Thinking About Breeding

[lilfishie]

always best to have 2/3 females for each male to spread agression and in your case more fry

 

[PiMpPiStOl]

always best to have 2/3 females for each male to spread agression and in your case more fry

2 females for every one male? and put em all in the 55?

 

[lilfishie]

yep, load with plants and you'll have plenty in no time

although i will warn you they can be hard to sell even give away because they breed so readily

 

[Bambi211]

I have been having great success with breeding my swordtails.

You'll know when there breeding, cos he will keep going beside her, like all the time

its definatly best to have two female swords, to one male. Cause the male does harrass quite a lot.

You'll notice when she starts to become pregant, her stomache will get bigger, and if you look closely, you can see like a dark black shadow in her stomache thats the fry's eyes. and on her anus there will be like a white dot.

and remember to get a floating baby tank, or divder for your tank, because the the male and female WILL eat there fry. sadly when i didnt put her in the fry floating tank in time, she had them, i had to save as many as possible, but there so fast, and alot just get eaten whole its terrible.

Ive currently got 3 swordtail fry.

and 10 black molly fry. also black mollys wont eat there own fry. (bit more friendly)

Good look! hope to see some fry swimming around soon!!

xxx

 

[ALW]

I think my male must be infertile

 

[OldMan47]

The swordtails will breed if they are at all comfortable in the tank. As has been said, you want a surplus of females, as many as 5 to 1 depending on how much fry room you have. You have enough room in a 55 for maybe one drop of fry if most are saved, so don't get too many females. After the first week, there is no reason for the male to be present in the breeding tank, all females will be pregnant and the male is one hungry mouth you don't need.
As somebody already said, finding a buyer can be a problem with the more common color varieties of swordtail. They are just far too common and cheap for a fish shop to give you much for them.
Mollies will eat fry but are usually not inclined to chase them as much as swordtails so you do get a few survivors. At a typical drop in the 40s or more you might have a half dozen survive the predation. Andy, in most situations, swordtails will not have many fry survive the predation of the parents and the other tank mates. I have had swordtails that never seemed to produce fry but, when I isolated one of the females at random from the group into a well planted tank, I had fry a few weeks later. Swordtails in general do not get as large and bulky looking as platies or mollies, so it can be harder to tell when a swordtail is nearing her time to drop.

 

[kristins1877]

OMG I have 1 male 3 female swords and Im up to my ears in sword fry! Seems like someone's dropping every week or so! Pretty soon you'll be asking "how do I make it STOP!" lol (I'm rehoming my male soon - WAY to many fry for me, no more room!

 

[OldMan47]

Sorry Kristins but there is no way to make it stop. The best you can do if you don't want fry is to house mama in a community setting. I have exactly one molly fry that survived in a community setting in the last year but had this result with a molly by herself in a birthing tank.

At 10 days