# question about sword tails



## fancy face 30 (Mar 25, 2010)

I have what looks to be a female swordtail but her anal fin is long like a male. Can you have a male swordtail with out the pointed tailfin? The tailfin is round like a female but the anal fin is throwing me off. If this fish is female my tank is fine if it's a male I need to get a few more females. Can anyone please help with this question.


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## PaulLamb (Nov 15, 2009)

In many cases, the gonopodium develops before the sword, so I would guess it is a male. I'd need to see a photo to tell you for sure, though.


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## fancy face 30 (Mar 25, 2010)

I have a picture to post but I don't know how to do it on this website. I was going to add an album but don't know how to do that either. The fish is about 5 or 6 months old, you should be able to see the sword on it's tail by now.


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## PaulLamb (Nov 15, 2009)

In swordtails, they usually develop their male parts around 5 or 6 months, and like I said, a lot of the time the gonopodium will develop first. So that sounds about right.


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## fancy face 30 (Mar 25, 2010)

I finally figured out how to get pictures on here. The swordtail I was asking about is in my album. It is the only one with a short round tailfin.


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## Guest (Mar 26, 2010)

thats a male orange platy. notice the mouth isnt upturned.


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## fancy face 30 (Mar 25, 2010)

It does have an upturned mouth and I have 2 more from the same litter of fry. The other 2 are females. I really need to know how old they are when they start getting the sword point on their tailfin.


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## Guest (Mar 26, 2010)

weird.....upturned mouth but no tail? males develop tails at about 6 weeks of age....around the same time when u can sex them. do have any platy in there?


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## fancy face 30 (Mar 25, 2010)

The only platy I have are mickey mouse platys. Blue mickey mouse platys and the orange one hangs around with my swords. I have 4 females and 1 male platy. Since I'm not sure what it is I might take it to the pet store and trade it for a female. You can tell by looking at the tail that it hasn't been nipped on and the lady I bought the fish from knew her stuff but this fish has me baffled.


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## Guest (Mar 26, 2010)

its weird to be honest. i have bred swords for a long time now and never had this problem. lol this fish might be confused about it sexuality.


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## fancy face 30 (Mar 25, 2010)

It is very weird. I have had and rasied sword and never had a fish like this before. I would have to say it is very confused about it's sexuality. It has the dark spot like a female ready to have fry but than it chases other fish like a male. It is very confusing to me. I don't know if I want to keep it or get rid of it. Thanks for your help though. I might just keep it and see what happens with it, see if if gets the sword tail or if it has fry. Could be interesting.


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## PaulLamb (Nov 15, 2009)

Your fish is definitely male. I agree with Zakk that the shape is more like a platy, but there are many varieties of swordtails, some more platy-like than others.



Zakk said:


> weird.....upturned mouth but no tail? males develop tails at about 6 weeks of age....around the same time when u can sex them. do have any platy in there?


I can't speak for all swordtails, but this isn't true for the sword variety that I am raising (koi). My guys take 4 months minimum for tail development. Usually around 5-6 months average. A few late bloomers take longer than 6 months.


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## Guest (Mar 26, 2010)

ever seen a swordtail platy? i accidently let my male sword hit my juvie female platy.....outcome: body of a platy and a sword like a swordtail. very weird lookin fish. didnt survive cos i wasnt able to keep up the water changes. mom brought one to me while i was laid up in the hospital.


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## PaulLamb (Nov 15, 2009)

I looked again at your picture. Look very closely and you can kind of see that his sword is just barely starting to grow out (not a whole lot yet). It won't be long..


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## fancy face 30 (Mar 25, 2010)

I have decided to keep the fish and just went and bought 3 more female swords. Hopefully that will be enough and now I don't really have to worry about if it's male or female. Maybe it is just a late bloomer. The female I got today are pineapple swords and they are very pretty and already fat with fry to be born at any time. Thanks for all the help you all have given me.


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

I am noticing the 'gravid' spot inside the fish, despite the fact that it otherwise seems to be male.
I have a whole bunch of male platies with gravid spots. What's with that?
Anal fin turned male before dark spot developed.


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## fancy face 30 (Mar 25, 2010)

Mine had the dark spot before it had what looks like its male parts. I saw it chasing around some of the new females, so I am pretty sure it is just a late bloomer. That or it is a very confused fish.


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## PaulLamb (Nov 15, 2009)

mousey said:


> I have a whole bunch of male platies with gravid spots. What's with that?


The gravid spot just indicates that there is something dark-colored beneath the translucent surface color. In the case of pregnant females, it is the color of the fry's eyes. Since swordtails and platies tend to be algae grazers, I would guess in the cases of "gravid males" that this is most likely a dark-algae inside their stomach.

Of course swordtails are known to be sex-changers (females can become males when trapped in all-female environments), but that's not what's going on here. First of all, it is incredibly rare, and it happens in older fish, not at this age. The timing here (5-6 months) is just about right from my experience for a male to be developing his identifying characteristics, and they often develop the gonopodium before they get their sword.


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

first time I have had a litter with that characteristic.


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## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

PaulLamb said:


> The gravid spot just indicates that there is something dark-colored beneath the translucent surface color. In the case of pregnant females, it is the color of the fry's eyes. Since swordtails and platies tend to be algae grazers, I would guess in the cases of "gravid males" that this is most likely a dark-algae inside their stomach.
> 
> Of course swordtails are known to be sex-changers (females can become males when trapped in all-female environments), but that's not what's going on here. First of all, it is incredibly rare, and it happens in older fish, not at this age. The timing here (5-6 months) is just about right from my experience for a male to be developing his identifying characteristics, and they often develop the gonopodium before they get their sword.


This has actually never happened in a scientific evironment. It is most likely that people identify the fish as female because the male develops it's sword late.

Also to comment on the gravid spot. Many times it is difficult to identify the gravid spot on a female since they have thicker skin than other livebearers. On the males you won't see a true gravid spot but maybe something else is showing through or they are developing a color that wasn't visible before.


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## PaulLamb (Nov 15, 2009)

bmlbytes said:


> This has actually never happened in a scientific evironment. It is most likely that people identify the fish as female because the male develops it's sword late.


True, the majority of "sex changes" are simply late-bloomers. However if you look at a enough of the reported cases, you will see that a very small percentage of them involve older females, sometimes which have even had fry of their own. Of course this point will continue to be debated until it is actually observed in someone's lab - it is like other rare phenomena that we talk about on here (like the molly-guppy hybrid for example). The only difference is that this one is widely dismissed because so many of the reported cases are simply newbies who don't understand sex-trait development in swordtails.


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