Permanently Pregnant Swordtailfish But Never Any Babies

[kittykat63]

she is forever pregnant with little black eye type things in her tummy- but never gives birth! or she does and her babies are eaten before we get to see them- how can we ensure w see the next lot and how can we prevent her frm eating her own?
she shares a tank hapily with six redrummy nose one rainbow fish (who is greed- i bet hes the culprit!) two pleckys (they are no problem and they wouldnt eat innocent babies) one siamese fighter (just might be him- pretending to be pretty and harmless) two cichlids left (the other jumped right out of the tank and ended up on the floor and died-) two black and silver molly fish who never seem to have babies either

can anyone shed some light on this situation? they are n a 95litre tank- they have plenty, plenty of room

also my plans keep going brown and breaking up and dying and disintergrating, so i got a pot f iron for £7- now with all my water changes (once a week) and top ups its nearly gone- its only my fifth week- is there any cheaper way of making sure i have iron in my water for the plants?

thanks for any help fish people and looking forward to getting to know other peoples tanks

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum KittyKat.
You have a very predatory community there. The sword, rummy nose, mollies and Betta splendens are all predators on fry. Many, perhaps most, rainbows are also good predators. A lot depends on which cichlids you have but most will also eat lots of fry, just not their own.
Where that leaves you is that if you want fry to survive, you need a separate location for a molly or the sword to drop her fry. With only the female herself in a separate tank, many of the fry will survive. I set up a separate tank for this female and took this picture the day she dropped her fry. The tank has lots of plants for the fry to hide in but as you can see, they really didn't need much cover.

This is the same tank 5 weeks later.

I never saw any fry in her tank until I moved her to a separate tank. She always looked pregnant and she was in a tank with as many predators as you have in yours. Her first noticeable drop happened 2 weeks after I moved her, the next was 6 weeks later. You can see the new and the older fry in this picture. Unfortunately nobody would pose for a group picture. The fuzzy ones at the bottom of the picture are the older fry.

 

[clay]

Welcome to the forum KittyKat.
You have a very predatory community there. The sword, rummy nose, mollies and Betta splendens are all predators on fry. Many, perhaps most, rainbows are also good predators. A lot depends on which cichlids you have but most will also eat lots of fry, just not their own.
Where that leaves you is that if you want fry to survive, you need a separate location for a molly or the sword to drop her fry. With only the female herself in a separate tank, many of the fry will survive. I set up a separate tank for this female and took this picture the day she dropped her fry. The tank has lots of plants for the fry to hide in but as you can see, they really didn't need much cover.

This is the same tank 5 weeks later.

I never saw any fry in her tank until I moved her to a separate tank. She always looked pregnant and she was in a tank with as many predators as you have in yours. Her first noticeable drop happened 2 weeks after I moved her, the next was 6 weeks later. You can see the new and the older fry in this picture. Unfortunately nobody would pose for a group picture. The fuzzy ones at the bottom of the picture are the older fry.

nice pics is that female a lyre tail?

 

[OldMan47]

She had a slight lyretail to her but nothing like the ones you will see on any fancy swordtail or even a decent quality molly. She was a run of the mill pet shop molly that just got some decent care in my tanks.