General question 🙋‍♀️

[whodatthere]

Aggressive or lovers?


We had the unfortunate tragedy of one of our swordtail ladies pass this morning. We now have only 1 male and 1 female. I read online they’re best to be in a school of 3 fem to 1 male. I’m wondering if they’ll become aggressive or become lovers. Right now the female likes to follow the male and they will circle around each other sometimes. She has tried to like, suck? Kiss? Nibble? On him but he’s like no back off lol or tries to swim away from her. They’re in a community tank as well, and params are good. Should I get more or should I let them become lovers (if they will)

 

[Andy Sager]

Usually it's the other way around. The male will consistently try mating with the female so you get more females than males so that no one female gets too much attention and suffering stress from it all. What you are describing however could be an immature male ( they all look like females until they become sexually mature) trying to show some dominance towards the existing male. I would definitely get more proven females ( try getting lighter colored fish so that you can see the developing embryos through her skin) to help keep more harmony in the tank. Here is the area of the fish you should look at. The arrow is pointing to the area the female develops the fry. That dark spot in this one are the fry.

 

[whodatthere]

Yellow is what I think is the girl orange poopy is what I think is the boy

 

[Andy Sager]

Yellow is what I think is the girl orange poopy is what I think is the boyView attachment 391675

Well the sword on the red fish is the dead giveaway it's a male. Female swordtails do not have a sword. This yellow fish however looks more like a Molly than a swordtail so they won't interbreed. That could also be what the chasing was about. Mollies can be a bit aggressive. It is however, a female so if you were going to get more of the mollies, I'd get 1 definite male and another female or 2. A definite male will not have the anal fin ( the fin the arrow is pointing to)
But will have a tube shaped fin there like the male swordtail has. This is true for all livebearing fish. It's easy to get a definite male than a definite female because of this trait. Immature males will not have the tube shaped anal fin so they get sold as a females usually by mistake.