Pregnant Swordtail Move

[kristins1877]

Hi all, new to the forums but I have been reading the posts extensively and hoping i could get some advice. I have a 40 gal community tank with several livebearers, I had a pregnant swordtail that I thought was quite ready so i moved her to a seperate tank (the tank is set up with the same water from the main tank) yesterday. This morning she doesn't look pregnant anymore but I can see no fry. I have many live plants to hide in and I spent over an hour searching the tank - no fry. She was just kind of hiding in the plants for several hours. Could she have aborted from the stress of moving her?

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome Kristins. She could well have left the fry behind in the plants. If she suddenly lost a lot of girth overnight, the chances are quite good that there are fry in the tank. Unless you have seen fry before, or had them pointed out to you, they can be incredibly hard to spot. Swordtail fry are very small, like maybe 1/2 cm long and smaller diameter than a pencil lead. They are usually almost clear at birth and can easily hide in the space between individual pieces of the gravel that most people start out with. In fact that is often one of the fry's favorite hiding places. If you are convinced that the female is no longer carrying fry, I would move her back to the main tank and give the fry tank another close examination.

 

[kristins1877]

OK I'll do that. I think I stared in the tank so long my eyes are crossed! lol Guess I'll have to wait a while to see if I can see them!

 

[kristins1877]

OK I moved mom and the net stirred up the plants and I found ONE singular fry! SOOOO cute! Hopefully there are more hiding!

 

[malakye]

Hope you find more, I only ever saved one of my swordtail fry, the mother ater them even though she was well fed herself.

 

[kristins1877]

Yay! found 3 more fry! I think thats all I have after searching all day. So happy I have more than 1!

 

[sword-guy]

Yay! found 3 more fry! I think thats all I have after searching all day. So happy I have more than 1!

I answered an earlier post from you but this one prompted me to answer again. I had 2 marble females. They were purchased from the mainland and both were pregnant. They eventually became big as houses but refused to drop their fry. One female would later die when I transferred her to the breed tank, due I suspect to hysterics. The female posted here gave me 48 fry on 12/16. This is the day after her drop.

The other female (my current one) appears to have the ability to appear slimmer when she get's scared or if she's caught. After obtaining her, she would not give birth for 4 months even though she was already pregnant. I'm not sure if they have the ability to suspend birth but I finally placed her in a 10gal tank and a month later I isolated her. 3 days later she gave birth to 25 babies. I find it ironic when reading material that warns of over-stressing the female. In my experiences, it is I who stress out. So even though it may be three days or so before a female drops, I place them in the breeding tank by the 28th day. I find that most females will regularly drop between 28-31 days from their last birthing. Mark you calender from the last birth . . .

 

[kristins1877]

I admit that I am new to this so I am kind of going with the flow and trying to follow what the more experienced posters tell me to. I allowed the female to have free roam of the fry tank because there was nothing in there yet, however, last nite I had another swordtail ready to drop and I was afraid she would eat the fry born a few days ago. I put her in the breeding trap and she was going crazy - hitting herself off the walls, splashing water around, etc. I shut the light off and left her be and hoped she would settle down and drop the fry. This morning her belly was smaller so I assumed she dropped during the night but as last time, I can't find the fry. I thought that the plastic traps seperated the mom from the fry but I am assuming the fry swam out of the bottom into the main tank?