Swordsmen belong to the family of pecilides. These fish are viviparous. They are black and green, red and ruby, yellow and many, many other shades and colors. Male from females is distinguished by a sword at the bottom of the tail. They are great for those who are just keen on aquarium fish. The content of swordsmen in the aquarium is not difficult. Sword bearers love space. They are peaceful, and very active, can jump out of the water, so it is recommended to cover the aquarium with glass.
Males often show aggression towards each other. The aquarium of 30 liters requires 1 male and 3 or 4 females.
Swordsmen - care and content
For food, fish are unpretentious - they eat almost any food, both live and dry. Feeding swordtails with bloodworms, pipeworms, cyclops, daphnia, a couple of weeks can do without food and feed on only the overgrowth that form on the glass and leaves of plants. They will not refuse from small snails. Fish are given vegetable supplements to preserve their beauty and vitamins. The necessary conditions for keeping the sword bearers are a regular weekly replacement of 1/3 of the water, its aeration and filtration. Fishes live in the upper and middle layers of the water. The temperature of their content is from 20 ° C to 25 ° C. The pH of the water is 7-8, and the hardness is between 8 and 24 dH.
Contents of swordfish fry
Malkov swordsmen should be kept in a special way, as they grow unevenly. The length of the fry is 8-10 mm. When they grow up, they are sorted by size, larger ones are placed in the aquarium more. From the female at a constant temperature, you can get up to 200 fry.
Feed the fry often and abundantly. They are fed with food containing a lot of protein - cut pipe man, give artemia, nematodes, cyclops or special food intended for live-bearing fish .
When the fry is kept, many plants are needed. Elodea, cabobba, vallisneria, limnofila Indian and similar plants are excellent for the maintenance of fry. Plant plants with small leaves that reach the surface of the water. Or floating plants, the roots of which hang down. Fry like to hide in the roots of Riccia. Always need dark areas with gaps for swimming. If the algae is small, the male can itself become a food for the fish.
The bottom of the aquarium is a small slide of small gravel or pebbles of dark color. Excellent empty shells and areas with Javanese moss.