Breeding Swordtails??

I no this is a bit far off from plecs but i thought id ask..
I have 2 pairs of swordtails....
One of the female's is heavily pregnant and as a result i have found just one baby, now and again it appears then i dont see it for day's..

Does anybody no at what point do you decide to put the female in a fry saver..
How long are they pregnent for...
And how many babies will she roughly have???

Cheers CuRbY...

Breeding:

Swordtails will breed under almost any regular conditions. Often, the females you buy at the pet store are already pregnant. Usually, no special setup is required to get Swordtails to breed. Midway through pregnancy, the female will get a dark spot on her tummy called a "gravid spot." This is a good indicator to look for when checking if the female is pregnant. The best indicator, however, is the size of the pregnant female’s tummy.

Tank Setup:

It is not necessary to get a separate tank as the fry will probably survive the few hours before you notice them. As long as your tank does not have any huge or aggressive fish in it you can leave the pregnant mother in the community tank. Plants and other hiding places will help the fry stay safe.

Birth and handling of fry:

The female will usually give birth in the early morning. A day or two before giving birth, a female’s tummy will look almost squarish. Depending on the size of the female, there can be 5-50 fry born. How can you protect the fry from the other fish, including the parents who will try to eat them? The best option is to get a breeding net. They can be bought at pet stores and you hang the net in your tank. This way the fry will be safe from the adult fish, get their own finely ground food, and the water quality will be as good as in your main tank.

Be sure to let them out once they are big enough to avoid being eaten -- if they are kept in the net too long their growth will be stunted.

If there are lots of hiding places, few fish, and no very large fish, then you might not need to provide a breeding net-- the fry might survive by themselves in the tank. Be prepared for losses, however, and doing this is somewhat risky.

The female:

It is extremely stressful for livebearers to give birth and the female often dies afterwards. To avoid this, don't keep aggressive fish with her and provide lots of hiding places.

Raising the fry:

Feed finely ground flake foods. Swordtails are somewhat fragile, and will likely get diseases-- expect losses. Once males start developing their tails, any older males you have will get into fights with them. If you have too many fry, lots of pet stores will accept them when they are mostly grown.

hiya

Have bred swordtails, platys, mollies & endlers before, found by floating salvinia on tank surface is great for the fry to hid in, how many survivours you get will depend on what other fish are in with the swordtails, gouramis and angel fish will snap them up

Best of luck

Cheers for both those reply's they have been very helpfull...

High Curby , have you got your head around spawning the sword tails ?
Mine started dropping babies the other day so I dropped her in a breeding net,
only thing she started eating them as soon as they were visible, so I added a bunch of java moss for some cover- which didn't help that much, only found 1 sole survivor the following morning.
Have you got any other tips to help avoiding her eating the babies?
J

to be honest mate i got rid of my swordtails because the young kept on nibbling at the bristle's of my BN's....

i think the only way around it mate is to provide lots of cover and hiding places thats what i did...but watch them for attacking your bristle's mate they are very persistant...

we have a small concrete pond in out front yard and a year ago dad put about 10 swordtails in there. we didnt think much of it but now when we look in there we can see HUNDREDS. theres no pump, no airation, and it gets pretty cold in winter. theres lots of lillies in there as well as some duckweed but they seem to be breeding like crazy.

So the consensus suggests "lots" of cover for the fry to hide, I think I'll just spend 10 quid and get a trap with the false floor , hope fully the babies will fall through before getting munched.
Cheers for the heads up Curby about the sword tails having a nibble on bristles, I can't say I've noticed any damage on "JB" but I'll definately be watching closer now.
Another fish nut in Adelaide had a male pepp up for grabs(via another friend) I was going to buy, until she told me "all" of his bristles had been removed care of cichlid fry.
J

I would imagine that as with endlers and guppies, swordtails are prone to eating their young. Lots of mops make great hiding places for the fry and are dead easy to make.
Just get some wool.

Wind it round and round something like a book.

Take a small length of wool and thread it under the wound wool and knot it tightly to secure the threads from separating.

Cut the the threads at the other end. It should look like a long tassel.

Attach the tied end to a peice of styrofoam or something that floats, and voila .... fry mops

.... Simples LOL

Thanx for the idea Angi, but I'd rather not have that ugly contraption floating around my tank.
If the new trap doesn't work at least there will be some good live food for the angels.
J