Who's the Daddy??

Or more accurately, what type of platy do you think the daddy could have been?

My daughter got a female platy fish from a shop, two days later it gave birth. She tells me it was housed with other platy fish, mostly orange ones, and possibly swordtails, but not guppies who were separate.

First picture is Mum. Other pictures are of her babies. A couple are cream, some with dark edges to their fins. Others are silver and darker on top, and appear to have what might be a dark stripe along their sides.

We are curious what the male fish might have looked like, as none of the babies look like their Mum. I thought maybe the male was a sword tail but I googled hybrids and platy/swordtails crosses seem to have the pointy tail? These have pretty fan shaped tails.

Any suggestions?

Thank you

They are platy babies, the dad though.... Who knows! Maybe a pretty silver mickey mouse platy

It won't be the guppies but I've heard stories that Swordtails will interbreed with platies. No proof of that as far as I know. The fry will most likely look like the ones in the pet shop tank. Anyway, this brood will be mutts and the next broods will look like your male. Another thing I've heard ,but again no proof, is that livebearing females can store sperm and have babies without male contact for two or three broods. But as long as you have platy fry and they are eating and thriving it don't much matter. Enjoy your fish.

Platies and swordtails do interbreed as they are both in the genus Xiphophorus. Most of the swordtails in shops are actually hybrids, as wild swordtails are green in colour and cross breeding with platies of both types has introduced more colours.

It’s almost impossible to tell what color the dad was. If they have males in with females then go take a look at who it may be. It’s just coloring so really doesn’t matter.

essjay said:

Platies and swordtails do interbreed as they are both in the genus Xiphophorus. Most of the swordtails in shops are actually hybrids, as wild swordtails are green in colour and cross breeding with platies of both types has introduced more colours.

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I guess I did know that. Just forgot. I saw some green swordtails once and they were nice. And also pretty big compared to reds. Do you suppose that's a result of breeding in the diminutive platy ?