Question with swardies

[acetennis2002]

I have 3 female swardtails and one was pergnant soon after i got her so iput her in the trap but god really stressed out so i took her out but then she got thinner. that was anout a week ago now she is very fat again and the big black spot never went away. is she pregnatn again or having problems with the first batch im not sure. and if she does have fry should i leave them in the tank or take them and put them into a 2.5 gal. fish bowl with a little heater and a small filter of some kind. any help will be greatly appreatiated.

 

[Annastasia]

If she was in the breeding trap and got stressed, she might have aborted her pregnancy, then got pregnant again. Or, it's possible she had her fry, then got pregnant again. It's a little hard for me to tell.

As for where to put the fry...it's up to you. 2.5 gallons is going to be too small for Swordie fry after a while. If you have lots of plants, and/or hiding places in the main tank, you will probably get some survivors. Then they can have more room to grow up.

Or you could put them in the 2.5 for a while, when they are very small, then release them into the bigger tank once they grow a bit.

 

[acetennis2002]

another question how long is the black spot there and how long before she is done "looking" pregnant? will the spot go away and will she be skinny right after she has the fry or does it take some time? if so how long

 

[Annastasia]

How long is the black spot there after what?

I've noticed on some of mine, the black spot never seems to go away, although they DO start looking thin once they have had all the fry.

 

[paulthegreat]

My two females have greatly different lengths to their pregnancies. One gives birth every 33-37 days and gets huge, 100+ fry on several occasions. The other one takes 50-60 days, never gets very big and only has about 20-25 at a time so it can vary a lot. The larger one (Doris) has a very visible gravid spot for about twenty days or so before she births. HTH

 

[Polardbear]

My neon swordie females always have a dark gravid spot regardless of what stage of pregnancy/non-pregnancy they are in. It does sound like she may have aborted the one pregnancy and then became pregnant immediately again. Since they have the ability to store sperm packets they will become pregnant almost as soon as they finish having babies. With mine they usually slim down right after giving birth but it only lasts for a few days to a week and then they start getting big again quickly.

As far as what to do with the fry, do you have adequate room to house a bunch of swordies? My girls have reasonable size batches of fry, usually 25-30 but some swordies seem to have a mission in life of trying to populate the world. (As paulthegreat can attest to! ) If you'd just like a few more then leave them in the main tank and provide good cover for them to hide in. You'll probably have a few that survive and grow up. If you try to save them all in a few weeks you'll be faced with where to put them all. Keep in mind that your females will be having babies roughly every month for several months (from one breeding). If you have a male in with them, you can probably expect babies every month for a long time to come.