Swordtails don’t get a lot of attention, but they’re really beautiful fish. They are livebearers, belonging to the same family as guppies, platies, and mollies. If you do keep swordtails and platies together, be aware that they can breed together. Like most livebearers, be careful about your ratio of male and female fish. You always want to have far fewer males than females, so that the females aren’t harassed, and the males don’t fight.

Swordtails do like to jump so be sure to add them to an aquarium with a tight-fitting lid! They’re really tolerant of temperature, as long as it’s stable, but they do need hard mineralized water.