lyndatu

Hello

I am currently stocking my 20-gallon livebearer tank. I was afraid to put swordtails because I heard they are tough fish. But some say they are peaceful. Is it true that they are aggressive, or not? If not, I'll try to find some space for them in my tank.

Oh, and one more question: Do fish like livebearers bite? I heard that most people pet and handfeed their fish. I want to try it, but don't they bite and draw blood?

Thanks in advance!

HatchetHaven

MissMTS

Males can be aggessive if you keep to many together without enough females, but my experience with them has been delightful. My favs are the pineapple, pineapple mickey mouse, and red velvets. You can mix up the colors and as long as you still maintain the male/female ratio Hatchet Haven told you about they should be fine. Good luck with them

lyndatu

Thanks! I think I'll dip my finger in the water now.

swords3711

Alright so swords are peaceful with more females or they will fight but I have luck having a male to female ratio. I've noticed that after the females pop, the males become aggressive toward each other in competition for the females.

Richard

You'll actually find aggressive behavior at some point or other in male and female Swordtails, Mollies and Platties.. in the case of females of those three species, the aggression tends to occur during pregnancy.

As far as male aggression goes in my livebearer tank, the various species battle among themselves for alpha-male supremacy and first crack at the females of their kind.. I have however noticed that older Swordtail males can get overly aggressive towards all other species in their tank!.. male or female Swordtails, Mollies, Platties, some mature male Swordtails will terrorise them all!

Whenever I get one of those bad boys, I make a difficult choice and give him back to one of my LFS so my other fish can be less stressed out and stay healthy.

swords3711

Actually if you isolate him from the others for a few days, he will calm down.

Richard

Only works for a few days and then he'll be right back up to his old tricks being the tank bully.. I've read that mature male Swordtails are more prone to that behavior than other livebearer species, and over the last several years that we've been breeding livebearers, my observations seem to bear that out.. of the three species we breed, only mature Swordtail males go beyond intergender/species bullying and terrorise anything that moves in their tank regardless to species.

finmama

I would go with a few females. Mine are very peaceful. Or if you notice a new male being too aggressive, take him back and try another.

swords3711

I see mature male mollies as the most aggressive.
I pinned it up away from the others and when I released him he wasn't aggressive anymore.