adojavier

Mine gave birth a few hours ago... so far 17 little swords.. but I'm afraid she will pop another batch sometime soon cause she's still big as a ship...

SereneReyn

that's a small tank, she could be stressed out about that. often times if the fish's innate sense of it's environment tells it that it can't support additional fish, they won't have them. i've read somewhere that babies can be 'reabsorbed' by the fish's body in these cases. i'm not sure if that's true, and can't recall where i read it... but in any case, she may just not feel that that small tank can handle all her babies. she may just need a bit more room to be comfortable.

fishgirl

My female died last night. no babies

angelfish220

Awwhhh that stinks.

Awwwhhh Babies

You know I think that I read somewhere that swordtails can have a couple broods going on at once. maybe she is pregnate 2times over

adojavier

I'm sorry to hear that...

goggles

i breed swordtails all the time,i currently have three pregnant females. they can hold there young for a while if they do not feel safe to give birth. i tend to find that when they are ready to drop mine stop eating about two days before,have yours done this. i have been told before that putting the temp up to about 27c can help or dropping the water level but i never did this and have had no problems with birthing. try leaving the light off in the tank for a while as mine always drop in the early hours of the morning. apart from thet i can't see what else you could do. hope this helps in anyway.

fishgirl

My female had droped fry just about every 30 days for 4 months.
She would hang out at the bottom of the tank in the java moss and in a day or two there would be fry.

goggles

how old was she? she may have died of age. you never realy know how old they are when you get them from some shops.

fishgirl

I had her for 5 months...I was getting ready to clean the Q-Tank when I saw 3 babies.

goggles

females heve been known to die after birth due to the stress,it's just one of those things. it does happen rarely but it does happen. i'm sorry for your loss