One Of My Female Swordtails Are Pregnant

caboose_122 · Jan 20, 2007

Hi! i have some new swordtails and one of my females is already pregnant.

i have nothing to keep the fry in when they are born. :unsure:

and i want to save a few. any sugestions, i have no money for breeding traps or nets, my freind was offering to lend me a fish bowl but i need moving water and much more space from what i know, all sugestion are welcome.

t.ropical_m.istx3 · Jan 20, 2007

i've never had swordtails before so i dont know how many fry they have. if it's along the lines of guppies, don't worry about it. some will get eaten but if you have enough plants, some will live, too. if they only have a few (not a few but less than guppies) you may want to invest in a "nursery tank" or a trap.

theotheragentm · Jan 21, 2007

It might not be that you don't have enough money. You might just be passing up some options, some free and some inexpensive.

Breeding nets are really cheap actually. See? Skip a lunch and you can afford this.

You really don't need flowing water if you want to keep the fry. That means you can keep them in a bowl, pot, bucket, or whatever. Let me explain. I had an impulse buy one time and I ended up with a Blue Lobster. I had two tanks, but only one filter. Basically I ran the filter on the Blue Lobster tank all day, except for when I got home from work for about three hours, when I ran it on the fry tank. The fry aren't going to make that much waste, and swapping the filter over for a few hours should suffice as long as it runs the entire volume of the tank/bowl/bucket a couple times over per hour.

Take river rocks, which you know are safe. Since rocks aren't flat, they won't sit flush against one another and create crevices for the fry to hide in and grow up. Careful though, as rocks can sometimes raise pH of a tank. That's why I said river rocks.

Good luck.

caboose_122 · Jan 21, 2007

theotheragentm said:
It might not be that you don't have enough money. You might just be passing up some options, some free and some inexpensive.

Breeding nets are really cheap actually. See? Skip a lunch and you can afford this.

You really don't need flowing water if you want to keep the fry. That means you can keep them in a bowl, pot, bucket, or whatever. Let me explain. I had an impulse buy one time and I ended up with a Blue Lobster. I had two tanks, but only one filter. Basically I ran the filter on the Blue Lobster tank all day, except for when I got home from work for about three hours, when I ran it on the fry tank. The fry aren't going to make that much waste, and swapping the filter over for a few hours should suffice as long as it runs the entire volume of the tank/bowl/bucket a couple times over per hour.

Take river rocks, which you know are safe. Since rocks aren't flat, they won't sit flush against one another and create crevices for the fry to hide in and grow up. Careful though, as rocks can sometimes raise pH of a tank. That's why I said river rocks.

Good luck.

well the closest thing we have to a river were i live is the muddy ol' fraser river(30mins away) or a slough(just down the road)

theotheragentm · Jan 21, 2007

I just mentioned a river, because it's natural and you didn't want to spend money. I don't have a river near me either. I bought rocks when I set up my tank. I have a picture here.

You could use basically any object to provide a hiding place for fry as long as it won't change water conditions. That means, nothing that dissolves and nothing that rots. Lego blocks would even do fine for the interim if you wanted to build something where fry could hide. Let us know what you decide.

caboose_122 · Jan 21, 2007

i could probably go down to the fraser river for rocks but then again cant rocks be washed with a bucket of hot water and some tapwater conditioner? because even rocks from a river are bound to have something that can disrupt the water levels in a fishtank cant they? but yes tell me is this is a bad idea to let the rock sit in hot - boiling water for 20-30 mins with some tapwater conditioner

madmom · Jan 21, 2007

I had an emergency once and I used a sterilized wide mouthed large resteraunt type food jar and a diy filter from the DIY section (see 5 minute filter). Breeding nets are pretty inexpensive though.

t.ropical_m.istx3 · Jan 21, 2007

be careful when using rocks you just picked up. they could put some metal in the water and hurt your fish.

dwarfgourami · Jan 21, 2007

tbh I don't think the big question is how you are going to set up a bowl/breeder net for them in the first few weeks; it's how you're going to house them in the next few months until they are a sellable size. A 10 gallon tank which already houses 3 swordies and 2 serpas and ?something else is not really going to be enough grow-out space for 20 odd swordtails.