Reefs.org Forums

[Chucky]

...are never available these days. They always got some orange-type 'brick' sword. Red Platys are always loads redder. Well I remember when swordtails were also red like platys, with darker red triple lines lateral.

What happened to them? Cheap breeding bring down the stock? If they can be found anywhere these days, I would cough up for them. Maybe I need to join a local Aquarium club if I want to find really red ones like in the 80's. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

[wings]

Florida took a hit with the cold weather. Supplies could be down.

[PSLive]

Florida is where the majority of swords are coming from, and as was mentioned the ponds down there got hit hard. Wholesalers down there are holding back a lot of stock so they have new breeders to grow out because they lost so much breeding stock, and they are rationing quantities they are sending out. We used to get hundreds of every type of sword we stocked each week, but now we're getting about 100 of each type that are available and they are all gone quickly. I'm hearing that the farms in Florida who are used to competing hard against one another are actually doing a lot of co-operating these days and are doing some breeding stock trades. For example one farm may have lost their tiger barb breeders, and another may have lost sword breeders, those two farms are swapping barbs for swords in order for both of them to get breeding stock back up again.

Some swords are available for importing from outside of the US, but sometimes that isn't practical, and the varieties are limited compared to what is coming out of Florida. So, your seeing the more orange than red may just be a long term gradual decline in the genetics of breeding quality vs. quantity, or it may just be temporary as the more red stock that may have been sold previously is now being held back and grown out as the more choice breeders.

My two cents, for what it's worth.
John