Of my koi swordtail fry that are remaining (16 of them) 7 of them have curved spines.  What causes this?  Is there anything I can do to keep it from happening again with later batches?

Is there anything special that I should do for platies?  They are my first fish.  I have them in a 29 gallon tank.  I have 1 male and 2 females.  Soon I want to get swordtails too.  I really like the koi swordtails.  If they have babies, can the babies stay in the tank with the parents?

Do goodeid females get really huge a couple of days before giving birth like the more common livebearers?  Just wonder because I need to seperate my females and it would be helpful if I am able to tell when they are nearing birthing time.

 

One of my goodeid females is gravid or is it pregnant?:)  She is much plumper than any of the others.  I plan to separate her into another tank once she gets huge and looks ready to go.  I'm excited, they will be the first ones born here:)  I have been contemplating giving my angelfish away so I can just allow the fry to be born in the tank, but I have had them for so long I don't really want to.  I think I will just stick with moving out the females into a separate tank or bucket with some hornwort to give birth.

I found this on youtube, it is a pictoral slidshow of a red tailed goodeid (Xenotoca eiseni) giving birth.  I thought it was pretty cool. 

Red tailed goodeid giving birth 

The juvenile characodons I got are nearly full grown now and the couple day old babies I got have at least doubled in size if not tripled.  I can't believe how fast they grow!  Its cool:)  I bought some omega one veggie flakes for them, to make sure they are getting enough plant matter in their diet.  They seem to like it, although they seem to like everything I feed them.  So far still no losses except for the 1 that died when I first got them.  I am curious to see if any fry every make it in my tank.

My Characodon lateralis "Los Berros" arrived yesterday and I took some (horrible) pictures:)  I drip acclimated them for alittle bit, with ammo chips in the bucket and then put them in.  They are actually getting along ok with the other fish.  I am going to remove my pearl gouramis as they are getting rather aggressive to everyone.  The A. thomasi are also being little bullies, to everyone as well.  They just hit sexual maturity, so I am hoping they will calm down.  If they don't they may go too. 

                                 

The Characodon's are pretty boisturous themselves.  The bigger male went around and nipped ever single fish as soon as I put him in the tank.  He got a bit beat up but now seems to know his place.  Him and the younger male got into a fight and now the younger male is avoiding him.  The 2 females are always together, the males are always off by themselves trying to find trouble.  The younger one likes to pick a fight with the betta, but swims away as soon as the betta flares.  I have the juviniles in a floating specimen container thing, it has holes and is quite large.  I put some hornwort in the container for them to hide in.  They should be big enough to be released soon.  He sent me some extras, i bought 6 and got 9 + 5, 2 day old fry.  I lost 1 juvinile, everyone else seems to be doing good though (knock on wood).  The fry are in a bucket with some hornwort and ammo chips.  He also sent me lots of hornwort, ramshorn snails, crystal red shrimp and a moina starter:)  

 

Sorry the pics are so horrid, they don't really sit still and well I was using a camera phone. 

I put a bid on a group of 6 Characodon lateralis "Los Berros" on aquabid.  They look pretty cool.  I have been doing some research on them and I think they will do fine.  My understanding is they need really good water quality, can have a bit of an attitude but are overall fairly peaceful.  I have seen that keeping them in a heavily planted tank is recommended, so hopefully they will like mine.  I doubt any of the wild type livebearer enthusiasts out there would be thrilled that I am keeping them in a community tank though (with angelfish, rasboras, botias and some others) but all well.  I have kept fish in odd communities before that I was warned not to.

Stats 

• Common Name: Rainbow Goodeid
  
• Maximum Adult Size: 1.5 inches for males, 2.2 inches for females
• Diet: Mostly algae in the wild.  In captivity a variety of live foods, blanched vegetables, flake foods, spirulina flakes and algae based foods are recommended.
• pH: 6.0 to 8.0
• Temperature: 65*f to 76*f, breeding may not occur below 71*f
• Breeding: Males court females.  Gestation last about 8 weeks.  An average of 10 to 16 large young are born, occasinally up to 30. 
• Sexual Dimorphism: Males posses a andropodium (modified fin for reproduction - recognized by having a notch in the anal fin.  Males are also usually more colorful

 

So,  Raising fry in the mixed colony is proving to be extremely difficult.  The survival rate is about 30% what I'd hoped and my losses are starting to be disheartening.  There is simply too much competition for the first few days.  I'm hoping that once I get more plant cover and improved filtration my survival rate will increase.

I think I may want to add a trio of some kind of livebearer to my planted 60 gallon aquarium to (don't shoot me) provide some fry for my bigger fish to munch on, if some survive thats a bonus.  I want a wild type live bearer that is not to big, but big enough that a large adult angelfish won't eat the adult live bearer.  It also needs to be something that breeds easily without any extra help or encouragement.  I don't want swords because they will be bigger than I want and the angels will probably bite at the males tail fin.  I am thinking something around an inch long.  Any suggestions?  Do you think Heterandria formosa would do ok?  Or a Gambusia species?