red & white swords

Question
I have a male and a female red & white swords. The female had babies 3/29/07. My question is how long do I keep the babies in the breeder tank (little floating tank where she had the babies)? Another question I have is how often to these types of fish breed and how long is the typical gestation period? When I got the fish I was told she was another 2 weeks from having the babies and on the way home she started having them. Also with this type of fish is it normal for them to give live birth? Someone I know says that most fish unless they are in the guppy family lay eggs. I am just curious if you or anyone else can answer these questions.

Answer
Hi Jessica;

The babies are usually safe once they reach 3 times their birth size, or big enough to not fit in the mouth of your largest fish. Make frequent water changes (25% at least once a week), feed them small feedings 3 to 5 times a day and your baby fish will grow fast.

Swordtails are livebearing fish and will have babies every 4 to 6 weeks or so usually. It's really hard to tell when they have sucessfully been bred so delivery dates vary considerably. Water temperature and other environmental factors come in to play as well.

Guppies, mollies and platies are all livebearing fish too. They belong to the same fish family, "Poeciliidae". Here is a link to an article about them;

http://fish.mongabay.com/poeciliidae.htm

Good luck with your babies!

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins