hybrid? cross breed?

[rreekers]

so this fry was born in my tank some months ago. I'm not sure which fish gave birth to it tho... at the time I have 2f silver mollies, 1f black , 1m black Molly. 1 male velvet swordtail, 1 female velvet, 2f guppies, 1m guppy

I found 8 fry throught out the same week, I now can identify that 6 were definitely mollies, 1 definite swordtail, and then this guy ( in the pictures) she has the same body as my mollies, but all my juvenile mollies are black ( with some metallic shine on their bodies) but this guy is white, no colorish with orange fins that match the colors of my adult swordtails. and match the other swordtail juvenile that I have, but that one has full, even color

any ideas? just curious, neat but odd

 

[jetajockey]

It looks like a swordtail to me.

 

[rreekers]

even being colored like that? my other swordtail and all the other swordtail fry/ juveniles that I have had were pure orange, just the color of this ones dorsal fin

in the 3rd picture you can see the other swordtail fry that I speak of.. that I found within the same week

 

[jetajockey]

Offspring of certain fish don't always have the same patterns or colors as their parents. The genetics can get pretty complicated, but basically a fish can give birth to a color that it doesn't have. Example would be mating two blue gene jack dempseys results in a small percentage of young being electric blue, even though both parents do not show electric blue at all.

 

[rreekers]

Hmm OK.. make sense. I had this happen with my guppies .. but I've never seen a swordtail colored like that.. I'm not trying to disagree or challenge the fact its a swordtail.... I just have never seen one that looks like that but I do know that they can change colors as they get larger

 

[jetajockey]

Try to get some clearer pics, it'll make it easier to try to figure out. What do you think it might've hybridized with?

 

[rreekers]

I will try to get a better picture when I get home

and I really have no idea..

 

[Aron]

I believe locally, they are called pineapple swordtails, very common coloration. The full orange/red parent could have carried the gene.

 

[Andy Sager]

Genes

Hmm OK.. make sense. I had this happen with my guppies .. but I've never seen a swordtail colored like that.. I'm not trying to disagree or challenge the fact its a swordtail.... I just have never seen one that looks like that but I do know that they can change colors as they get larger

You have to remember that all swordtails came from the original green swords from Central and South America. What you probably have is either a throwback to those genes or a throwback to whatever color the parents of your swords were as Jetajockey explained. The best example of this was with a pair of Angelfish I had. The Male was a Gold and the Female was a Marble and they threw off the best looking black babies. Better even than my black/ black pairs. It's all in the genes

Hope this explains things

 

[rreekers]

that really helps! thank you