# Who's killing my swordtails ???



## Laknarf (Jan 7, 2006)

One of my tanks, a 55 gallon has 2 medium size3d Angels, 6 smaller sizede angels, 2 clown loaches,2 syno catfish and 2 smaller sized black sharks with red fins, NOT the aggressive ones.

I wanted to add some live bearers in order to supply the angels with live food and decided on brick red swordtails. I purchased a trio and at the end of the first day a male and a female perished. I went out a few days later and bought a pair and once again the new pair were gone by the following day. A few days later I tried again and bought another pair and once again by the next day they too were missing. The only sword tail that is still in the tank from the 7 that I bought is one of the females from the original trio. I know that swordtails have a tendency to jump out of the tank, however these "missing" swords did not jump out.

Does anyone have any idea as to who is killing the swords ???
I haven't lost any other fish in the tank
The water poarameters are perfect in the tank
Why would one of the original trio still be alive and all the others gone?

Thanks for your input


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## BRANT13 (Feb 18, 2009)

My guess would be the angels....How long has the tank been set up?.....also do u notice them chewed up or missing fins....does it look like they were picked on at all or just died?


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## emptyhead (Apr 16, 2007)

Sword Tail males are aggressive and will kill each other if the group is too small.

If the sword tails are standing up to the angel fish, I'm sure the angel fish will kill them.

If the sword tails are small enough and the synos big enough - the synos will eat them.

If you plan on keeping the angel fish long term in the tank, I suggest getting a school of larger bodied tetras instead of live bearers. I'm sure others have kept live bearers with angels, buy IME - the angels will be too aggressive with the slow moving and sometime territorial live bearers.

If you want to have live fish to feed the angels and synos - you could set up a separate guppy tank.


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## vealboy (Jul 27, 2009)

I had 4 male Red Wag Swordtails, that mysteriously disappeared completely from my tank. I can only blame the 4 Clown Loaches I have. There is no evidence I ever had them. The only other fish I keep are a common pleco, Neon Tetras and Red-Eye Tetra in that tank.

My theory is that the swordtails I had were about the same size as my small Clowns, so the Clowns felt theatened and ate the swordtails like a pack of of wolves would attack their prey. I am also holding them responsible for thinning out the Tetra schools in my tank.


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## Lancerlot (Feb 22, 2006)

loaches all the way.

the facial knifes they have are razor sharp, 1 wing from them and your fish are dead and they got a nice light snack.


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