# Glass Swordtail?



## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Hi. Me and my husband breed sword tails, we have been for a few years now. We breed pineapple and koi swordtails. We have been breeding this one pair for around a year and a half now. My show male pineapple sword tail and my Female Koi swordtail. 

But something different happened the last time my female koi gave birth. We put her in her 10 gallon birthing tank like we always do. The next morning I checked on her (cause she usually births early morning) and there were 4 see through fry in the tank. She wasn't do for 3 more days and was still full of fry. So we left her in there. 3 days later she had 187 orange fry. Her fry are always orange since they are pineapple x koi. Once they get older they form koi colourings (abour 25% of them). Anyways..

These fry are now almost a month old, all 4 premature fry are still alive and doing great. But they are still see through. They have no colour and don't look like they are going to be pure white (we've had some come out pure white from these 2).

So I ask:
1) Has this happened to anyone?
2) Is this a common occurrence? (hasn't happened to us before this)
3) Is there even such thing as a glass swordtail?

3 pictures attached. The first one is just swordtail siblings. The next 2 have the fry in question in the bottom right of the pictures. They are pretty hard to see but u can see there eye balls. Also mind the tank, this is right before a cleaning 
Let me know what u guys think and thanks in advance for the replies.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

do you have any see through fish? possibly some sperm somehow made its way into the female to fertilize some eggs. Or maybe its just a genetic mutation


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

That's kind of freaky to say the least. But there are a very few species that have that totally see through appearance, such as glass catfish.

My guess would be a genetic mutation of some kind, aka a 'sport'. Most fish that are commercially raised are inbred to a greater or lesser degree these days, which means you get concentrations of recessive genes that may be expressed, when normally they would not be. 

It will be interesting to see if they gain any colour with age, but if not, and they are attractive, perhaps you'll have a new fish to propagate. This is how many of the colour variants in species are first obtained, when a few fry are born that are different.

If it's a desirable look, attempts are made to breed the fry when they're old enough. Often this requires breeding them back to either the mother or father, depending on the sex of the fry, and often also to siblings, to see if the new trait can be fixed enough to breed true eventually.. It can take quite a number of generations to fix a trait so it will breed true. It does not always work, and sometimes mutations have too many weaknesses along with the new trait to be able to survive. You will just have to wait and see.

I think it's unlikely she somehow got some other male's sperm, unless you have more than one male in with her. Keep us posted, it will be interesting to see how they get on.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

There may even be potential for making money if you can successfully create a whole new fish.


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Thank you all for the answers. Its a good thought pyrrolin but not very likely. I don't have any see through fish and right now I only have the one male in with her. They are inseparable, honestly, ive never seen swordtails act like this. They WILL NOT breed with anyone else. Ive raised his grandparents, his parents and then I raised him, he is my show male ill be taking to the oktoberfish show this year . Im selling off 90% of there offspring at the fall auctions this year also if anyone here is going . See attached picture of parents.

Anyways.. I've never heard or seen of a glass swordtail before so it going to be super interesting to see these guys grow up. My husband thought they were going to be white but they are still completely see through. I guess it was just a freak thing because they were born pre mature, I guess there colour didn't get to form before she pushed them out. They are a little less fat then there siblings but still very healthy. If they wernt they wouldn't have made it this far. We scooped them out right away and put them in the "grow up" tank once we seen them. We both thought they were black at first and we were both shocked. But they only looked black cause of our black sand. I will defiantly keep posted on this site. I wont be selling these guys at the auction that's for sure. So weird man


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Thinking about it now. I would think one of the very last things a fry would develop inside there mother would be colour. I think this because it isn't so important. The fry would need to develop its body and insides and eyes and all that first. Colour would be secondary.. I would think. So if it is that way this makes sense to have happened because like I said she gave birth to these 4, 3 days early. So it is very likely that they just came out before they developed there colour. Very interested that's for sure.


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## Ryan.Wilton (Dec 12, 2012)

I have a mix of platies, swordtails and mollies in a 75gallon and this has happened with a few fish. Once they mature, generally they start to color but their tails don't. 

I have one platy who I named blue eyes, as she has blue eyes. She was originally solid orange, with see through fins. Now she's almost fully silver, still see through fins and only the slightest hint of orange near her tail.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Interesting theory on the colour and when it occurs in gestation. I wasn't able to find any information on it online.. though I'd guess there must be some knowledge, because Zebra Danios alone are used by the millions for research. They must have some idea, even if it's not the primary interest of a given researcher. I don't think it is solely lack of pigment, as that alone causes albinism in most animals, not the oddly glasslike look of a glass catfish.

