Reducing population of Xiphophorus Variatus

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The Masked Shadow

The Masked Shadow

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Jul 19, 2020
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Southern California (San Diego)
Hello everyone,

I need some ideas to reduce the population of babies produced by Xiphophorus Variatus pair. I want to keep the pair, but I need to figure out what to do with the babies. I also want to prevent inbreeding between siblings.

Could I grab 10 or so babies and toss em in my Polly tank. It just got planted, so they would have some hiding places, and my polys would have some fun chasing them. The temperature is around 77 degrees in both tanks…I would acclimate them. All babies are 1/2” at biggest,but mostly 1/4”.

I could also put them in a patio pond temporarily.
 
The Masked Shadow said:
Hello everyone,

I need some ideas to reduce the population of babies produced by Xiphophorus Variatus pair. I want to keep the pair, but I need to figure out what to do with the babies. I also want to prevent inbreeding between siblings.

Could I grab 10 or so babies and toss em in my Polly tank. It just got planted, so they would have some hiding places, and my polys would have some fun chasing them. The temperature is around 77 degrees in both tanks…I would acclimate them. All babies are 1/2” at biggest,but mostly 1/4”.

I could also put them in a patio pond temporarily.
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Yup toss them in with the polys they'll help you with your problem.
 
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The outside tank is probably 68 or so, and the inside tank is 78. Could they survive a gradual temperature change like that? They are super hardy fish…if I acclimate them for a couple hours will they be fine?
 
Most fish can handle temperature changes as long as they are all withing the range in which that species is comfortable. However, I would not want to plop fish into a temperature at the either extreme end of their range. I do know when fish are in a temperature which will be fatal in the near future the best thing to do is to get them back into the proper temperature ASAP- no acclimation.

I assume the swords are in the warmer of the two temps and inside. If I am right then you can always take the fry outside in a container and let is sit for a bit. That should drop the temp in the container some and then it will be closer to the water temp whem you put the fry in. I would bet the worst thing that might happen to fry put into the cooler tempwith no acclimation is that it might slow them down. So if you want the pollys to play with their food before they eat it, this means the fry will be easier to nab for while after they go in.

Btw- Some of the very first fish I put into my first tank, a planted community 45 gal., were swordtails. And they were why I needed my second tank a few months later. DOH? So a few months later I got my first angels. They grew pretty quickly on a diet of sword fry. Ulitmately I kept Montezuma swords for a number of years. They are voracious fry eaters. This behavior starts when they are very young. By the third round of monthly births I would rarely see any tiny fry at all until I got rid of the older kids. Monties are also known to stop breeding for awhile unlike the more common strains we can usually get.
 
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Just temp acclimate them. Bag them and float the bag for half hour. A temp change of 10° could kill them before they serve their purpose.
 
twentyleagues said:
How many are you planning on putting in there? I'll throw 20-30 guppies I breed in with mine once a month and they're gone in 2-3 days.
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I need to catch them first, so however many I can catch I will put in. It’s a tank that is filled with hair algae by choice, so it will be tough. Do you ever see any get eaten?
 
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