# My Sword Tail Family :)



## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

So let me give you some background. Some of the very first fish me and my husband got was a pair of pineapple sword tails. They were full grown when we got them but we had them until they died of old age. We got one group of fry out of them, she only had 8. 6 of those 8 survived and we only kept one (giving away the others to friends). 
After that the parents passed away, of old age like I said.. was sad to see them go. But out of this we got this BEAUTIFUL male. Biggest male ive ever seen. He is 100% Pine apple sword tail. So after his parents passed we decided to get him a female. We got 2 random swordtail females, but he wasn't interested in them (they were pretty small). Well they both ended up dying.. maybe lonely, im not sure. 
Then we bought this bigger female koi swordtail. And well it was love at first site. About a week ago we put her into our little breeder hang off tank.
She had her babies early this morning!!! Me and my husband are SUPER excited. Always excited when babies come along. We breed apistogrammas as well. We are just so proud of these fry because its a second generation breeding for us and there going to be some show sword tail that's forsure!!

So super happy and exited!! Here are some pictures.. I took these this morning, the babies are still in the breeder tank(which is getting pretty dirty) but my husband is moving them into there 10 gallon when he gets home from work. Enjoy everyone 






- The Koi Momma







- The Pineapple Father







- The pineapple Father







- Fry







- Fry







- Fry


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## littleguppy (Mar 12, 2012)

Congrats on the fry! Its always exciting! It will be even more fun to watch them grow... Good luck!


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Thanks  Yes the best part is watching them grow and seeing personalities come out. There parents are beautiful and big so I know the fry will be once they are grown. Even though there just live barer sword tails, were still so excited. People who appreciate this breed can understand our excitedness and proudness. I just had to share lol


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## littleguppy (Mar 12, 2012)

I can relate, I am a guppy nut, and I have kohaku koi swords... have fun


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## Fishlover_680 (May 5, 2009)

congrats! Both parents are very pretty. No wonder there is love at first sight!


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Thanks guys Yes they are beautiful arnt they. Im so proud to say I raised the male from a little fry and clearly picked the perfect female for him. She still has from fry in her but you can see they still need some time cause there further up in her so we will be expecting more in 3-4 weeks. 
All the males ive ever seen in big als have been so small or gimp. I think hes just perfect, hes my show male  He has his moms huge body and his dads looks. Hes pushing 4 inches


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## greg (Apr 29, 2012)

Great job. Caring for fry and watching them mature is very rewarding. I just moved two gravid Endler's to my home office tank in hopes that I can raise the fry while working


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Well done ! I think many believe it's fairly easy to raise livebearers, and it can be pretty simple if they're left to their own devices. But to get really nice offspring and have most of them survive can take a fair bit of work.. so congrats and I hope you have some beautiful fish grow up from this batch of fry.


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Greg... That's awesome!! I would love that at my work place.

Fishfur - Thanks so much. What you say is true. Like I said I am very proud of this spawn and very excited to see them grow up as they are both just beautiful sword tails. Me and my hubby will be catching every one of this girls fry as were really getting into breeding and selling. They are such a perfect pair. We should have lots grown for the fall auctions


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

looks like a great number of fry to, nice to see


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Yup  We got them into there own 10 gallon last night and did the count. We count between 35-37 so nice batch of fry  It was her first so she did very well. You can see a colour difference in them already. Some have orange with white patches, some are light orange and some are dark orange, its awesome.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Be sure to post some more pics when the fry are larger and their colours are really showing up. Be interesting to see what you get with this combination of genetics.


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

I know i can't wait to see. I figured it would be around 75% orange and 25% koi but u never know. I can see a bunch that look bright like koi and then a bunch that are darker. There doing great, getting really strong and eating very well. And some more exciting news, yesterday our triple red apistogramma female laid eggs so more babies to come if all goes well


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Congrats on the apisto babies. Out of curiosity, what do you feed your fry ? Do you feed live foods at all ? I've read than feeding live foods to fry can triple their growth rates.