I would be surprised if the premature birth was the cause of the lack of colour. Colour is part of the development of the skin itself, so I'd be surprised if a gestating fry acquired all of its colour in a matter of a few days at the end of the process. Unfortunately, I know more about it in mammals like horses and cats than in fishes. 

In mammals, colour is often governed by an assortment of genes. Many are recessive. Some result in the base colour, others are more like modifiers, that influence how the base colour is actually expressed. Others govern whether other colours will be part of the pattern, as in animals with more than one coat colour. So the closest you'd get to transparent in a mammal, I would guess, and it's only a guess, would be an albino. They're albino because they haven't any pigmentation. Either they lack the genes for pigmentation entirely, or their expression is being suppressed in some way. I am not sure of how it works. Oddly, in horses, there are no true albinos, despite there being a breed by that name, because albinism is linked to a lethal gene that causes any horse fetus with albinism to be reabsorbed by the mother long before it's viable. Often it's thought the mare was never in foal at all. But albinism is expressed in many mammals, humans included. Rabbits and mice are the ones we see most often.

Some fish exhibit albinism, like the albino cories, which have red eyes like all albinos. The lack of pigment in the body allows the blood vessels to show through, giving the red or pink appearance. Even the dark pink or red ramshorn snails are the colour they are because the shells and body are essentially colourless and they have haemoglobin in their blood. So their blood is red, and makes the body look red or pinkish as a result. Their shells appear pearly white after the snail's body has gone.

These fry aren't albino, because if they were they'd have red eyes, so it's going to be really interesting to see how they get on, and whether they show any colour as they age. Do please keep us posted. Might just be a glass swordfish in the future !


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Thank you fishfur for the great insight. It makes sense that the colours form with the skin like mammals. I took biology all through high school so I understand recessive genes and what not. But I thought it was worth a thought as to when the colour actually does form during gestation. I am open to any thoughts with these guys lol. We will definatly be keeping them from the auctions and letting them grow up. Me and my husband are VERY interested about these little guys. We are very eager to see how they grow and if they get any colour. So far.. nothing. 
We have 1 fry that came out completely white (not albino). That fry is now 3 months old and is starting to get a bright orange patch on its tail. So it will be interesting to see if she comes out looking like her momma or stays mostly white. That being said the colour only started forming now so its possible for that to happen with the see through ones too.
Its going to be a long wait! But well worth it to see how they come out. I would be really awesome to start a new colour formation


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Okay so here is a update how these fishes are doing. Lets just say it took a crazy turn, I don't know what to think anymore. These fish have me and my husband stumped. Okay so to recap there were 4 of the see through fry born premature. 

2 of the 4 still look the same, see through, one hasn't really grown much but all still doing well. Those 2 are the smallest ones. 
The second biggest one is getting a red neon colour on its back and a black dot on its tail.. I know weird right
The biggest, most developed one started off getting a little red neon colour on its back and the same black dot on its tail (where its body and tail meet). A week later now it looks like this... 

Red neon colour on its back. Now has 2 black dots with a ring of neon blue around them and is getting neon blue on its tail.
This is crazy.. I cant believe this is happening. It honestly looks like a guppy, I don't own any guppies. Ive had this girl since her very first pregnancy (you can tell), which was with her mate, the only mate shes ever been with. My male pineapple swordtail which I added pictures of. She has had 350 babies so far and ALL have came out on time and orange. 

Thought you all would like a update, Please comment!

*Note that in the pictures the red neon kind of looks orange but its not, it is RED*


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Well, it's not a guppy, though I see why you make the comparison. That is certainly interesting colour development. I think you're going to have to wait for more growth before you find out what it really is going to look like, frustrating as that is. 

There are a number of fish who can be born pretty much colourless and develop colours later in in life as they grow, guppies among them of course, and considering these fish are sports or genetic throwbacks of some kind, I suppose almost anything might show up as they get older.

I hope the two that are still clear do ok..


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Fishfur said:


> Well, it's not a guppy, though I see why you make the comparison. That is certainly interesting colour development. I think you're going to have to wait for more growth before you find out what it really is going to look like, frustrating as that is.
> 
> There are a number of fish who can be born pretty much colourless and develop colours later in in life as they grow, guppies among them of course, and considering these fish are sports or genetic throwbacks of some kind, I suppose almost anything might show up as they get older.
> 
> I hope the two that are still clear do ok..


Oh yes I know its not a guppy but it looks very similar is what I am saying. Its defiantly a swordtail, has to be, that's why this is so crazy. Im getting weird colour and patterns from my orange swordtails lol. I cannot wait to see what happens next. like I said it started with the patch of red, then the black dots and now the neon light blue colour. Its amazing, its truly is. Im sure the clear ones are fine, just slow in growth. 
There are such things as neon swordtails however I highly doubt that the females parents were neon. I mean its possible but I got her from my local Big Als
2 years ago and they usually try to make as much money as possible so I think she would be a higher price if her parents were neon. Also don't see a lot of neon swords. The father I raised from being born (his parents both pineapple swordtails I got from a breeder). The Orange is the predominate colour too because 96% of there fry come out orange/pineapple and remaining 4% come out koi. 
I will continue to post pictures for all those following


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

They do look like guppies.


