# Pregnant Swordtail, Father Molly?



## clemintine (Jan 13, 2010)

I have a female swordtail that ive had for quite some time who appears to be pregnant but the only other male i have in the tank that could have done it is a yellow molly. I've heard that the two cannot crossbreed, any feedback?
Picture of her below.








You cannot see it too well in the photo but she does have the very dark black spot behind her bottom fin.


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## PaulLamb (Nov 15, 2009)

A swordtail/molly crossing is highly unlikely. It is more likely that the father is another swordtail she met in her past. Female swordtails can store sperm for months after mating, and can therefore deliver multiple broods from a single contact with males. How long have you had her, and is it possible that she had contact with a male swordtail or platy before you aquired her? In most cases, when a female swordtail unexpectedly gives birth without a partner, she has been kept with a male earlier and saved the sperm since then.


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## clemintine (Jan 13, 2010)

I've had her for about 3 months now i got her with a male who died shorty after we took them home. I see the male mooly mating with her all the time, in fact he won't give the poor thing a break. I'm just wondering how long she can carry it. also, how can i tell when shes close to giving birth?


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## chamfishlvr (Jan 22, 2010)

wow, she's HUGE! She looks close, and it could've been the old male you had that bred with her. If you can, put her in a seperate tank or put a lot of plants in one corner of the tank. You posted a while ago, has she dropped any fry yet? Males are so dumb, my male platy tries to mate with my black skirt tetras, lol so your molly couldve tried to mate, but failed.


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## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

Female swordtails can hold sperm up to 6 months. It is very likely that she had a male swordtail or platy partner in the past. Swordtails can mate with platies but I have not heard of one mating with a molly.

Are you sure the female isnt a platy? Or maybe the male. A lot of the livebearers look the same to a lot of people. I have a hard time telling the platies from female swordtails, especially in pictures.

A lot of colors in the livebearers could not be accomplished without crossbreeding. For example, most wild swordtails are green and black, but due to crossbreeding we get red swordtails, and by breeding those we get other colors.


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## clemintine (Jan 13, 2010)

Well she gave birth before we could get her into a net and so far we have found 2 small black fry in the tank and transferred them to a breeder net. A tad confused considering both the male and female are bright orange, are the fry typically black or will they change color?


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## hXcChic22 (Dec 26, 2009)

Perhaps, like they said, she was holding sperm and got pregnant by some fish entirely different. 
Our molly babies usually don't start spotting until they are a little older. We haven't had any that are solid colors yet, even though the father is solid black and all the females are either dalmatian or marbled.


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## guppymonkey (Nov 23, 2009)

Swordtails are a different genus than Mollies so it is impossible for it to be the father.


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