Just Bought A Pair Of Swordtails..

[tameem]

I just bought a pair of sword tails. I have 6 buenos aries tetras. Initially the one with the long anal fin was being chased a bit, but it looks harmless.
How does everyone like the swordtails? We got them because they add a lot of color to the tank, but the fish species forum on this fish says they have short life spans.

 

[orange shark]

normally people reccomend to keep livebearers in the ratio of 1 male to 2/3 females

if you don't know females are the ones with fanned anal fins and males have pointy anal fins

 

[tameem]

One of them has the pointed long fin, the other does not. Is that okay?

 

[orange shark]

i'd get another one with a non-pointed fin if i were you

you'll get lots of baby fish too

 

[dnn3]

2 females to one male is the way to go.and if they do start having fry,then you can expect new fry about every six weeks.hopefully this pic will help you out.the dark one on top is a female and the orange one is a male.

 

[tameem]

But wont the fry get eaten by either the parents, or by the tetras that I have?

 

[Ludwig Venter]

Yes the fry will get eaten if you do not have plenty hiding space, but more important, if you're gonna keep swordtails, make sure your tank is well covered.... they are energetic "jumpers" and you'll find them on the floor in the morning.

 

[dnn3]

i use a breeder bag but a couple of times i didn't know she had them and when i saw the last few it was too late.with swordtails it wouldn't hurt to have a spare just in case.

 

[Corleone]

Fry getting eaten isn't necessarily a bad thing. Left to their own devices, livebearers will overwhelm a tank in short order. You'll never be able to deal with the volume of fry they can produce, and the LFS will only buy just so many (unless you have, or produce and unusual and interesting color morph). Personally, I leave the fry to the tank for a while and save what I can afterwards. There's a lot of hiding places in my tank, but the other fish will chase fry into them, so nowhere is entirely safe. After a day or so, there's usually five or so left, which I transfer to a separate tank until they're ready to go to the LFS.

 

[shortymet55]

I have a 10 gallon tank, with 4 rasbora, 4 Cardinal Tetras, and at the time of this story, 3 swordtail. The female had babies. Corleone said usually five are left after a day. Well, after 3 weeks I had at least 25. Luckily and unluckily, they started to die off (Luckily, because 25 swords in a 10 gallon tank isnt good) (Unluckily, because something is wrong when they live for 3 weeks, then a bunch start to die off) After a few months, I had 3 left. Still have those 3 Nine months later. 2 are 1.5 in, 1 is 1cm.

 

[tameem]

I guess I dont understnad why its important for the fish to reproduce? Is there anything wrong with having one male and one female?m Im not looking to breed, and I just dont like the idea of cute fry getting eaten. Its natural, but unless I hve to do it. Id prefer not to.

By the way, these darn swordtails sure hang out alot near the bottom. I havent seem then to come up to the surface when I drop flakes like the tetras. Instead, they start going after the tablet food of my cories! Thats why I got rid of tiger barbs, for that reason.

 

[n3ont3tra]

They should come to the top once they're more settled in.
And getting another female is because otherwise the male will pester the current female and stress her out a lot. Getting another female divides his attention.

Oh, and they will probably breed anyway.

 

[Corleone]

I guess I dont understnad why its important for the fish to reproduce? Is there anything wrong with having one male and one female?m Im not looking to breed, and I just dont like the idea of cute fry getting eaten.

Well, with livebearers, if you have them and the water conditions are healthy, they're going to breed, there's really no two ways about it. It's natural behavior, and good for the fish, the best way to control it with livebearers is to only have a single sex (and even then, females can come from the store pregnant and have several drops without males around). The reason it's usually recommended to have more females than males is that livebearer males are pretty excitable and will hound a lone female to mate constantly, possibly stressing her.

My male platy doesn't even stop there - he gets both females pregnant almost as soon as they give birth, then proceeds to try mating with nearly every fish in the tank, and doesn't stop there - to date, I've seen him trying to mate with the filter, with rocks, plants, and one very confused snail.

 

[tameem]

Now that is so funny! But, when it involves stressing out the fish, that's what I take things serious. I will get another female swordtail. I jus thope they leave my cory cats and their food alone soon!

Thanks everyone for your respones. I appreciate it!

 

[OldMan47]

Swords will enjoy the food at the bottom as much as the food they are intended to eat. They are nervous fish compared to other live bearers so it may take them a while to settle in and they can be easily scared by sudden movements in the room. If all is quiet in their room they will spend most of their time in the middle areas of the water, not at the top. Having them feed at the bottom is not a problem since they will only eat what they need and will leave the rest. The other fish may not be as fast as the swords but will have plenty to eat when the swords stop on their own.