picture to make bigger.)

Thanks in advance for any help!

-fry_forever!

 

[OldMan47]

If the swordtail fry were premature, they would have a bit of a yellow yolk sac at their bellies. Swordtail fry are smaller in general than things like platy of guppy fry so they may seem very skinny to you. Try feeding them very finely crushed flake food and watch what happens. Inside of a week they should be as big a a newborn guppy or even a bit more.

 

[fry_forever!]

If the swordtail fry were premature, they would have a bit of a yellow yolk sac at their bellies. Swordtail fry are smaller in general than things like platy of guppy fry so they may seem very skinny to you. Try feeding them very finely crushed flake food and watch what happens. Inside of a week they should be as big a a newborn guppy or even a bit more.

Yeah, they're looking better now, thanks!
Some are still skinny, because I think some may have caught an internal parasite from their mother. I will treat as soon as the medicated food comes in.
I would've thought that swordtail fry would be bigger, because the parents are as big as mollies...? But I guess it doesn't really matter what size the parents are, because after all, kangaroos have babies the size of a thumb!
Thanks again!
Oh, and by the way, I'm feeding them crushed adult flakes, mixed with crushed algae flakes, (which made myself...) mixed with crushed shrimp pellet flakes, (which I made myself....) and I'm soon going to be putting in powder fry food. Does this sound nutritious enough? I can't feed live or frozen food, as I am severely, severely allergic to them.

 

[OldMan47]

It sounds like a good diet for swordtails. For the mollies I usually have, I would leave out the shrimp but swordtails diet is generally less green than mollies so it should work well.

 

[fry_forever!]

It sounds like a good diet for swordtails. For the mollies I usually have, I would leave out the shrimp but swordtails diet is generally less green than mollies so it should work well.

Okay, thank you very much! They like the food a lot.