Lonely Female Swordfish

[spittinfly]

Just curious, would my one sword mate with any of the other fish in my tank? She is the only sword and there are 1 each; Golden sunglow Lyretail Molly, black Lyretail Molly, Dalmation Molly, Mickey Mouse Platy, and a common Platy white with an orange tail with black spots all over. :?

 

[tkos]

She should and will mate with any of the male platies. The bigger issue is will they ahrrass her to death. That can happen with too many males for the females that are present.

 

[spittinfly]

Well I know the white one doesn't bother her cause he doesn't come out of hiding in the rocks except for food, and the two lyretails are too busy chasing and picking on each other and Mickey. So luckily they don't seem to annoy her but they do all play together. I'll have to watch to see if she picks a boyfriend. I'll have to get some more girls once my tank has cycled and can handle it.

 

[Zagz]

I'd get a couple more females as it is true they can get harassed. It might not be happening now but that's not to say it won't happen. If you want to breed them get one male and two more females.

 

[spittinfly]

I'll have to wait on adding the new fish (just started the tank about 4-5 days ago. But I will talk to the boys and make them leave her alone.

 

[tkos]

They won't pair off like some other fish do. For platies/swordtails and other live bearers it is a breeding free for all.

 

[Alshain]

I'm going to be perfectly honest, from my experience, I don't recommend wanting them or allowing them to breed. If you have one female, I would separate her. At first its a wondrous thing to see the babies and all, but live bearers breed so fast that before long you will have an overstocked tank and won't know what to do with them all. Believe me, I've have somewhere between 50-75 swordtails in a 55 gallon tank and couldn't find a store that wants em. Finally my brother in law said he wanted some so I gave him all my males and now all I have is females that are diminishing gradually through course of nature.

I just want people to know what they are getting into when they start keeping both sexes of live bearers. Unless you have a store that will take them, don't do it.

 

[fish_4_all]

Yes, the platties and the sword could interbreed and there could be some rather odd looking offspring from it. I have done this in the past, before I knew better, and I got some color combinations that were off the wall to say the least. A cow colored front looking like a platty with the back half looking like a firetail orange sword with a long black and red sword. I just wish I had pictures but that was too many years ago.