Swordtail and Platy

[fatpuffer]

Can this two inter-breed?

THANKS>

Js

[dunl]

Yup. Don't know how common it is, but I remember seeing somewhere that there was a cross that was develop between two specific species of the two.

[Qattarra]

yes they do , they are too closely related I think :poo:

[FishGeek]

yup, i've had it happen. Male sword, female platy. offspring nothing special, look like swords with little to no tail growth

[Oxquo]

Definitely, but seldomly if each male is presented with a female or two of it's own kind. I would recommend breeding the species in their own tank or with non-livebearers if You wanted to sell any. In a tank of livebearers you can never be sure what happened, no sense introducing hybrids into the hobby if it can be helped.

[Melody]

That sounds good on paper, but most Swordtails are already Platy hybrids, including every single red and redwag Swordtail, for starters.

The female does the choosing and she'll prefer her own kind. You can't rely on that, especially since they're probably both sporting the other species' blood in their veins, but its a bit of reassurance. Generally the male doesn't bother with females smaller than him, so if the female Platy is much smaller, he'll go after the larger Swordtail female. That's why its very difficult to initiate a cross between the two using a Platy female and a Swordtail male.

The Swordtails will spit out whatever they were hit with 6 months ago, so if you just bought the female, Heaven only knows who Daddy is. Platy's will usually take the last insemination.

Basically, it could happen, but it really doesn't matter if it does unless they're a clean strain. A clean strain at the commercial level would be very rare indeed. They slap 'Helleri' on anything with a Sword.

Edited October 12, 2006 by Melody