SWARDTAILS!!!!!

[acetennis2002]

i have a pregnant mother sward tail that i got at the LFS stricaly b/c she was pregnant. She looked like she was gunna burst so the guy told me to put it right in to the breeding trap. i did this but 3 days later took her out because she seemed too stressed but now she dosent look as big. Could she have aborted the pregnency b/c of the stress, do fish do that? The black spot is still there n it is very big but her stomach is not very big any more i could take pictures if that would help.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Never, never buy a heavily pregnant of livebearer of any sort including swordtails; it significantly increase the chances of the mother fish aborting/miscarriaging, have birthing difficultys/dying during giving birth, having stillborn fry/mutated fry and poorer batchs of fry and smaller numbers. The trip from the lfs to your tank is also twice as stressful and is twice and she is likely not to fit in well and have complications or die of stress from the trip.
Livebearers are one of the fastest reproducing fish available in aquariums(takes a month to give birth from mating and pregnancy for most) and if you don't have the patience to breed them without buying pre-heavily pregnated females, maybe you shouldn't be breeding them at all.
She's probably aborted from the stress she's been under; i'd take her out of the breeding net and put her in the main tank and feed her some highly nutritios/high protein foods like freezedried daphinia, boodworms or tubifex to help give her some energy, it's all you can do for now.

Im not having a go at you, just stating the facts/yes and no's.

 

[Annastasia]

I have to agree with Toxis. Buying very pregnant fish is never a good idea. So now you know not to do that again.

I also think she aborted. I'd give her lots of high protein foods for a while. A couple weeks or so. She'll probably go back to normal after that.

Since she still has a black dot, she's probably already pregnant again. This time, I'd just leave her in the tank, and not use the breeding trap at all. She'll be happier, and not stressed.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Some livebearers are ok in breeding traps depending on the situation, but swordtails are realy too big for comfort in them so i'd avoid putting them in them in the future and just plant the tank up more so fry can hide in the plants to survive before capture.
If you realy want to breed swortails seriously i suggest you buy a fry tank(preferably a 10gal or more so they can grow to a suitable size in it if case you get large batchs of fry) and get it cycled and suitable equiped.