Posted by cindy on January 25, 2003 at 16:55:28:
In Reply to: Male swordtail deaths posted by edmundcape on January 25, 2003 at 10:33:57:
...it means NO ammonia or nitrites, and measurable nitrates. Even after you finish cycling, not every fish will live.
Two years ago, when I began breeding swords, I could not get a male red velvet swordtail to live more than a week in my tank. I finally realized that (like the mollies I was already breeding) virtually every female I bought was pregnant when I bought her, and released every month for at least six months before running out of sperm, and by then, my own "home grown" were big enough to do the job, so why invest in males in the first place?
If you just like the look of a male swimming around in the community, and don't want to wait six months for your fry to grow up, then you can increase your luck if you get over the urge to buy the fish the day they "come in" at the store, just to get a "good selection." An awful lot of the fish you buy while they are unboxing them, typically on Friday around here, are dead by the end of the weekend, either at the store or in your tank. I have learned that if the fish has been there for a week or so, and doesn't have ich and isn't sitting on the bottom of the tank, it will usually do fine at home.
Good luck...
