What kind of swordtail do I have?

[ikea y]

Hi all, I recently made a purchase of four swordtails at the LFS. They were marked pineapple swordtails but only two of them look like the other pineapple swordtails I saw on the web. Two of them (one male and one female) don't have much orange/yellow color and the stripe in the middle of the body is more obviously marked with dark red color. Also there are not so obviously marked light blue lines just above and below the middle stripe. The sword on the male has some sort of lemon yellowish color. Are these pineapple swordtails or some other swordtails? I am eager to find how what they are.

And also if anyone ever had this kind, can you tell me what will happen if they breed with the other swordtails. Will the babies look more like the other kind since their color is darker and brighter and thus dominant? Thanks so much for your help in advance!  

Yijia
~

 

[colesea]

Unless you puchase pure breeding strains from a reputible breeder, any swordtails you get from the LFS are bound to be "cull" fry that didn't make the grade for show quality.  Not that they're unhealthy, they're just not what they should look like. Also, some swordtails are so mass produced now adays there is no strain purity, so you will definately get some individual colors. You may very well have all pineapple swordtails that just show different pineapple color traits, or pineapple crosses with something else that looked more pineapplish then what it was crossed with, so they were labled pineapples by the LFS.

Swordtails will interbreed when forced to (like you have one red velvet sword male with two pineapple females), but they would prefer to breed with their own color matches. I don't know the genetics behind the breeding though, for that you'd probably want to consult a professional swordtail breeder.
~~Colesea

 

[ikea y]

Thanks for your help. So will the less pineapple looking male breed with the two pineapple female while there is a less pineapple looking female in the tank? (This sounds really confusing, doesn't it?  )

 

[colesea]

I really don't know. Depending upon the health and vigor of your fish, most livebearers will breed with any other same species livebearer in their tank. You need to have twice as many females as males if you wish to get some serious offspring, but I'm really not into breeding livebearers, so I don't know the peticulars.
~~Colesea

 

[JWright]

Males don't really care what their females look like, so long as they're close to the same species.

Josh