Swordtail Baby Appears

[starscream]

So one day I walked past my 55 gal tank and I noticed something weird..... There was a baby swordtail about 3-4 weeks old I was confused because my female swordtail didn't show signs of being pregnant.

My question is did that fish just get really lucky and live or did she only have 1 baby (I don't think that's possible).
How did she survive without being eaten?
Because she is a female if my male swordtail (probibly her father) breeds with her will there be any issues?

Its a female and she looks super healthy and she's growing fast
I'm happy to have her

Thanks for the help

 

[ripil]

at 3-4 weeks old you wouldn't be able to tell if its male or female as their swords take ages to form up. my swordtails always seem to drop 2-3 fry every 20 mins till they've given birth to at least 20. i'd guess at just being a lucky one. you could always do what i do and put them in a breeding trap for a few weeks then let them out. i find this really helps as i was only getting about 5 fry from each birth. many ppls opinions differ on the breeding. i wouldn't let it worry you but others might.

 

[starscream]

Well its been a couple months I don't see a sword coming out so I guess I just assumed... But I wasn't planing on having babys it just happened... O'well its nice to have a new face to look at

Does imbreeding affect fish??

Father at daughter

Mom to son??

 

[Cazgar]

Inbreeding in any animal will eventually cause birth defects & weakening of the immune system

 

[fish48]

inbreeding can affect fish if the fish keeper just let the fish continuity breed and breed and is not willing to remove deformed and or weak fry i have some fish for more then 15 to 20 years with out adding fresh blood I have very rarely have any problems with inbreeding fish .

in nature it’s survival of the fittest there are many Predators to eat and take care of
weak or sick fishes. With fish kept in the aquarium any deformed weak or sick fishes must be
removed . only keep and breed from the best fish the main reasons for deformed, sicknesses, or weaknesses can be from breeding from poor stock, poor water quality, incorrect temperature ,or incorrect feeding,

when fish are kept correctly inbreeding is the least of problems.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

iIused to think what the above posters said about fish and inbreeding until I became interested in Montezuma swords and found the Xiphophorus Genetic Stock Center site and read the following:

In the 1920s, the American biologist Dr. Myron Gordon and German biologists Haussler and Kosswig independently discovered that hybrids of a particular strain of the platyfish, Xiphophorus maculatus, and the swordtail, Xiphophorus helleri, developed cancers virtually identical to malignant melanomas in man. They traced the origin of these tumors to pigment cells of a platyfish color pattern consisting of black spots on the dorsal fin. Genetic studies demonstrated that melanomas developed only in hybrids that had replaced both copies of a platyfish regulatory gene with swordtail forms that could not control proliferation of the platyfish pigment cells. This animal model was one of the first to prove that some cancers were inherited diseases; after 65 years, these fish still are used in cancer research in the United States, Germany, Canada and Japan.

Dr. Gordon realized that to precisely identify the genes responsible for development of cancer, scientists would require genetically identical platyfish and swordtails for research. Therefore, in 1939, he established the Xiphophorus Genetic Stock Center, housed at the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Aquarium until 1993, when transfer of the stock center to Texas State University - San Marcos was completed. During its more than 70 years, the stock center has been directed by Dr. Gordon and Dr. Klaus D. Kallman in New York, and currently by Dr. Ronald Walter at Texas State University - San Marcos.

Several of the original genetic strains of platyfish and swordtails developed by Dr. Gordon in the 1930s still are available today; they are virtual genetic clones, the products in some cases of more than 80 generations of brother-to-sister matings.

(Red is mine for emphasis) From http/www.xiphophorus.txstate.edu/stockcenter/introduction.html

Further, when I acquired my breeding colony of wild zebra plecos I got 13 fish which had been assembled over a multi-year process of buying from different suppliers many months apart. I asked several folks who would know how many generations I could safely go from these parents before I would need to introduce new stock for the sake of genetic diversity. To my surprise I was told at least five generations. Considering, its about 3 years before F1s will spawn to produce F2s etc., I figured I would be out of fish keeping before inbreeding might become an issue.

The upshot of all this is some fish will have defect issues sooner and others later, and it seems if some not at all.