Jade Bettas - Swordtails

male pineapple swordtail female pineapple swordtail

Swordtails originate from the Central American region.
In the aquarium they grow to 3 inches with females being longer and heavier bodied than males.
I keep them at a temperature of 25C, which is in the upper part of there temperature range of 18C-28C.
Filtration is an internal power filter.
I feed them a staple of flake food with the occassional freeze dried brine shrimp cube, they will also pick at the plants and aquarium glass looking for algae, I have not observed them to cause any damage to plants.

They like a planted aquarium with an open swimming space.
They are not shy fish and you will have plenty of opportunity to observe them and their interactions.
Swordtails are very good community fish, hardy and tolerant.
I keep them in groups of 1 male and 2 females. If more than one male is in the same tank then there will be agression and one male will ultimately dominate the other.
In the photos above you can see the differences in the male and female pineapple swordtail.
The male also has an appendage known as the gonopodium which he uses during spawning.
The female is more rounded in shape and heavier bodied, often having a gravid spot during spawning periods, this is a darkened patch where the fry are located inside her.
There are several colour varieties of swordtails, there are also other fin and tail forms including Lyre tails and double Swordtails.
Females can also sometimes have swords, the sure way to determine sex is by looking for the gonopodium.

female posing

Swordtails - Xiphophorus helleri, are livebearer fish, the female becomes pregnant and she later has some tiny babies, baby fish are called fry, more on breeding Swordtails later.
The fry are fully formed and can swim as soon as they are born, they do not have the same colour exactly as their parents, the colour gets stronger as they get older, for example Pineapple Swordtail fry are yellow/pale orange when born and develop the darker orange a little later.
Later still the males will develop the sword shaped tails.

Breeding Set-Up

Swordtails will breed in the community aquarium, the fry will not have much chance of survival in there.
My swordtail nursery tank is a 12 gallon tank with natural river gravel as the substrate and filtration is a double sponge filter, the breeding trap is set up at the opposite end of the tank to the filter.
I adjust the sponge filters outflow so it runs gently through the breeding trap and with the grid as a base it has water movement.
The tank and filter are matured in advance.
The regular breeding nets or breeding traps are a little small for Swordtails and they hold the fry, whereas I prefer the fry to swim out of the trap into the 12 gallon tank.
I eventually found the breeding trap in the photo below, it was ideal as it was a larger size than the regular breeding traps, the divider and the V shaped trap can be removed, it also has a grid for its base, then an internal removable solid base.
I removed the solid base, V shaped part and the divider.This way the female has more room, as the fry are dropped they swim out through the grid into the 12 gallon tank.
I then discovered the clips that come with the trap are for use in a tank without a top shelf (euro- bracing) and therefore they could not be used in the tank I wanted to use, so I drilled 4 small holes, 2 in the front and 2 in the back of the trap, I then cut some metal rod to the width of the fry tank and pushed this through the holes, each rod sits upon the front and back euro-bracing/shelf these then support the breeding trap very securely allowing maintenance, cleaning and feeding without fear of the tank sinking or becoming unattached.
It works very well.

The multi-breeder I use (image kindly supplied by HagenUK)

Breeding Swordtails

I had a trio of Pineapple Swordtails (1male 2 females) in my community tank, over 18 months I had never noticed a single Swordtail fry.
The female would have a gravid spot much smaller and paler/not as dark as a gravid female guppy,
I would observe her closely and she would never grow as if fry were maturing inside her.
Once the set-up described above was ready I decided the next time I seen the gravid spot to place her in the breeding trap and wait, observing.
After 2 days I noticed she'd had 1 fry.
I marked the date in my notes, waited 2 days to let her rest and recover.
Then placed her back into the communty tank and marked down a date of 21 days ahead, after those 21 days she was removed from the community tank and placed back in the nursery, after 1 day she dropped 35 fry.
I rested her for 2 days, this was repeated another 5 times, each time she dropped either 33 or 35 fry.
All the fry survived.
The first time she was placed in the breeding trap for the first fry she was a little nervous and it may be why she held onto the fry for 2 days. For this reason I removed her from the community tank after 21 days for all future deliveries, so as not to disturb or stress her during the delivery.
After the first fry each time she was placed in the breeding trap in the nursery tank she would be very calm and relaxed.
The process described above became so regular it was like clockwork and highly efficient.
During this process I observed the female each time to see if I could find any signs that may help with determining the timing of her first drop, to get the date, whilst reducing the likelyhood of having to move the female during her delivery, I noticed that the female becomes flat on the front of her chest a couple of days before she has the fry.
Looking rather blocky in appearance rather than her usual curvy self.
Using this to tweak the dates is how I managed to time delivery and the number of days to leave her in the community tank, yet know to move her 2 days early into the nursery tank and in so doing reduce the chance of her being moved during delivery.
I fed the fry on crushed King British flake.
After 20 days I would move the fry into a 36x15x12 inch tank which is the Swordtail growout tank.
After the female has the next fry and they are 20 days old they are large enough to go into the growout tank with the previous spawn without any risk of them being eaten by them.
I recommend Swordtails as an interesting fish to breed because the fry are very strong and hardy.
You have the option to breed existing colours and forms or you may wish to naturally enhance colours, shape or finnage by undertaking your own selective breeding programs.