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

BillD said:


> They do look like guppies.


I know ey. The 3 pictures are all of the same one, the biggest, most developed. They all seem like they are going to turn out like this. They are all in different stages. You can see there siblings in the picture as well, all orange like all the other 250 fry I have lol


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

When they grow up, we plan to breed them. If they still look the same call them maybe Neon figure 8 swordtails (because the 2 dots connected with the blue neon colour makes a figure 8) Potential new species! So excited. It sucks that we will have to incest breed them but its really the only way


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## Scotmando (Jul 10, 2011)

Definitely cool. Keep us posted. 
What size tank do you breed your swords in? 
Do you do frequent water changes?
Parameters?

I have a trio of Hi-Fin Black Swordtails that look great but aren't gettin down to business!

Any tips?


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Nice looking swords scott. I will keep posted, its such a weird thing. The swords I am mainly breeding now are in my 80 gallon community tank (stock is dwarf cichlid's and growing up fry). The only reason they are is because they will ONLY breed with each other. Its weird for a live barer to only breed with one other live barer but they are mates. It was love at first sight I guess. So that's the only reason I have other swords in there (there off spring growing up for auctions). I know they wont breed with the female and they will all be sold. I even bought another female for him before I had all there offspring but he wouldn't go near her. 
So my situation at the moment is a little different. But originally I had them in a 29 gallon tank to breed. Water is pretty hard (300-500ppm) but I have sand and live plants to keep the PH down a little (at 7.5). Everything else is pretty normal, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrates and .10 nitrites. Temp is 80 and we do a 30% change every 2 weeks

My tip for you would be to take either the male away from the females for a week or the other way around. This might incise them to breed when they see each other again. When I add my female back to her male when she is done birthing, he's at her right away. He goes NUTS. Or maybe up the temperature a degree or try feeding live foods. But I would try separating them first, im sure that would work. Good luck!


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Hey all, Haven't gave a update in a while.. Been SUPER busy lately. I tried to take pictures of these guys the other morning but they WOULD NOT say still so I couldn't get good pictures. I am going to keep trying, but in the mean time, here is my update on these 4 guys.

They are still rather small compaired to there siblings, siblings in to which I just sold the other weekend at the peel auction. They are now 5 months old. So just to recap there were 2 smaller clear ones(#1&#2), 1 little bigger that just started developing a black dot with neon blue ring around it(#3). Then there was the biggest one (still small compaired to siblings) that had 2 black dots with red and blue neon around the dots(#4). This is what they look like now.

#1. Still small but has developed a black tail. Head half is see through (with a slight red&neon blue in it) and the tail half is fully black. Looks to be a male

#2. Now the biggest of them all, fully see through still and seems to be a female

#3. Still small but has lost the black dot and now mainly see through with a neon red and blue pattern. Seems to be a male

#4. The most interesting one of them all.. Still small. Has 2 black dots with neon red and blue surrounding them, as well as the neon blue and red pattern on body. It has a high dorsal fin with a dotted pattern, similar to a Montezuma sword tail. It also has a extra long anal fin, that also has the dotted pattern.

There are some weird things about these fish I want to mention
1) They only interact with each other (the 4 of them). They are constantly together or chasing each other.

2) The 3 that are males, there anal fins straightened (swords are born with a fan type anal fin like females have and the males changes to a straight one as they reach sexual maturity) at only a month or 2 old. While there siblings are just showing there sex now at 5 months old. 

3) The 3 males are CONSTANTLY at the bigger one that is a female. They are always trying to mate with her.. even when they were 1-2 months old. And only with her, no other fish in the tank.

4) They swim very erratically, like fast, darting around sort of way.. not like a typical sword

I have never seen this type of behaviour. I am really loving seeing these guys grow up and interact. They look more like killi fish then swords lol.

Looking forward to adding pictures and all of the replies! Thanks all!


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Can't wait to see them grown up


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Sounds fascinating. I will be looking for pics when you can get some.


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Hey so I know I'm suppose to add some pictures.. I'm trying again in the morning, they are so fast and all I have is the camera on my phone. Anyways I came on to say the one fish that is a female, she gave birth this morning! We had a feeling and put her in the breeding tank the other day. She is only 5 months and very small herself. She had quite a few, no official count yet. I'll keep u posted


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

*Update!!*

Okay so I finally got some pictures. Me and my husband caught, bagged and transferred them into a different tank because we lost one because they are picked on by their bigger siblings. 
We lost the half black one, but the other 3 are doing very well still.

