Would Never Have Believed It..

[Ludwig Venter]

It's time to eat humble pie, as on many, many instances, I've told people that it's only a myth that sex changes do occur in Swordtails..... BUT!!!... now I've seen it for myself!.

In (approximately) June 2008, I got meself 1 male Swordtail and 4 females.... I know they were as I personally selected them, and all the females had large gravid spots.....

I now have several 100 fry being raised seperately, as were from time to time delivered by (all) four of these females.... I never bothered to check the details afterwards untill tonight, as I set up another "delivery" tank & was looking for a "ripe" female to transport to this tank......

To my surprise,.... I now have 3 Swordtails with almost fully developed gonopodiums, and only 2 females with true gravid spots.... Anyone else experienced this, or is there something I overlooked???

The newly "developing" males do not display the sword as yet, but there are indications of it in one of them.

 

[Truck]

yeh i bought 3 swordtails (all females as i chose them myself and all gravid) yet now theyre all males

 

[lilfishie]

it does happen, a friend of mines did it

 

[mattbond]

i had 3 wagtail swords, 1 male 2 female, and one turned male and got killed by the other more developed male!

 

[lilfishie]

that would't suprise me males can get over aggressive at time

 

[StatMan]

Could this happen to Platies also? We have two female sunssets, one of them looks as if she might be switching.

I was almost wondering the other day if this was posible. I know that Platties and swordtails are closey related.

I would not say that it was conclusive yet but is this something I should keep an eye on or is it just my imagination!

Thanks

Statman

 

[Truck]

they dont have a sex change, well in some cases, in most they are just late bloomers

 

[lilfishie]

never heard of it happening in platies before

 

[malakye]

Have heard of it in swordtails several times but never in platy's

 

[OldMan47]

I have a very nice male sword, a Xiphophorus helleri wild type, that was one of the 6 females I got at a club auction this summer. They were juveniles when I got them and I had hoped at least one might be a late bloomer. By December I was starting to consider how I was going to find a nice wild to breed with them. Today one of them has a very nicely developed sword and a gonopodium and at least 3 of the females are starting to be quite pregnant. This guy has to be the male parent as all 6 fish have been with me since they were too young to be able to breed. It seems once this guy started to show that he was a male, he was a typical busy teenager.

 

[Ludwig Venter]

But these freaks I'm talking about, actually had gravid spots, and I'm 86.4% sure they delivered fry!!... Not just late developers.

 

[ccskitten]

I have heard of this but as I understood, they were infertile once they had turned into a male.

 

[malakye]

My friend keeps swordtails and claimed she had seperated male and female fry to see what was happening. The males she sold on and kept a tank of about 15 females for over a year they were all females so she thought it must be untrue until she added a female who had dropped fry, it actually turned male and her fry starting dropping fry soon afterwards. I always thought she was pulling my chain but she swears its true and several others have made the exact same claim since then also.

 

[Ludwig Venter]

Another strange thing I've observed during the past few days,.... The only remaing female out of the 5, are being chased exclusively by the original male... (much smaller than the developed males) .... Could this mean that they are hybrid???

 

[jackyb07s4]

please don't be angry if i'm wrong..but..
can't this happen with bettas too? I was certain it could...