Instructions
Write down everything you can remember feeding your fish for the past week or so. These fish enjoy a variety of foods in their diet, but tend to start breeding after they have been fed live food for a period of time. If the list you create shows a large amount of live food, the fish might have bred and your female may be pregnant.
Watch your female swordtail fish, observing any changes in her abdomen's appearance. As the fry develop in a pregnant female, her abdomen will swell. If your fish's abdomen has become noticeably larger, she's likely pregnant.
Look for darkened coloring on your female swordtail fish's abdomen. This coloring will occur just before the beginning of the tail fin, and should look to be roughly the shape of a triangle. It indicates that your female is carrying fry. The dark coloring is actually the eggs and, later, the dark eyes of the fry, showing through the translucent skin of the female swordtail.
How to Tell When Your Swordtail Fish Is Pregnant?
Swordtail fish are medium-size, colorful fish. Many aquarium enthusiasts enjoy the swordtails because of the sword feature of the male fish, which looks something like a long spike protruding from the bottom of its body along the tail fin. Females don't have the sword feature but tend to be bigger and stronger. Swordtail fish breed easily in captivity and give birth to live young instead of laying eggs. It's important to know whether your female swordtail fish is pregnant so you can prepare the aquarium for the fry.