Swordtail

[Fox46]

I ordered six swordtails from a mail order tropical fish supplier, 1 male to 5 females, a couple of months ago. I've noticed that one of those I thought to be females is probably going to turn out to be a second male, it has a gonopodium and I believe the lower half of the tail is getting longer than the upper half. The obvious male is now getting a bit antsy, and I think there's some bullying going on as the newly developing male seems to be hiding away. If I were to decide to get some more females, how many would it take to restore harmony to the tank, or will it always be an issue? Is 2 males to 4 females always going to be a problem?

 

[GaryE]

Late blooming males are a fact of swordtail keeping. How well the males will get along depends entirely on tank size. The dominant male will be aggressive, but the subordinate one can grow fast, and is often longer lived as a late bloomer.

 

[emeraldking]

The sex ratio would still be okay. Once the late blooming male is fully developed, impressing eachother to see which one is the dominant one can go on (even a subordinate male can become dominant at some point) or that behavior will fade. Only time will tell... The smaller the open swimming space, the longer an act of dominance will last.

 

[Fox46]

Thanks both. I'll wait and see how it goes then. Before they arrived I cleared out a lot of tank furniture to give them a good long swimming space (the tank isn't very deep, about 35cm but is quite long at 110cm so there is a good escape run for the underdog. There's good low level cover for hiding. Pretty sure there are no other surprises amongst the remaining females. Fingers crossed.