Pregnant Platy

Hi,

I have what I think is a fairly heavily pregnant platy. This is my first attempt at breeding so into new territory here and looking for some advice.

Firstly are there any obvious signs for when she is ready to give birth, at present she seems very big and has a fairly visible gravid spot (at least I think that is what it is!) The male is also keeping very close to her but I dont know if this is significant.

She is in a community tank with some other platies, 2 moonlight Gouramis, 6 Rosy barbs, 2 bristlenose catfish and 2 neons.

Should I move her to a breeding net now in the same tank ?

I have a 60l tank also setup with 4 platies in that and I guess they could move to the main tank but I dont know if moving her is a good idea or not now though.

Is there any particular time of day they give birth ? Should I just wait and try and collect the fry into the breeding net ?

While I'm on the subject, if I move the fry to the 60l tank how do I stop them being sucked into the filter or do I need to do anything ??

Thanks,
Declan.

Hard to say how big is big, but if you think she is going to give birth soon move her to the breeding net. Try and make catching her as stress free as possible, sometimes it works if you turn off the lights for a few minutes and then use a torch, they don't see the net coming

What type of filter is in the 60l tank? If it is the standard cannister inlet at the bottom of the tank, you may get way with doing nothing as they will spend most time mid water or at the top of the tank, to be safe you could wrap some filter floss around it, but make sure to change regularly if it gets clogged, so as not to restrict the flow to your filter too much.

Best of luck with the birth

Daragh

Well done mate.
I found if I moved the plant to one corner and made it really heavenly planted they would spawn there.

It you have a spare tank then even better. But the plants help IMO.

The safest way of catching her would be to just scoop her up in a cup, that way its less stressfull. If she is very close to birth moving her could cause her to abort the pregnancy, so if you think that she is very heavily pregnant i would leave her.Most platys usually dont eat their own fry so if your tank has enough plants/hiding places i would leave her get on with it. Dont let the male stress her out to much either.
She can give birth at any time. You will notice that she won't be interested in food that much and will be trying to hide and find somewhere quiet. Just keep checking for fry and when you see them i would remove them to the breeding net.
and as Daragh said, if its a cannister filter iw ouldnt worry too much.You could either cover it or turn it off.

If you decide to move her to another tank, do it after lights out. Less stressful on the fish. What are you planning as first food? Liquifry is Ok to get you over the first day or so but ideally you should have some artemia bottles going. You probably don't have microworm and it will be too late now to get a starter culture going. Make sure you also give them some very finely ground plant based flake. We'll talk you through the whole thing on Friday.
Any chance you could move theat frisky mail to another tank? He will stress her.

I find that live bearers waddle or swim in a laboured manner (more than usual!) when close to the time.
She will also wander off into corners of the tank, around plants, or behind rocks.
She is looking for a safe place to give birth, which is odd you might think for a fish that just drops her young and swims off. I put my ready to drop guppies into a breeding net at night with some camboba plant (a fern), this usually results in a relaxed female that drops her fry in safety.

Thanks for the replies, I dont have any fry food at the moment but I will get some today. How about the frozen brineshrimp etc ?

Would the best option be to move her to the 60L tank on her own for the next few days ? Its a Juwel Rekord 60 with standard (Super Compact ??) filter so intake is at the top.

Declan.

Probably will be but put some flaoting plants in it. The fry will hide in this

Hi Declan

I've a community tank that's heavily planted & has glowlights, lemon tetras, a Betta, a neon that's about 5 now, flying fox, & an F F M trio of platys together with loads of their offspring of various ages.

A couple of indications to being close to giving birth is the shape around the vent changes & starts to become a bit angular instead of its usual rounded shape. That is a very late sign. Also swimming behaviour can change in some individuals. I can always tell when my best female is about to drop because instead of her usual placid swimming, she starts going up & down a lot from top to bottom. Particularly @ the front glass & pushes herself into the plants.

Because of my heavy planting a lot of my fry survive. But seeing as you have the other tank set up I would utilise it. I don't have a problem with fry & the filter but mine's an AquaEl & they're very slow. You could get a rubber band & wrap a wad of filter floss around your intake. That should take care of it.

I find that birth can happen at any time despite what I've seen & heard in the past. Also it vairies in length quite a bit. The mother will eat the babies that's a cert. Pop along to your pound shop or something & buy a few balls of wool. Make up loads of spawning mops for the tank base & a few for floating with corks or polystyrene. That will provide excellent cover for the fry. Then once you notice that the mother is thinner. She can be moved back to the other tank.

A good two step method I use to minimise stress while moving is the following:

Use 2 nets to catch her. One to guide her into the other stationary one.

Put her into one of those blue plastic containers that meat comes from from the supermarket with a very small hole in the bottom. This will then float in the new tank (lights off) & gradually sink. During this time the 2 waters will mix slowly & not stress her so much.

Fry care. Yeah you can use liquifry to start with & move on as Holger said. Mine though, well they get various grades of crumbled up flake & frozen newly hatched brine shrimp & they seem to do alright on it.

Regards

Richard

Well the platty has moved to the 60L but I'm afraid things are not looking so good. She seems very stressed and nervous. I guess it was the move but I dont think it was the difference in water, both tanks have pretty much same params and the Platties that went from the 60L to the 180L are happily swimming about and settling in.

I'll see how it goes overnight....

Declan

Well the good news is she survived overnight and the even better news is I have fry

Unfortunately I had to rush off to work but from what I could see there were 2 fry swimming in the tank, not sure if there were more that were hiding or whether she had only started or maybe she had eaten the rest!

I've now put her in a breeding net (in the same tank) to try give the 2 fry some chance at making it through the day.

I've adding some Liquidfry, should that be a liquid or sort of blobs ? Mine seemed to be a bit of both!

Declan.

that sound it brakes up quite quickly just keep an eye on water surface it will look oily just don't allow to stagnate place a flat sheet of kitchen paper/towels on surface and it will be absorbed

I drop that liquifry gunk into the stream coming out of the filter, it dissipates the blobs immediately, under the water surface.

yes but then it gunks up around breeder net and they can be a problem then.

You still have the breeder net in the tank?

Sorry I thought she had dropped the fry and you were putting her back in with the other community.
Then theres no need for the breeder net.

Do not keep the mother in the breeder net long term, as soon as the adult has dropped all the fry (or most of the fry) let her out.
She will over stress and it could be fatal.

Don't worry about the odd fry being born and eaten in the community tank, its the circle of life after all, and these fish are like rabbits.
Chances are shes already pregnant with the next batch, as some livebearers keep sperm stored for a few batches!

Hi Declan,

Congratulations ! Hopefully, there will be loads of little fry in your tank calling you \"Daddy\" when you come back from work this evening.
If you have a (Juwel) internal filter, you might want to check if none have gone in there. This is where I found my only swordtail survivor when I came back from the holidays, thinking they would have all been eaten by then !

Talk soon.
Valerie

Just an update on this.

There appear to be at least 5 surviving fry at the moment - kinda hard to count as they hide away most of time and even when they are out they are hard to see.

They are on their own in a Juwel 60L and I've added some additional polypad around the filter intake although it seems to be fine, not too strong a flow.

The female is now back in the main community tank and seems ok. Seemed a little stressed last night and was looking for a quite spot.

Next challenge now will be to try and keep the fry alive!

Declan.

Hey Declan, jsut wondering how you got on with those platy fry?
Im raising a small batch myself at the moment.

So far, they realyl enjoy eating squeezings from my filter sponge!! (a tip I got from an american fishkeeping website that I didnt think would work, but it seems to work great!)