# Babies!!!



## Doodles (Oct 2, 2005)

This is kind of exciting because all I've raised is guppy fry and a lot of cichlid fry. I put my cherry barbs and swordtail in a smaller tank because they were mean to the other fish in my 75 gallon. So Im feeding them this morning and what do I see, babies!!!! The babies are red and I have no clue if it's the cherry barb babies or the scissortail babies. I can try to get pics of them. They are in a breeders net and doing great!

Is there any way to tell who's the parents?


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## ronnfive (Sep 19, 2005)

If they are around 3-4 mm, it’s definitely swordtail fry. You can tell who the parents is by looking their size, color, and it’s a free swimming already. And swordtails don’t lay eggs, they are livebearer. Good luck for raising the fry!

Hope this helped,
ronn


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## Doodles (Oct 2, 2005)

Wow, I didn't even think of the swordtails being Livebearers and cherry barbs being egg layers, LOL. I new that but didn't put two and two together. Im almost positive they are Swordtails now. Plus the female Swordtail looked pregnant, now she doesn't. I thought it was the cherry barbs because they are always pregnant too. They are pretty big too for fry, like 1 1/2" (maybe a bit less. 
Thank you very much! You helped a lot.


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## Lydia (Feb 6, 2005)

Cool! Yeah they must be swordtail. Just in case you didn't know, swordtails grow realllllyyyy slow, in my experience. I've heard that somewhere else too. So don't expect them to grow as fast as guppies do  What colors are your swordtail, just out of curiousity? I mean do they fade to a different color on the tail or are they only orange?


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## Doodles (Oct 2, 2005)

Oh, no I didn't know they grew really slow. have them in a breeders net now so if they grow slow they may be in there for a while. Thanks for telling me that, I might have been worried because they weren't growing. I've raised jaguar fry, krib fry, guppy fry and a couple other cichlids but the Kribs REALLY grow slow too. Cichlids seem to grow the fastest. The momma Swordtail is red and the daddy is orangeish-red. Here are a couple pics of them I just took. The dad was hard to get, I guess he's camera shy!
The last one is the mom.


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## Georgia Peach (Sep 23, 2005)

awwwww, babies are cool! those swordtails look nice!


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## Doodles (Oct 2, 2005)

Thanks you! I Love raising babies and watching them grow.


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## Fish Friend (Sep 10, 2005)

neat to see some more families  my kribs have some babys now..good luck to you!!


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## Doodles (Oct 2, 2005)

I love kribs. How aggressive do you find yours? My mother krib is way more aggressive then the dad. She's a nut ball, LOL.


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## ronnfive (Sep 19, 2005)

IME, swordtail babies grow fast... well, i guess feeding them livefood makes them grow fast once a day, and i feed them 4x a day. i feed them ground flakes, ground pillets, and daphnia for the livefood. 



Doodles said:


> Wow, I didn't even think of the swordtails being Livebearers and cherry barbs being egg layers, LOL.


i'm sorry, i did say that just in case you didn't know.

ronn


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## Lydia (Feb 6, 2005)

Ronn: It must have been what I was feeding them. Because I remember I was worried and searched online and found that other people said that too. I didn't have live food for them. I thought it was kinda weird though that my cory babies grew really fast on the same food that I gave my swordtails. My molly babies grew really fast too. Except I didn't wait long enough to put them back into the tank and they all got eaten. :?

Doodles: Those are really pretty! Nice find! I haven't seen any that look that nice around where I live! Mine had an orange mom and an orange dad with a tail that faded to yellow and then black. He was pretty too. Unfortunately he died a few days after I put him in the tank but he had enough time to mate with my female because a while later she had babies and the males had black tails. The weird part was, I had them in a breeder net too and was getting impatient so I kept on letting the babies out and of course they would get eaten, but when I finally let the last 7 out, it was 3 males and 4 females, all the males got eaten, but all the females survived! And I put my black molly babies back into the tank when they were bigger than the swordtails and they got eaten too! I still haven't figured out why that happened. I was kind of sad too because I especially wanted the male swordtails to survive because the dad was so pretty. Anyways I'm finished rambling now. I just thought it was kinda weird.


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## ronnfive (Sep 19, 2005)

Feed them 4-5x daily but little by little, and make sure that the food you throw will last only a few minutes to avoid fouling the water (just in case). It is best to feed them live food occasionally. If you can’t find any, you can make your own, like culturing mosquito, although this will be the very last option if you’re willing to do it. Or if you do it, just make sure you will harvest them in two to three days for the babies. 

Hint on culturing mosquito: 
A bucket filled with water, put a fine mesh or stocking inside the bucket or make sure the neck of the bucket is covered by the mesh (later for easy harvesting), then add water melon inside the fine mesh to let it anchor at the bottom and place it on the lit part of your house. Then harvest it in two-three days. 
But then again, this will be the last option if you’re willing and if you can’t find any live food. 

Introducing the fry back into the main tank, the rule is if your fry are big enough not to fit in any of your fish’s mouth in the tank. Or provide lots of floating plants and hiding places for the babies to hide in.

Hope this helped,
ronn


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## Doodles (Oct 2, 2005)

I fed them live earth worms last night and they loved it.



> i'm sorry, i did say that just in case you didn't know.


I’m really glad you told me! Thanks! Aww sorry you lost the little ones. Well it sounds like your swordtail are pretty too. It sounds like they are a unique color. It's sad when you raise babies and they die. I've had a lot of krib fry die on me after the birth, but it was her first. It’s tricky I guess to know when to put the babies back in. When I think the babies are ready to go in the big tank I only put one baby in and if it lives, the rest go in the next day. I feel bad testing that one baby but it's better then loosing the whole batch.
I have a pill crusher and I take all the food I have, (I have more food for them then I do myself) and grind it up and it's perfect for the babies. They go wild for it.
Ron - I think I’m going to try culturing mosquito. Thank you very much for that info. Oh,. what about culturing lettuce also? When I did and I have no clue if this is right but I put some lettuce in a glass "jam jar" and put it in the window and now it's cloudy so do I feed it to the now? I’m really not sure what I’m doing here, LOL.


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