So their is 2 males and 1 female. Im not going to go into detail about their appearances cause you will be able to see from the pictures and they always change what they look like. From reading my previous descriptions you can see how often they change.

Right now the female is see through, she always has been
Both the males look rather similar now. Both have the red and blue neon colours. But no longer have the blue neon rings to them, think they grew out of those. They have longer, fany tails then their siblings and have high top fins.

One thing I want to add is that about a week ago they looked exactly like the endlers Big Als in Newmarket has on sale right now. If you go to bigals.com and look at Newmarket's fish deals for this week, you will see it. Its very interesting. Anyways.. here they are..


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Also updating on their offspring.. All identical looking so far, they are all see through.


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

They still look like common guppies. There is no indication of a lateral stripe common to swords of that colour. As well, the size is rather small for the age of the fish for them to be swordtails, as is the lack of a sword, on the males.


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

BillD said:


> They still look like common guppies. There is no indication of a lateral stripe common to swords of that colour. As well, the size is rather small for the age of the fish for them to be swordtails, as is the lack of a sword, on the males.


I know! Its insane. I've never owned guppies so its impossible. I've had the mother and father since birth. The mother has a stripe (is starting to get one). They were sexually mature at 3 months old! The whole situation blows my mind


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Also see how long the males caudal fin is. Here is a picture of their siblings


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

The weird and wonderful world of 'how in the heck did this happen ?', never ceases to amaze me. 

There's a similarity to guppies, but they don't really look like Endlers to me. Similar colours perhaps to some Endlers. But neither do they look like swords. Pretty dorsal fin on the one, almost like a small sail fin.. quite interesting. Do carry on keeping us posted !


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Yes they are very cool! Defiantly similar to a guppy. They don't look like endlers to me either but about a week ago, the way they looked (the colour variations) looked exactly like the endlers in Newmarkets big als flyer for this week. That weird neon red and blue with a bit of black. And certainly don't look like swordtails.
Their offspring seem to be growing more quickly then they were at that age. Have you ever had a sword get pregnant at 3 months? The size she is now, she only looks 2 months! But shes 6 months. These ones siblings are all starting to grow their swords now (the males) and have straightened out anal fins. These guys anal fins straightened out at 3 months and got the female pregnant. Tho they haven't started growing their sword yet. But im not worried about that. Ive had a few male swords that didn't grow their sword until almost 1 1/2 years old!

Ill defiantly keep you all posted!


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

*Update*

Since last update our Swordtail X's (is what we are calling them) have had 2 batches of offspring. They still haven't grown in size and the males still don't have swords. So they don't really look like a traditional sword in that sense, but they are swordtails.

The offspring look like the parents. The females are see through and the males are neon blue and red/orange. I have attached some pictures off the off spring so u can see the colours. Although my phone is crap at taking pictures and my camera is even worse for some reason so its all I've got. But they will be for sale at the DRAS Auction this coming April. We will be selling the rest of our Pineapple x Koi Swords and all of these guys (around 100). Keeping a select few for our personal collection however.

Keep in mind these guys range from 1-3 months old


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Wish I could get to the auction, I'd love to see these guys.


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## Tino (Sep 10, 2012)

Perhaps there was a guppy cross-breeding somewhere down the genetic line? 
I'm not saying you did it, but perhaps some of your stock's previous generations did.
Very interesting none-the-less


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## kaitlyn19 (Nov 5, 2012)

Tino said:


> Perhaps there was a guppy cross-breeding somewhere down the genetic line?
> I'm not saying you did it, but perhaps some of your stock's previous generations did.
> Very interesting none-the-less


Very interesting indeed. The parents of the genetic mutation, I born and raised, same with there parents. I bought their grand father from a breeder and bought their grand mother from Big als, she was untapped.

The parents of the genetic mutation was a 4th generation breeding for me and this offspring is 5th generation. All have been a perfect description of a swordtail, also very big. These guys are small. So its pretty impossible for it to be mixed with a guppy in anyway. Its like when you have a premature child though, they are not as big as full term babies. Same thing happened here.

I've had 1000's of swordtail offspring from their grandparents, great-grandparents and their parents. All of which have came out normal. That's what makes this so interesting.

This is a Genetically Mutated Swordtail. Which is why we are calling them Swordtail X. I am hoping whoever buys some at the auction in April breeds them with a full grown swordtail and keeps the genes going. Because the colours on these guys are incredible. We are keeping a few for ourselves and we will be breeding one of the male X's with one of our female Montezuma's (Because they are mainly see through). By doing this we are hoping to get the size and tail of the Montezuma and the colours of Swordtail X


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