My Livebearers Will Not Breed

[Fish12345]

I bought swordtails and balloon mollys from pets at home around 5 months ago and they still havent bread, could someone help me

 

[slimeneo]

Are there females & males together?

 

[Fish12345]

yes there are males and females.

 

[Fish12345]

If it helps I bought them from pets at home, ive heard its not a good idea to buy fish from there.

 

[snazy]

It should not matter where you bought them from. Even if they were immature, by now they should have bred. Are you sure they actually didn't and ate the babies if there's not enough hiding places. What is your tank decoration wise, can you post a picture or a video?

 

[Fish12345]

I cant post a picture right now because It is very foggy at the moment, but it has a fake coral, a stack of rocks and 2 fake plants, I don't have any real plants at the moment because I can't find any good ones, by the way does anyone know we're to get good live plants from.
Thanks.

 

[snazy]

For the fry to survive, the best are some bushy plants that represent live plants like java moss, including floating plants because the fry like going to the surface and that's how they get munched by the adults From the artificial ones there are silk plants that can do the job, but don't get the hard plastic ones.

 

[allan078]

It may be that your fish have already bred and the fry have been eaten. A ratio of 3 males to 1 male is good for breeding. With the correct ratio, water parameters and places for fry to hide in, it pretty much all you need to do is wait.

Patience is a virtue.

 

[snazy]

It may be that your fish have already bred and the fry have been eaten. A ratio of 3 males to 1 male is good for breeding. With the correct ratio, water parameters and places for fry to hide in, it pretty much all you need to do is wait.

Patience is a virtue.

Not sure what a ratio of 3 males to 1 male means
The ratio for livebearers doesn't matter as long as there are females and males. The only reason why a ratio of 1 male to 3 females is suggested is to prevent the male to harrass one female to death with his horny behaviour and spead it out between 3 or more females instead so they don't get stressed. With swordtails, one male on a harem of females is best because male swordtails can kill each other for the competition

 

[Fish12345]

if they had bred , even if there are not many good hiding places , I would have found at least 1 fry in 6 months, I did find 3 fry but I am sure they were guppy fry

by the way my guppys are dead now

 

[PrairieSunflower]

Have you tested your water? What are the readings.

I don't know where you are located, if you are in the UK I use a website called aqua essentials to order plants.

 

[Fish12345]

my water was Ok until 1 week ago when my amonia went a bit high but I think thats sorted now, thank for the website.

 

[saffholly]

I buy my fish from pets at home, have also ought from other places but have had better fish from pets at home (even though people moan about them), i also get my plants from there too. I bought 2 mollys from them 2 weeks ago and both have given birth this week and lots of fry have survived (even though they gave birth in my big comunity tank).

 

[Sherry1966]

Livebearers are ALWAYS pregnant. When you have m/f in same tank. You may not find any babies at all. They are so small. If you don't have enough hiding places for the babies to hide in they may get munched up as fast as they are born. Which has happened to me, since mom decided to have them on the opposite end of the tank that don't have the cover the other end has. They didn't have a chance. But it keeps my population down when that happens every once in awhile.

 

[Fish12345]

there are hiding places