How much longer

[Lalah281]

Hi,

This is my first time keeping platies and I'm pretty sure two of them are pregnant ... both getting fat with the gravid spot. By looking at this pic (this is the fattest one), can anyone tell me roughly how long until this one gives birth?

I'd like to save the spry if possible and set up a second aquarium.

Thank you.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

platies are pregnant for about 1 month but unless you see the fish breeding, you have to guess. She is fat so probably in a week or two.

if you only have white cloud mountain minnows and platies, and you have lots of plants, the fry should be fine with the parents.

 

[Lalah281]

Yeah just the minnows and platies. So you don't think they'd just eat them? I'll put some live plants in there over the next week. .. seen in another thread that they're good for the spry to hide.

 

[Colin_T]

if the adults are fed well they usually ignore the fry. Live plants (floating and growing in the gravel) give the babies somewhere to hide and that can also help.

 

[Lalah281]

I notice it says to feed fry 3 times a day, so I guess i'll try just keeping them in the same tank and they'll all be well fed

Thanks for your help.

 

[Colin_T]

baby fish should be fed at least 3 times per day. They need to be fed as often as required to keep little fat bellies on them. They should look like heavily pregnant platies when fed well. I use to feed my fry 4-5 times per day and they got newly hatched brineshrimp, microworms, powdered fry food and as they grew they got marine mix that was finely cut up.

If you keep the fry well fed and fat/ full all the time, they grow pretty rapidly

 

[Lalah281]

I wasn't sure whether to start a new thread, but you've been so helpful, I wondered what your opinion was on this ...

I decided to clean the tank today as it seems to have got a little cloudy, but had only just started when I noticed a couple of fry (I'm not seeing them now, but hoping they're hiding). I abandoned the cleaning.

Now I have one fish swimming around the 2 pregnant females and chasing the other fish away, so I'm assuming he's the culprit

I'm reading conflicting advice online with Google searches ... some say the fathers protect the mother and others say they're waiting to eat the spry, and to get them out of the tank. What do you think?

I've upped the feeding to 5 times a day in the hope that they'll all be too full to eat them!

 

[Lalah281]

baby fish should be fed at least 3 times per day. They need to be fed as often as required to keep little fat bellies on them. They should look like heavily pregnant platies when fed well. I use to feed my fry 4-5 times per day and they got newly hatched brineshrimp, microworms, powdered fry food and as they grew they got marine mix that was finely cut up.

If you keep the fry well fed and fat/ full all the time, they grow pretty rapidly

 

[Colin_T]

male livebearers like guppies, mollies platies & swordtails do not guard the females. They hang around the females trying to breed with them. That's all they ever do. Some of them will also eat the babies but that is less likely to happen if they are well fed and there are lots of plants in the tank.

If you have a spare tank, move the males out and leave the females alone.

When you increase feeding you need to increase the number of water changes you do.

 

[Lalah281]

I just wanted to update the thread to let you know, and in case anyone else is looking for help. I posted this about 6 weeks ago. Because it was going on for so long, I was beginning to think the two females weren't pregnant, but sick. As Colin_T recommended, I bought another aquarium and put the 2 females I thought were pregnant into that on their own last week, filling it with lots of live (and some floating) plants. I also added a little aquarium salt.

The smaller one (who I didn't take a pic of) gave birth to at least 20 fry a few days ago. I didn't notice any difference in her tbh, except that she was hiding the day before.

The babies all just headed for the floating plants at the top. They were both up trying to snack on them, so I put the one who had given birth back in the main tank to give them a better chance.

At the moment I still have 16 fry plus the other big mamma. They're getting brave now and swimming around the tank because they're too fast for her anyway.

I've been feeding 5 times a day (for the sake of the fry) with a mixture of powdered flakes and bloodworm. I've also been throwing in a little boiled broccoli every couple of days in case the big one's just constipated. She loves it.

This is the pic I took of her 6 weeks ago and one from today. You can see the difference in the gravid spot. I'm assuming she's still pregnant and that this can go on for much longer than the usual 28 days.