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Thanks, im really hoping they turn out but we wernt expecting them because we were fixing the tank all weekend (making It a perfect apistogramma breeder tank). But she laid eggs anyways, its her first batch so we will be lucky if it works out.. there will be more though. Anyways. The sword tail we feed premium crushed (to a powder) flakes and frozen baby brine shrimp. The apistos will be getting the baby brine shrimp as they pick off the mosses for a few days before they can eat the BBS. I don't currently have live food for fry but I do have a culture of live black worms the breeding fish and my dwarf puffers get. The fry will get that as soon as there old enough. It maybe true that live food makes them grow faster but I would say the more important thing is the quality of the food and just giving them everything they need. Me and my hubby might look into a brine shrimp culture though... if so we will be feeding them livily hatched brine shrimp. But ive always done fine on frozen so I wouldn't worry yourself if you don't have the time for live


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I don't worry over it at all. I culture micro and banana worms, which are very, very easy to keep, along with Nannochloropsus, or Japanese chlorella single cell algae, aka green water, which I buy from a lab on discs and try to keep going. So long as I don't leave them too long, they'll keep growing for months on end. 

I'm also trying to culture fruit flies, the flightless kind, as both the flies and their larvae are eagerly taken by most of my fish. My kuhli loaches go nuts for the larvae and the surface feeders become frenzied when I give them live flies.. they hit them so hard their heads are above water and I worry sometimes they'll jump out trying for a fly. Only real issue I've had with most of the live cultures has been excess heat.. it's a problem in this apartment.. I'll be keeping fans going for this summer to maintain the cultures, I hope.

The banana worms are really tiny, less than half the size of a microworm, or a BBS. They're also much less effort and much cheaper, ideal food for all but the very tiniest of newborn fry. They're quite high in fat, so while you'd not want to feed worms to fish every day, for fry they're great because fry need fats.You can feed them spirulina powder too, which can add some other nutrients to them and turns them pale green. If I can get a large enough culture going, I'm going to try freezing them in gum packages.. the little plastic pockets that some gum comes in would make ideal single servings for a tank of fry or a treat for adult fish.

I'd like to try an infusoria culture, or perhaps a monoculture of some of the infusoria, like rotifers, for example. But rotifers are hard to get here in the fresh water version, and the US sources either don't want to or are not able to ship them here. But the banana worms have done quite well for my Endler fry, as well as for newly morphed Ghost shrimp. The larval shrimp stage does very well on the green water, as do my fan shrimp and one little clam that has defied the odds and is still alive 8 months after I got him. Though all his mates passed on, this one is hanging in. The worms are also great for the filter shrimps, small enough to fit in their mouths.

If I manage to get a brackish tank going, I'll be trying to raise several species of shrimp that all require brackish water for the larval stage. Then I'll culture both the Nanno variety and another species of single cell algae that's salt water only, so they'll have a bit of variety in their diet and I'll try them on worms when they morph into shrimplets.

Of all the things I've tried to culture, the micro and banana worms have been by far the easiest and least costly. They need only some kind of flour or meal, even bread slices, for a substrate and tiny sprinkles of bakers's yeast for food. They reproduce like mad and you just start a new container every couple of weeks to make sure you have more than one going, in case something happens to one. They climb the sides of the their container, so it's simple to swipe enough off a side to feed fry with. I've never had one go mouldy.. the yeast pretty much prevents that, and they don't reek either.. they smell like sourdough bread dough, more or less. Heat will kill them, and if fruit flies get in, they'll lay eggs and hatch larvae, which will mess it up. I use a dressmaker's pin now to make the air holes in the lids so the fruit flies can't get into them any more.

I've also tried to culture daphnia.. less luck with those so far, which is too bad because the fish absolutely adore them. Wish I could get a moina culture.. again, hard to find here, but being used with great success to raise all sorts of farmed fish in Asia.. Bettas, Killifish, Guppies. And I'm looking for Dero worms too, which are becoming very popular in some circles, guppy breeders among them. They're also a very good fry food, even though they can be a half inch long, they're so skinny that most fry can bite off pieces once they've grown just a bit past the newborn stages.

