# My Swordtails aren't breeding



## feathjd

Hello Fellow Aquarium Hobbyists,

I have a 55 gallon aquarium with platies, guppies and only two swordtails. One male and one female. I would like to get a few more female swordtails but I am very picky when I select fish from pet stores. I never buy a fish from a pet store that has more than one dead fish floating in their tanks. To me this is a red flag, so I usually do not purchase anything because most of the time there are numerous dead decaying fish. The topic I am researching is on my two swordtails breeding. As I said, one is male and one is female. I got these two from my sister when they were about 4 weeks old. I believe they are brother and sister and the problem is that they are not breeding. I know it sounds gross for a brother and sister to breed, but in the fish world I'm not sure if that matters. They are both about 5 months old now and well old enough to be breeding. The question is, can brother and sister breed? Should they be breeding since they are brother and sister? 

The water conditions are great because my platies and guppies are breeding like crazy. Every 4 weeks I have new fry from either one of my platies and/or guppies. I have noticed though that from one of my last litters so to speak that a platy female gave birth to that I have a fish that is about 3 weeks old now that has a long body, orange in color with a white under its belly that looks like it could be a cross between my male swordtail and a female platy. (which female, undetermined) I am patiently waiting to see what she is going to look like, (the baby). 

If anyone here can answer my question, I would greatly appreciate it. 

Thanks,

Jay Rodd*c/p*


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## navigator black

If your swords aren't wild form, they are a genetic mess anyway. Breeding brothers and sisters is not always safe, for reasons of basic genetics, but the colour forms of hobby swords are inbred crosses between Xiphophorus helleri, maculatus, alvarezi and variatus already, and short of introducing a lethal gene, there's not much more you can do to them. These are fish with no species, as established hybrid forms.

Some male swords can take a year to mature, so I wouldn't worry at five months. And platys and variatus will throw longer bodied, higher bodied and swordtail-like young - as they are also hybrids produced in the hobby over the past 70 years. It doesn't mean your male sword fertilized the platy (though it probably could have if it's mature).


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## feathjd

My swordtail, in my opinion, is very much mature. He is large in size and his sword on his tail is quite long. I am going to include a picture of him for all to see. Its not the best picture because he likes to move around a lot. So you be the judge. 









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## navigator black

He's young. That's a very short bodied swordtail, if it's not a camera angle illusion.

There are only five possibilities:
a - the female's gravid and hasn't shown yet;
b - the male's still not fertile;
c - the male will never be fertile.
d - the female's infertile;
e - the female is a male.

Only a, e and b will become clear over the next few months.

Xiphophorus work by sperm packets, which the female keeps alive internally and uses to refertilize herself up to 6-7 times. New sperm packets generally kill old ones - there are sperm wars going on in there. You won't get one fry fertilized by a sword/platy cross, and have the others all platy. It's all or nothing, because of that form of fertilization. A lot of livebearers will be very sexually active for some time before they actually succeed in breeding.

There is the fifth possibility - male swords sex out in two waves - precocious, short lived males at 3-4 months, and heavy bodied, long lived males at up to a year. My related Xiphophorus maeyi were still unsexable at 13 months. Your female may not be a female, but could be a second wave male in waiting...


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## jrman83

Think you just need to wait it out. Platies and Guppies may mature slightly faster and this may be what you're used to. I have 4 males in one of my tanks and one of them didn't really start showing any mating action until he was nearly 2 inches long (not including sword) and nearly a year old.


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## feathjd

navigator black: Thank you for the very helpful insight that you have given me. I had no idea that swordtails can take that long to determine what sex they are going to be. My female swordtail that appears to be a female swordtail has been "courted" so to speak by my male swordtail numerous times. He is always chasing her and swimming backwards when he is around her. So, I automatically assumed that she was definitely a female. I will just wait it out and see what happens over the next couple of months. 

I would like to add some more swordtails to my community, however, as I had stated before I am leery on purchasing fish from a local pet store because of the number of dead fish left decaying in their tanks. I know that this is probably somewhat normal. I do however, when purchasing a fish, I never dump the water from the pet store into my tank. I always net my fish out and then into my tank after they have acclimated to the temperature of my tank. 

:fish-in-bowlo you recommend purchasing fish from a pet store that has dead decaying fish in their tanks?


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## navigator black

If you don't have a quarantine, then the pet shop has to be your quarantine. I get most of my fish through non store channels now, but my old technique for buying fish was a time consuming but trouble saving three visit system. I checked on the tank of fish I wanted as many times as I could drop by over a week to ten days. If there was even one dead fish, or even one sketchy looking fish, I would never buy from the tank. Nine times out of ten, that caution paid off and I got good healthy stock. 
A smart store will send employees around before they open, to remove all dead fish, and all signs of dead fish. That doesn't help you much. But if they are too lazy to do even that, imagine how they are with waterchanges, etc.


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