Montezumae swordtail fry!

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Tripping Willow 91 said:
Great little monties, I hope you get a male or 2. Mine seem to produce fry at a ratio of about 1M/10F.
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Interesting... 🤔 I bought 5 trios of the X. monty "Tamasopo" variant last year (5M 10F) from 2 sources. After a few months I had 8M 7F.. A few more months passed and I had 9M 4F (I lost a couple to defects). I've since pulled the females and got a few more adult males and have 11 males in my 125G. They never successfully raised fry when I had a mix of M / F in the 125g due to other tankmates (O. heterospila, T. helleri, C. chetumalensis and plecos) so not sure the sex ratio when breeding, but in my very limited experience w/ these livebearers, there's a lot of transitioning going on later... 😉

I now also have a 20G Long w/ ~16 unsexed juvies of the X. monty "Capuchin" variant and some T. helleri grow outs. I plan to move the T. helleri out when they get some more size. Hoping for a good mix in this group of monty's so they'll breed, but ime, the sex has been subject to changes...

BTW, love your set up.. Great job keeping them available in the hobby.. Hopefully I'll have some luck w/ this new group in the 20L..
 
bkfamus said:
Interesting... 🤔 I bought 5 trios of the X. monty "Tamasopo" variant last year (5M 10F) from 2 sources. After a few months I had 8M 7F.. A few more months passed and I had 9M 4F (I lost a couple to defects). I've since pulled the females and got a few more adult males and have 11 males in my 125G. They never successfully raised fry when I had a mix of M / F in the 125g due to other tankmates (O. heterospila, T. helleri, C. chetumalensis and plecos) so not sure the sex ratio when breeding, but in my very limited experience w/ these livebearers, there's a lot of transitioning going on later... 😉

I now also have a 20G Long w/ ~16 unsexed juvies of the X. monty "Capuchin" variant and some T. helleri grow outs. I plan to move the T. helleri out when they get some more size. Hoping for a good mix in this group of monty's so they'll breed, but ime, the sex has been subject to changes...

BTW, love your set up.. Great job keeping them available in the hobby.. Hopefully I'll have some luck w/ this new group in the 20L..
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I've been keeping these monties for about 2 and a half years now and I can safely say that the majority of my fry have been female. A lot of fry I sold as juveniles that perhaps may not have yet shown their true sex but for the fish that I kept and raised to adults, I'd say it's averaged out around 8f-1m ratio for me. Not sure if water chemistry or temperature has anything to do with it.

I've bred my monties in with my meeki successfully by including lots of plants trailing on the surface. Fry would survive amongst the plants for a number of days but never to adulthood. When I had 20 odd breeding females, I would scoop out small amounts of fry from the vegetation on a daily basis. Whenever I've needed to boost up my population significantly though, I remove 3or4 big females to separate tank to birth.

Best of luck with your monties, how are you finding the helleri? A pair of my meeki have had their eggs hatch out today

You got any photos?
 
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Tripping Willow 91 said:
Best of luck with your monties, how are you finding the helleri? A pair of my meeki have had their eggs hatch out today

You got any photos?
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Here are a couple quick pics.. currently my chets are guarding fry and have 80% of the tank with everyone else in hiding..
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I also have a recent video of the chets where you can see some of the Montys..

Love the T. helleri.. they spawn regularly, which I typically pull.. I left some in from the last spawn in June, and I think 6 or 7 are still alive prolly around .25"...
 
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