Swordtail kohaku

30.11.2006

Koi Swordtail - Xiphophorus helleri

Kohaku
Introduction
Be hold I introduce to thee the king of red and white fresh water fish, and of course the
cheap and easy to keep ones; the koi/ kohaku swordtail. As far as I know live bearer fish
is one of the hardy fish that will sustain a lot of the environment change or abuse like
totally water change if the fish already fully grown. The swordtail it self has the nick
name form the male tail fin that elongated like a sword form (fencing I said arrgh, I’m
le’pirates). The swordtail do has a lot variation; one of that variation is the koi swordtail.
The koi swordtail although has lesser durability, has multiple color patterns like orange
red or dark red (this one is very rare) or totally white/albino, orange red and white
sometime there’s one look like Nemo on finding Nemo (clown fish). The tail variations
are varied from lyre tail, normal tail or elongated tail. For addition information, the
lyretail male has too long gonopodium fin that made this male cannot breeding although
it was fertile. That’s why if I don’t want to perform operation (negative alpha this might
hurt too much hehehe) that might killed the fish, then I usually mate my female with a
normal koi swordtail.

Man, I love to enjoy the sights of the koi swordtail, with its high contrast of orange to
white, which look in proper light like plunged in color. The picture below I picked from
the internet. But the picture on the upper part I personally take that from my facebook
picture. That’s ladies and gentlemen the king of the jungles had arrived to the city; I just
kidding guys.

The color of the koi swordtail arise from the base color white with normal eye color (in
Indonesian it’s called fake one and the true one is the one with the base color albino with
red eyes. Over that, the opaque color red or orange is presented, which covers the base
colore in spots. Sometimes the one that was born without the spots on its tail’s, is called
"Platinum" one of the rarest variation of the fish as far as I can see. Most of the breeder
shall use inbreeding when they lack of the resources like I did. But be careful on that step
for this can lead to the birth of the defect form ones or if you’re lucky you’ll have the
long tails ones. That from the result of crossbreeding then inbreeding between the lyre
tail koi swordtail and the normal ones. Personally I prefer the inbreeding ones.

The Petting
The agile swordtail will grow up to approximately 2 up to 4 inches on the aquarium and
have lifespan usually around 2 maximum 5 years old. But on concrete pond or large tank
the size can reach up to 10 to 20 inches for female and the males around half of the size. I
use an aquarium 100 cm on length, 40 cm on width and height to breed 2 male swordtails
and 10 females. A sort of kind of the social hierarchy is formed, which leads in smaller
aquariums to the permanent suppression or perhaps death to the most vulnerable males.
To minimize the aggression, at least 5 animals should be kept together or put some of the
water plant inside the aquarium.

The temperature should be 22 to 28°C on the Fahrenheit degrees please calculate using
the secret formula (9/5 x T)+32 and the T (not The Terminator) represent the temperature
on Celsius. For the most optimum growth, I shall (return, ups I remember the old
Douglas Mac Arthur) keep them at 24-28 °C or if I wanted mostly males grow or birth
then it’s the maximum temperature shall be given. The swordtail is more a fish for
medium hard to hard water (GH 12 to 30) and it shall feel well around neutral ph-values
(6.5 - 8.5) though personally the level is around 7 to 7.5.

The swordtail lives mainly omnivorous, which means that they take both animal and
vegetable food. A balanced and varied diet with different foods type especially vegetable
and regularly live food supports the vitality of these fish and promotes their impressive
and complex social behavior. For super fast growing from fries to the adult I prefer to
make them flesh eating fishes. Be hold now for they shall eat anybody else (kidding).
And when they are reaches the adulthood then I shall let them eat some of the algae,
vegetables or fish pellets that has spriluna so that shall enhance the coloration of the fish.

Breeding/ wedding
The wedding process (this shall took place on the Vegas wedding chapel with the Elvis
impersonator) of this kind of fish is slightly different compare to the other swordtail;
here’s why the male shall displayed his strength and goodly god like form (ups too much
Homeric poet here). Before the wedding day (I wonder is there any wedding singer on
that place or not or perhaps it’s only me) took place you must know the comparison of
the number and age (no under age for this against the law). Both of the males and female
should be mature enough about 6 months old or at least have the body length of 2.5
inches. The males shall woes the females very actively and permanent. During mating,
the males perform a special dance, chase around the females and sometimes fighting with
another males. The same size and strength will cause the fight to the death between the
males. The female usually gives birth to up to 125 fries. The special feature of the
swordtails is that not all males develop with the same speed. There are smaller "early
males" and bigger "late males", which can only be recognized as males in a later stage.
The latter stage male usually sterile, so pick the one that already become full male at the
early ages. It may even happen that you think to buy females, which turn out to be males
(thank to the Good Lord that this things never happened to us human; imagine what
would happened if you go out with your girlfriend to the movie at the Saturday night and
then suddenly she transform into a man. What a good grieved nightmare on the Elm
Street then at least for me). Ok, the males and the females should be given diets base on
frozen bloodworm only (giving them more fries and enhance the maturity of both the
sperm and eggs of the fishes). The bloodworm can be replace by using mosquito larvae
but doing that you must either hunt for those larvae (and do the cleansing the same way
with the tubifex worms) on the sewage or you must farm them on your own backyard. To
collect the mosquito larvae is quite simple actually, all you had to do is to put some water
inside dark colored buckets that had been put a slice of lettuce on its bottom for 2 days
and place them in the area that the mosquito usually hanging around you know to discuss
where to shops, date etc. Wait over night and voila you’ll have the mosquito’s eggs all
over the buckets. Wait until it hatched for 3 day, then that’s it. You can feed your fish

The result shall be each female depends on her size can give birth to a strong and healthy
fries from 80 up to 180 fries on each female maximum. After the wedding process took
place please be careful to look after the female, if she is pregnant you can tell by the
bumpy stomach, and if she had opaque color on her belly (don’t expect her to do the belly
dancing lol), look if there are eye colors (Arrgh the red colors eyes not meant as a
drunken or the devil fish it self you know) on the belly and if those belly is swollen at
least 2 times then her normal tummy then separate her from her spouse and put her on the
nest.

