Preggers Swordtail

[Skyrmir]

Ok, so I'm really sure she's full o eggs. I was hoping someone here might be able to tell me if she looks close to popping or just somewhere in the middle. I haven't been able to find a decent picture of a swordtail showing the gravid spot. For that matter I'm not really sure if the spot should be ahead or behind the anus. She's almost always showing a bit of dark towards the rear, as do a lot of the larger females. So I'm not sure if I'm seeing the spot or not.

 

[Zagz]

She looks to me like she might be close. But LOL my mollie looked like that for 3 weeks, I thought she would explode. She'll give birth when she is ready. Do you have lots of places for the fry to hide?

 

[Skyrmir]

Yeah, just above her is a bunch of anachris. I'm figuring if she can drop them in the next week or so the babies should be just about the same size as the Danio fry that are in the breeder tank now so they should all get along just fine. That is if she'd ever just drop the buggers.

 

[Puriti]

Danio fry are TINY... live bearers have fully developed babies and are much bigger, I know from my mollies O_O

 

[Skyrmir]

Yup, the danio's have a few weeks growth on them though. That's why I figure they'll be close to the same size as newborn swordtails. Then it'll just be a question of who grows faster. If the swordtail fry get out of hand I can seperate out the danio fry easy enough though.

 

[Puriti]

My mollies were about the size of a pen bottom, just a little longer o.o my danio fry are like... not even 1/4" at least when I have them anyways ._.

 

[Skyrmir]

Yeah, the danio's were itty bitty things. Pretty much micro eyeballs with a tiny bit of tail. Right now they're just above the quarter inch line, and have started eating ground up flake food instead of infusoria. It's gonna be a race to see if they end up being the same size as the swordtail fry.

 

[Puriti]

We'll see ^^

My danio babies probably won't live past their early stages of life cuz i have so many other fish in my tank that'll eat them

 

[tracygh]

it's been over a week since your post, so I don't know if your sword has popped yet or not.

I have found with my sword mamas that they get quite square looking a day or two before delivering. Their bellies are very swollen for weeks, but once they actually start squaring off under their chins you know it's time to pop them in the breeding box.

My girls delivered last night and today. Please update on yours

 

[Skyrmir]

heh, she still hasn't popped yet. One of the other swordtail females was dropping babies all over the main tank earlier this week. I managed to save 9 of them and still haven't figured out wich of them females it was, other than it was NOT the one in the picture. She was still in the box at the time.

I put her back in the main tank for a while, figuring ok she's just not gonna pop. But she's gotten that huge look about her again so she's back in the box right now. Hopefully she pops soon, one way or another if she gets much bigger something gotta give.

 

[Puriti]

Well, if you can distinguish the differences between your swordtails...it's whichever one got skinny all of a sudden lol(captain obvious strikes again *smacks myself*). Hope your swordtail gives birth soon! ^^

 

[Skyrmir]

hehe, thing is the two females in the tank look almost identical. Both before and after the fry appeared. They're both pretty young so on the small side, and it didn't seem to be a big hatching. Plus it took like all day long for the fry to appear, one here two there over a span of at least 6 hours, and we never did catch wich one was dropping them.

 

[Elmware]

I have Marigold Swordtails, and when the famele gets eggs inside her, you can see these bright orange clusters inside her belly. As she gets ready to pop, they do start to get darker. When she does give birth, she will probably be wiggling around a lot, like as if she's out of controle or something.

 

[Puriti]

When my female mollies are pregnant I take them out for a few seconds to lightly pet their stomach, suprisingly they calm down (must feel good lol) and let me do it and you can feel things twitching in their stomachs sometimes. I don't keep them out for more than like 10 or 20 seconds though @__@

 

[Skyrmir]

Woot! She finaly popped, counted about 20 fry in da box when I got home from work today. And she's no longer the shape of a grape!

I'm kind of suprised though, a few of the youngens aren't developed. One of them looks like he's still an egg and there's a few that still have yolks. Also even the fully developed fry are much smaller than the ones that came from the much smaller merigold female. Anywho, they're bunches of them and they're cute, and they should provide for fish store credit and mates for my breeding program.

 

[Puriti]

Yay! lol congrats! Yeah, my molly Jewel did that once, I also had 3 undeveloped siamese twins, 1 fully developed still born siamese twin, and another siamese twin that lasted a day. I had one that had this bulge on the bottom of it's stomach too but when I introduced all the babies to my 10 gal, i think it got eaten...poor sia lol

 

[rich311k]

Congratulations. Good luck with the new family members.