If you'd told me a year ago I'd have pet shrimp & clams and be growing worms, flightless fruit flies and algae in my living room I'd have thought you were crazy.... how life does change !


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Lol that's funny, yeah same here if you asked me if I would be growing worms lol but yet here we are, with the love of fish making us do these things lol. That's very interesting. Do you sell your banana worms?
I wasn't planning on having a black worm culture until they started it themselves. I left a tank with about 6 inches of water at the bottom for a few months in one of my rooms. When me and the hubby went to clean it out finally to our surprise there were 100's of black worms buried in the gravel. They didn't even have food or a air stone, crazy things must have lived off left over food and there own body weight. They are moved now though. The banana worms sound interesting though


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I could sell some.. right now I've got three containers going and I'm starting another one for a guy who wants one. Where are you located, more or less ? You can PM if you'd rather not say where you are out here.


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

I live about a hour north of the city. As of right now I have no use for them because I don't have small fry but when that time comes, which should be sometime soon. I will let you know.. I know where to find you lol. Thanks.

The apisto eggs are gone today.. I forgot to add lol so no apisto babies right now. So ill probably contact you when I have eggs again or maybe if they don't eat the BBS


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

No problem. I don't think mailing them would be too difficult, provided it's not blistering hot or freezing cold temperatures. I'd give you a good portion of media with lots of worms on it and you'd just have to get a new container ready with media to put them in when they arrive. I can send instructions but it's not hard. One of those 500 gram plastic jars you put bulk food in does nicely. Poke a lot of holes in the top with a pin.. then mix up some media. Quite a few choices for that, not sloppy wet and not dry.. add culture, put on lid, sprinkle a tiny bit of yeast on it every other day or three and keep in a dimly lit spot where it won't get too hot or cold. Should see them climbing the sides within a few days.


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Fishfur said:


> No problem. I don't think mailing them would be too difficult, provided it's not blistering hot or freezing cold temperatures. I'd give you a good portion of media with lots of worms on it and you'd just have to get a new container ready with media to put them in when they arrive. I can send instructions but it's not hard. One of those 500 gram plastic jars you put bulk food in does nicely. Poke a lot of holes in the top with a pin.. then mix up some media. Quite a few choices for that, not sloppy wet and not dry.. add culture, put on lid, sprinkle a tiny bit of yeast on it every other day or three and keep in a dimly lit spot where it won't get too hot or cold. Should see them climbing the sides within a few days.


Hey, I would love some of those worms now  My apistos still haven't had a successful spawn but they are learning (they are young and inexperienced) so I will have babies some time soon. Let me know


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

So update on the sword tails. They are a week and a half old now. Doing great, we have had no losses in the tank. They are getting bigger and fatter and also more colourful. You can see that about half of them are dark orange and the other half is a bright orange. This is our first time cross breeding the colours so im thinking the darker orange are going to be pineapple sword tails and the bright ones will be the koi sword tails. Only time will tell but it makes sense to me because the orange on koi's are so bright and vibrant. Are last swords were all pineapple so we never had the comparison. Its been really cool. 
Also very busy around the house.. with 4 tanks running now and my apistos laying eggs all the time (no successful spawns yet though). I will post some pictures when I get some good ones. There such little cuties, always come to the front when someone approaches the tank. Ahh love being a animal parent 

Oh and still haven't got a forsure count cause there always everywhere but were thinking around the 30-32 mark.
And another interesting thing.. I don't remember if I mentioned it on here yet but we bought 1 more female1 to give that female a break and also get some different variations. We bought a marble red and black sword. Well surprise, surprise the male wants nothing to do with her and wants everything to do with his women (the koi). Ive never seen 2 fish so in love before. Even the female isn't bugged my him like u would think. They swim side by side all the time. If he swims away, she follows and vise versa. Guess we will just focus on making some beautiful pineapple/koi swords. Which I am okay with because I am very proud in the fish we raise and am super proud of him because hes just beautiful and I raised him from a premature fry. These are both quality fish that are going to make quality babies, and that's satisfying enough for me.
Ill be bringing him to oktoberfish this year for the swordtail comp


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

PM me on the worms.. we'll figure it out.


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