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I have a new 20G Long (30x12x12) that I am planning on making primarily a livebearer tank. So far, I only have a pair of Red Swordtails (1 male, 1 female) from an old tank that will be relocating to this new tank. Other comments or suggestions?

Livebares have alot of babies fast so i wouldint put too many adults, and u need more females then males. Or you can put neons or a gourami to eat the babies.

10gallon: 8neons 5gallon: 1betta
1oto
2platys

The pair of swordtails actually started out as a trio...1 male and 2 females. The other female died over a month ago and I was waiting until after the new tank was ready to get replacements. Surprisingly, the male is relatively passive towards his lone female tankmate. He was noticeably more aggressive when there were 2 females.

I agree I would not add any more breeding live bearers. Do you have many plants in the tank floating Water Sprite is a good hiding place for young fry. A few fish to control the fry a suggestion Male Guppies. I would prefer to stick to a live bearer tank it is easy to keep the water peramiters to their liking rather than a mix of fish.

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Keith

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If you plan on keeping the fry i would do that.

A word of warning though, i wouldn't keep platies and swordtails (unless all one sex) in the same tank, as the two species will cross breed.

If, however, you don't plan on breeding, you can keep lots of different fish in there.

I don't really plan on breeding any of the fish. I've had a minor change of plans regarding this particular tank. Instead of assorted livebearers, I was thinking of possibly just going with the swordtails I already have (possibly adding another female or two) and adding a trio of cories (I was thinking Peppered Cory). So...3/4 red swordtails and 3/4 peppered cories...comments or suggestions? Again, this is a 20G Long (30" long x 12" wide x 12" deep" ) with a Penguin 100 Bio-Wheel HOB filter, 100 Watt heater and a Rena 100 aerator with a fine grade natural pea gravel floor. The plants and driftwood will be artificial as this wil be "my daughter's tank" (she enjoys it, I clean it!) and where (relative) ease of maintenance is desired.

If you don't plan on breeding you could probably have
3 Swords (reccomended 1m 2f)
6 Corys (though i would reccomend a smaller species such as pandas)
6 Tetras (under 2 inch - you choose!)

And you don't have to have fake plants, live are really easy to maintain. How old is your daughter? (younger children tend to prefur bright, colourful fish.)

Pandas would be nice but my selection of cories in my area is pretty limited. The "Pet Superstores" only stock the Peppered and the Green while some of the local independents stock the Peppered, the Green and occasionally the Trilineatus.

By 'the green' do you mean emerald?

Peppered and Emerald grow to 3 inches, so i would reccomend the Trilineatus.

I think if you may want to consider a brittlenose pleco, or a rubber lipped pleco then. I agree with doing 3 swords, and adding the tetras.

Inky

If you are not INTENDING to breed fish then definitely don't add 1m/2f swordtails, because there will be lots of breeding happening with that mixture of swordtails. If you don't want to have an overload of babies, then I would stick with 3 female swordtails. Not some of each gender, because they will breed in any conditions. Even if you add bigger fish to eat them, you will still end up with some babies, and why take fish's lives, when you can just have some of the same gender.

Several of you have suggested a small school of tetras to compliment the swordtails...any species in particular? I was thinking about black neons or maybe some lemons.

Depends, what colour are the swordtails?

Black Neons are great little fish, i have some in my 15. Lemons are groovy too, they are a great colour for Red fish.

They are red swordtails, although I would call them more of a medium to dark orange. The male has a black streak on his "sword."

If they are orange, i would et black neons.

So you could have the swortails, some black neons, and the corys. and maybe a few ottos.

I wouldnt add a few ottos if you have the cories, you don't want to over crowd the bottom.

I think you should do this:
3x Swords
10x Black Neon Tetras
6x Cories (I prefer pandas, but any kind shold be okay)

Inky

That sounds about right. Inkling has a good idea.