Swordtail fish is a beautiful and popular freshwater species that many people enjoy keeping in their home aquarium. They’re relatively low maintenance and can live for up to 5 years, which is a long time for a fish! But, can you breed swordtail fish at home?
Swordtails aren’t just an easy-to-care-for pet; they’re also fairly easy to breed at home. Of course, they can be bred at home, but there are some important things to know before you try breeding swordtail fish in your own tank!
In this blog post, we’ll go over everything you need to know about swordtail breeding so that you can start creating your own swordtail army at home.
Is It Easy To Breed Swordtails?
Swordtails are very easy to breed in captivity; provided with optimal living conditions, these livebearers will produce fry prolifically.
Swordtail fish are straightforward to breed in captivity. Swordtails spawn readily given the right conditions. you can buy swordtail fish at pet stores, but you can easily breed them at home, too, if you have the right equipment and some patience.
Swordtail breeding should only take a few minutes if the tank is prepared correctly. However, swordtails live in freshwater, and they need a few basic things to breed. Swordtail breeding starts with having the right water temperature; then, you will need a piece of gravel that is at least an inch deep for each swordtail fish.
Can You Breed Swordtails Fish At Home?
Swordtail fish are EASIER to breed than other types of fish, which is why you can easily do it at home.
Unlike other types of fishes, swordtails are livebearers and produce fully-formed progeny. This means that breeding a swordtail is not difficult at all.
Each small individual fish produces hundreds of little fry each time they reproduce, which means if you have more than one female swordfish in your tank, you might end up with like sixty or seventy new baby swordtails after spawning just once!
If you have a male swordtail and a female swordtail together in the same tank, they are likely to spawn without any mediation from the owners.
Moreover, female swordtails can keep sperm cells inside their pouch and fertilize on their own. Since swordtails do not need external help to breed, it is easier for them and you.
How Do Swordtails Breed?
Swordtail is a livebearer, and they produce live babies. The swordtail breeding process starts with the female swordtail being ready to breed or oviposit. To Initiate the breeding, you have to increase the temperature to about 75 F.
The male swordtail will chase your female swordtail around, and when ready, they swim by the side and transfer their sperms in females through their gonopodium. After the mating, your female will get pregnant with a visible dark gravid spot near its anal fin.
The gestation period lasts for 28 days, and your female will breed young tiny fry in large numbers.
Things You Need To Take Care Of During Breeding Process
Breeding swordtail fish at home can be a stressful undertaking. Before starting the process, you should consider some considerations and provide good living quarters for your fish to swim in.
And even though swordtails do not require external initiation for mating, breeding is an easy task that most people manage to perform without any problems. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things you could do to make this easier on both the parents and their larvae before or during breeding–especially considering how delicate this time can be for these creatures, as it would be with almost any other animals species.
Few things you need to take care of during the breeding process to make it easier are:
Maintaining Water Parameter
You can breed swordtail fish at home with proper parameters in check to reduce the stress of females ready for breeding.
Male-Female Ratio
The number of males and females in the ratio of 1:3 is highly recommended. This will reduce the chance of your female getting stressed because your male will have options.
Hiding Places
Females produce live young at a rate of one to two every week. Therefore, they will be inactive and stay in one corner, limiting their movement. In addition, females become aggressive when someone tries to bother them, so they usually want to distance themselves from other tank mates.
For this reason, hiding spots are critical for swordtails- females need somewhere safe to hide during the day.
Tank Requirements
For the breeding process to go effectively, your tank must be clean and contain freshwater. Swordtail flourish in freshwater and healthy aquariums will keep your fish healthy too. Thus, you should maintain a healthy aquarium for healthy breeding.
You should set up a separate breeding tank for better results.
Now that we know the proper conditions to initiate breeding at home, let’s see how you can do it.
How To Breed Swordtails At Home?
If you want to breed swordtail fish at home, there is no need for special equipment or a big space as these guys are just small!
Here is a simple procedure to initiate the breeding process with ease:
Select Your Parents
The best way to start breeding swordtails in your own tank is by getting two healthy swordtails of the same type from different parents that have been bred before.
If you want to make your own swordtail fish, the first thing on your list should be a male swordtail with typical colors for breeding purposes.
For example, if one of the females is an orange female swordtail, she will need an orange male sword. The second thing would be another type of livebearer which includes platys.
Set Your Tank
You will also need some nice clean water and an aquarium with a lid if you don’t want them escaping – swordtail fry can be very quick, so make sure you keep this in mind when building your new little habitat.
Add enough hiding spaces like driftwood, aquatic plants, etc., take a look at your water parameters. The appropriate parameter is 75-80 F, pH of 7, hardness of 12-30 GH.
Place The Parents In The Tank
After setting the tank, add your fish to the tank and wait for them to spawn. You will know your female is pregnant when you see a tiny black gravid spot on its belly. Give enough food because they’re vulnerable at this phase.
Remove The Male
Once the gestation period is almost over, you can remove your male from the tank so that your female can deliver in peace.
It is also necessary to remove males to ensure the safety of your newly-borns because your male will eat them.
Remove the Female After Delivery
Like males, the females can also attack their babies, removing the female from the tank after birth.
The females produce fully formed babies and can swim without any help from their mother – these swordtail fry have external gills, which means they do not require parental care!
Take Care Of Your Fry
Your swordtail fry can swim easily right after birth, but they are still weak, and you should take proper care of them
feed them with small chunks of food like flakes or worms because they have tiny mouths. Also, take care of the water’s cleanliness and purity.
Place your fry in a separate tank until they are big enough to live in the primary tank.
If these steps aren’t followed correctly, it is more likely that your swordtail fishes won’t reproduce successfully!
Conclusion
No matter what you do when breeding swordtails, it is important to maintain a clean tank and observe the fish closely. This will make sure they are healthy enough for mating or spawning. Then, if your spawnings fail, try again in another week!
Breeding swordtails successfully takes time, but with patience and care, any beginner can achieve their goal of having these beautiful little creatures swimming happily around their tanks.
