Courtship behaviors of livebearer ornamental fish Xiphophorus hellerii (Heckel, 1848) in aquarium condition

Abstract

The sword tail molly is a lucrative color livebearer freshwater ornamental fish considered to study the courtship behavior in artificial conditions. About 14 pairs of male and female brooders were selected to breed in 7 glass aquariums. The brooder fish showed five different types of mating approaches, mostly through parallel approach and there was a linear relationship between the body weights of male brooders with a total number of approaches, R square value was 0.30. Those males which showed a more parallel approach inversely showed fewer fronts to backward chasing behaviors and vice-versa, R square value was 0.77. A male with greater body weight was capable to get more success in copulation which relates linearly, R square value was 0.46. Female showed mean gestation period of 31.5 days (29 & 34 days are the minimum and maximum days). Female body weight showed a slightly linear relationship with the spawn release capacity, R square value was 0.39. Therefore, it was found to be more reliable to choose male and female brooders with greater weight for breeding purposes.