The nest is put on another aquarium that already being filled with the fresh water and let
stayed over night and constantly being aerated by aerator. The nest is made by using the
plastic bottle that being either drilled with the 4 mm drill or simply use the small iron
soldering. Create holes as many as you can with the spaces between those holes 2 cm. If
the female is too big to get inside the bottle, then cut the bottle neck and use the net
which has hole 4 mm. Let the fish inside and close that bottle with that net. Inside the
nest you must bring a living meal such as tubifex worm. With adequate temperature say
ehm around 24 to 28 degree Celsius then she shall not eating the fries while they are
sleeping (ups I remember Sandra Bullock movie While you’re sleeping) I meant giving
birth by her for there’s a plentiful meals around her. Do that and she’ll not considered her
own child as the living meal.

Leave her alone for her privacy and reducing the stress and let her roaming freely inside
her nest (for 2- 3 inches of female inside the nest, the nest it self made by 1 -1.5 liter of
Coke plastic bottle). She will give birth and allowed the newborn children to roaming
freely away from her. Then after you spotted her with flat tummy (with all do respect
wish the woman can do the same after giving birth), then put her away from that
aquarium and let her fries swimming inside the labor room. If you spotted another female
like the one that had given birth before then give her the same treatment like that other
female. Put her inside the nest with a meal and voila the baby shall give born again on the
same aquarium but for better result is on another aquarium. The newborn fries can be
mixed with the older ones until the older ones reach 2 weeks old, but only by following
this term. The good things about these arrangements were that the newborn fries can eat
from crumbs of the worm that being eaten by the older fish fries. And (then lower your
flag and march straight back to England; ups too much of Braveheart movie here) feed
them with tubifex. Don’t be surprise but the even the newborn fries can eat that worm
too. Because the worms that you bought and already cleansed actually a mature ones and
they will soon mating to each other. The eggs and their babies are the targets for the
newborn fries to be eaten. This also shall enhance the growth rate of the fish fries from
0.5 cm up to 1 or 1.5 cm within 1 or 2 weeks. Or if you’re afraid those little litter cannot
eat at all then give the fries also frozen daphnia or water fleas after 3 days they were
given birth until they reach 2 weeks old.

The growing up

If you’re to busy and have not all day to keep your fishes please plunge the tubifex
worms inside your aquarium (and not your self of course kids) so the fries can eat all the
times without being worried about the feeding time. The wiggling movements of those
worms truly make those fries even much more eager to eat them up. Of course you had to
clean them up. Here’s how, buy a plentiful of those worms (well taken and given 1 US
gallon) then wash them with fresh water even thought that you buy your worms as
disease-free worms. The worms should still be cleaned. They do not stay clean for long.
Keep the worms in some cool shallow water - just enough to cover the worms. A good
temperature would be between 10 and 20 degrees C. The worms congregate in a tight
ball. This should be broken up, stirred, and the water (preferably with any dead worms
that indicates with white color ones and poops) poured away. The water is then topped up
again and again until 3 times. Then finally put some of the Aqriflavine as remover of
bacteria, protozoa and fungus. Let that solution stay around 0.5 hour. Then put the worms
inside the aquarium and allow you fish to eat them. One US gallon of those worms is
enough meal for 10000 fish from fries to adult (majority is juvenile and sub adult here for
they have enormous appetite that made all the models around the world envy for they can
eat so much but still have slender perfect body) for a week. So do your math and don’t
buy too much of those worm. The foul smells of the death and decayed worm if had
happened massively can beat even the worst smell you ever know, believed me I had
learn from it hard time, savvy. If all things were on the right condition the worm can
survive 1 week without eating but if you kind enough to give them meal just give their
small piece potatoes or some spinach put under their colonies so the worms can eat the
meal.

Give those worms for your fishes from newborn fries combine with the frozen daphnia up
to the juvenile and the mature fishes with either pure worms if you simply don’t have
enough time to feed them. But if you use fish flake or pellets remember to crush it first so
the fries can eat. Give them with less food each time you feed them but with more
frequent time. This will keep the growth rate of the fish is high. The protein level of the
fish pellets that you should given to them is around 38 up to 50% but if you only (not
only you, geez I still remember that broken hearted song that truly reminds me of my girl
friend) giving them the tubifex or black worm them the protein level taken and given
around 50 up to 60 %. The living food also contains natural hormones growth that
stimulates the growth of the fishes. The worms as far as I know is the best meal for
enhance the growth of the fish for they have the best digest able proteins and the moving
of the worms truly make the fishes wanted to eat them. Of course once the fishes were
become adult switch a little bit with the color enhance meal for fishes. The cheapest and
natural resource for that are the frozen daphnia and sprilluna algae. So for the adult I
switched the meal into the fish pellets that had sprilluna for enhancing their coloration.
But if from the birth their color is orange or slightly orange red those color cannot be
change, but if the color is range from orange red to slightly red if you’re lucky enough
you will have the super red koi swordtail. That’s truly brilliant color especially if spotted
under ultraviolet light. The platinum ones if you’re mating it with all red and albino
swordtail shall also reproduce koi swordtail all over again.