# Livebearer Question



## Emily (May 4, 2010)

I picked up some female swordtails about a month ago that I wanted to cross with a male I already owned. These females have been living on their own in my tank and in that time I found one single fry (I am assuming the rest were eaten). Anyways, I have read in the past that female livebearers can store sperm and have multiple batches of babies after being bred once, so my question is -- is there a way to tell when the babies are out of my male? 

I don't know if I should wait to add him or just add him in now, but I don't like the idea of not knowing which parents the offspring belong to. I am torn on whether or not I should let them have a few batches from any stored sperm left or if I should just add my male now. Thoughts?


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## DBam (Aug 9, 2010)

Just be patient. You're gonna need time no matter what, since you're dealing with genetics and phenotypic traits in organisms with much longer generation times than microbes or fruit flies. I don't know much about breeding swordtails or storing of sperm by females, but you could keep your females separated from the males for now until there are no new fry being produced. That way you eliminate the uncertainty in which males fertilized the females. On the other hand, you could leave them together and raise the fry to a size where you can tell the phenotypic traits apart.


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## sunshine_1965 (Aug 16, 2011)

Are all the females the same Color? What type are they? What type is the male? From experience they produce fry about every 30-45 days in my tank. The water conditions need to be right for them. I do not do much of a water change maybe 10% bi-weekly mainly just do water top offs. I also have floating plants in the tank for the fry to hide in. This allows more to survive.


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## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

Emily said:


> but I don't like the idea of not knowing which parents the offspring belong to.


 Sounds like a job for Maury Povich.


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## Emily (May 4, 2010)

DBam said:


> Just be patient. You're gonna need time no matter what, since you're dealing with genetics and phenotypic traits in organisms with much longer generation times than microbes or fruit flies. I don't know much about breeding swordtails or storing of sperm by females, but you could keep your females separated from the males for now until there are no new fry being produced. That way you eliminate the uncertainty in which males fertilized the females. On the other hand, you could leave them together and raise the fry to a size where you can tell the phenotypic traits apart.


Thanks for the insight. I am starting to think I should just throw the male in because I would still be interested in any fry that were produced if they come out looking like the females. So either way, win for me  I have heard they can store enough sperm to produce 6 batches but thats just what I have read on the internet.



sunshine_1965 said:


> Are all the females the same Color? What type are they? What type is the male? From experience they produce fry about every 30-45 days in my tank. The water conditions need to be right for them. I do not do much of a water change maybe 10% bi-weekly mainly just do water top offs. I also have floating plants in the tank for the fry to hide in. This allows more to survive.


The females have the same colours but different patterns of those colours (orange/white like cow patches). The three females I have now are jumbo swords and I would like to cross them with my koi swordtail male. I have had success breeding the koi type I have, but I would really like to see if I can get a large (jumbo) version of my koi swordtails. I plan to cross my male with the jumbo females, and then breed some of the offspring back to the jumbo females.



TomC said:


> Sounds like a job for Maury Povich.


:lol: Haha it sure does. The one baby I collected from the jumbos has a much more "neon" orange than my koi babies, so he stands out like crazy. Hopefully it will be easy to tell where the babies may have come from


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