Question:my sword female gave birth yesturday and i can only see one possibly two, will there be any more in there or can it take a while for the mother to give birth to all the fry. how long can it take for the mother fish to give birth to all the fry or does she let them out all at once. how good are the babies at hiding cause i had to put in two plants today for them to hide in and i moved the plants slowly but did not see any babies. and can baby fry get sucked up the little filters if they hide under the pumps. thanks to anyone who answers this question.
Answers:
It can take a while (a few days) for a female fish to give birth, a good way to help the fry not get sucked up would to put a small bit of cloth ofver the 'sucking' part of the filter, and make sure there are lots of hiding places for the babies (plants,gravel, decor etc) You could also buy a breeding net for the female fish to give birth in or simply just put the new babies in there to avoid the mum eating them. A small fish can hold a suprising amount of fry before they give birth.
Good luck to you and your fish! ;)
Chances are they were eaten by mommy and daddy.
You have to have plenty of cover, preferably floating plants at the time the babies are born. Remove the older fish from the tank if possible.
Not likely they were sucked into the filter.
Swords usually have multiple babies and there may be more in there hiding in the gravel or plants. They could be sucked up by the filter I suggest putting a micron sock or a filter sponger over it to prevent that from happening.
she will drop the fry at the same time it can take a while but its a one time deal. the fry can be sucked up into a filter rather easily so a sponge filter is best for a rearing tank. the reason you have only a couple is that the rest have probably been eaten. the best way for you to keep more babies is to get a live breeder trap. the fry are in a proctected area of it and it floats so you place the mother in it a couple of days before she could give birth (28 days is the incubation period so like 20 days after you notice the belly swell) then the mother cannot eat them and they are all in one place for collection to be moved to a better tank
there may not b any babies any longer bc i no many fish eat there offspring so she may have eatin them
Theres a lot of different things that change how many fry are born.
Many sword mothers will eat their babies even if they're well fed.
The larger your sword and tank the more babies she can have at one time.
If she hasn't been with a male for a while she'll start having less and less.
They could be hiding, normally for every one fry I see in my breeder tanks I end up with ten adults.
If you aren't feeding them frozen brine shrimp the fry might be dead within a few hours after birth because they can't eat flake food and live from it yet.
You need to have more hiding spots as well as low curent areas so they don't get sucked up into the filter, Java Mossworks great but any big plant will do good.
Swords like a little salt in there water, helps the fry grow.
I breed swords and my tanks are set up as 30 gallons with a tablespoon of salt to every five gallons. I also have half of it half full of Java Moss. There are two females with one male sword as well as one male betta. The male betta helps guard and protect the sword fry. I then have two other 30 gallon tanks where I put the males in one once they show signs of a sword on there tail, and the females in the other when they're about an inch long to keep them from breeding with family members.
Your filter should be a bubble powered filter, not a power filter. You also need to make sure to have a heater that keeps the water nice and warm, and you also need to remember to do a 25% water change on the tank once a weak, be careful to not suck out any babies when you take part of the water out, and when you put the clean water back in make sure it doesn't just get poured into the tank as it might kill the fry. Your tank needs to be cycled as high or bad levels in your tank can also quickly kill fry. Ask your pet store about cycling your tank.
Also once a female starts to give birth she can give birth every four or five days, if the water is good, and the food is good, and there's an older male.
The more she gives birth the more fry she'll have at one time and the closer together they'll be born.
Every week I get about 20 or more fry between my two females.
they can have more than one. ur other fish or mom or dad ate the other babies..
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