Turns out crazy cool swordtails are crazy expensive!

[Levi_Aquatics]

I saw these swordtails at a somewhat  local fish store. They were huge and insanely colorful but not $30 per fish cool to me at least. Would you have purchased them?

[gardenman]

Uh, no. Way too pricey for me. An interesting tidbit, some of the male swordtails with the excessive finnage develop unusable gonopodiums. They can't mate. Breeders typically keep a more "normal" male for breeding purposes. 
If you buy a pair at $57 and think, "I'll breed them and make a killing!" You might just find yourself with an impotent male. Oops! 

[Levi_Aquatics]

@gardenman I believe they had normal gonopodiums. I do have some ribbon fin guppies that I have noticed can’t reproduce however I was fortunate enough to get a male of that strain without ribbon fins so I was  able to breed them. I was tempted for a second to buy them but $57 was too much for a pair IMO. They were certainly beautiful to look at though. 

[Guppysnail]

That’s just insanity. No way would I invest that.  Ok well I can’t say that I’ve spent much more than that including shipping but not from a store.  They are beautiful though. @gardenman makes a very real point. 

[gardenman]

Goliad Farms did a blog post about this issue a while back. (2014, so quite a while back.) Here's a link to their post if anyone's interested. Red Lyretail Swordtail Experiment - Goliad Farms

[Levi_Aquatics]

Thanks @gardenman  I’ll have to check that out!

[Struggle]

I’d do $30 a pair on those but not each.

[PineSong]

If I wanted a colony of those fish, I wouldn't balk at the price, assuming they can actually reproduce. $57 is not pocket change but if they can breed, $57 will provide a lifetime supply of that fish, instead of a few hours' worth of taking my  kids out for pizza or 1/2 of a ticket to an event at the local music venue. What if the fish die? Well, how many bad dinners or cheesy movies have I paid for? It's the luck of the draw and I can make another $57 tomorrow--I'm chock full of plasma, lol.

I'm not personally a fan of fish whose eyes are the same red color as their body, so I would not spend $57 on those particular fish, but would I spend it on the guppies in Chris Lukhaup's Instagram post a few days ago? YES I would! https://www.instagram.com/p/CYjbxNEBSRd/

[Levi_Aquatics]

Same here @Struggle I find it hard to believe that they will be able to sell those for that price. 

@PineSong those are some beautiful guppies!

[Dawn T]

Definitely not something I'd invest that much money in, unless I was planning to breed them for sale. On a personal note, I LOVE swordtails, but I do NOT like red-eyed ones. That said, even if those had black eyes AND the males CAN breed, I still wouldn't pay that much for them. (I made the lyretail swordtails mistake many years ago - didn't realize the males couldn't breed.) Gorgeous body color, though.