Pregnant Swordtail

[Shelby]

I have noticed I have a pregnant swordtail. This is what I have in my tank
3 guppies
2 angels
2 powder blue guouramis
2 dojo loaches
2 mollies (males)
2 swordtails (male female)
2 scissortail rasboros
1 neon tetra
1 platy
1 pleco

The female swordtail is getting really fat and really dark like a female guppy gravid spot. Should I move her to another tank? Say a 10g until she has her fry? I know for sure something will eat the babies in the big tank. I had a baby guppy I'm pretty sure something ate.

Just when I think I have it all figured out....lol

Shelby

 

[fish_tank0311]

Am not a big fan of swordtails, and dont know much about them, but if you google, how to breed swordtails, or something like that, there will be plenty of info on it. All fish are different on breeding, but there is no doubt u need to move her to another tank, preferably a smallish one, if you want the fry to live.

 

[waterdrop]

yes, depends on your goals. If your tank is already fully stocked and you've not yet set yourself up yet with a Quarantine/Hospital/Fry tank on the side, it will be pretty hard to get this up and running quickly enough to help a lot. Unlike mammal populations like ours where individual babies are highly invested in, there are many, many fish and bird and other types of species where of course its all about overall population and there large sets of eggs/fry serve both to increase population chances and to recycle proteins and other high energy food. Fish eat the excess eggs and fry to increase the survival chances of the successfully bearing adults. It can help to see it that way and realize this is helping to keep your tank from becoming overstocked without your having bought fish.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Shelby]

Oh waterdrop, you're the best I swear.

You are on my other post I have the 29g set up and you know this all started with my kids but I seem to have taken over as they are only 8 and 10.

I emptied my 10g tank but I have 3 more filters. I figured I have about a week maybe two tops to set it back up. If I was to take 1 filter and start it in the 10g tank just to keep the water moving and start the cycle, put another filter in my 29g tank for a week where fish already are (run two filters in that one for a bit) and swap them out what do you think my chances are? It's still a risk I know and I don't plan on putting the fry in the big tank but my kids are responsible for fish food so I think they could sell the fry back to the lfs for saw a dime or quarter a piece or trade for food. I know the owner pretty well I'm sure she'd work something out with them. I'm tryin to teach them some responsibility. How are snails for cycling? lol I have tons!

The biggest issue is I don't want to teach the bigger fish in the tank to eat the little fish if that makes any sense?

 

[OldMan47]

If you just set up the filter in your empty tank, it will slowly lose its bacterial population. When you put ti there, just feed the tank as if it was a fishless cycle and the filter will stay cycled. That gives you all the time in the world to decide what you want to do with your stocking while the filter stays cycled.

 

[Shelby]

Thank you. I think I was off in my calculation though. The kids just said she had one and a molly ate it. Not sure if they are correct or not though. We will watch a bit longer and see what happens.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes OM, I think she had 4 AC200s from a 50G and we don't know if the media was kept submerged or how long for all that. Shelby, depending on time and degree to which the media was dried out, a subset of our 2 species of autotrophic bacteria could possibly have made it (or not!) Once these bacteria are established, they can be kept going indefinately, just as OM says, by supplying them with a daily dosing of ammonia at 4ppm or so.

As far as "training" fish, you may as well save the effort of the thought , mother nature has a few million years on you, training them in a different way and you wouldn't be able to inject a behavior probably even using all the lifetimes of you and your offspring!

~~waterdrop~~