Why did my pregnant swordtail fish lost his gravid spot?
by outdoor on Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 | 3 Comments
yesterday my female swordtail had big gravid spot and big stomach. This morning shes not fat and has little light spot which is very difficult to see.
His?
If the female was gravid and now is skinny, she dropped her fry. If there are no or few predators in your aquarium and hiding places(lots of plants) for the fry, you will be able to find a bunch of fry (10 to 100 depending upon the size of the female swordtail) a little under a cm in length.
If the fry can fit into the mouths of the other fish, they have probably all been eaten.
When I want to save fry, if possible I try and put the gravid female into her own 10-gallon tank.It has lots of plants and a sponge filter. She gets fed meaty foods (frozen stuff defrosted in Luke-warm water and rinsed through a net to get rid of the organic juice that accompanies most of those foods.
Hornwort is a cheap, fast growing plant that thrives in the slightly hard water that we give swordtails,Broad leaved, floating water sprite works equally well in water without a lot of mineral content.
Live foods are great if they will continue to live in the aquarium. (Be careful not to overfeed brine shrimp.) One may take a clean soap-less jar that the female can comfortably swim in and out of and put (squirt with a turkey baster or pippet used just with the fish) 10 or 15 live (well rinsed) blackworms in there. If there are other well liked live foods available, most females will eat the food animals rather than their fry.Keep ‘em full of the food and after a while (with continued good feeding) they will become accustomed to fry and leave them alone.
Your baby swordtails will take powdered flake food. Feed often but not more than they can take in a couple of minutes. Newly hatched bbs (baby brine shrimp) are also a great food that overachieving aquarists may feed their fry.
they will probably breed all the time but you won’t get any baby fish unless you make a breeding tank. I’ve had danios for decades and they eat the eggs as soon as they’re done scattering them.
Would you be patient? There’s no need to post the same question 6 times!