A Baby Platy

[tiny fish]

I'm relatively new to the tropical fish world, and have a 3 month old 35 gallon tank with 5 guppies, 5 tetras, 5 platies, 2 corys, 2 rams and 5 loachs. I think we have 2 male and 3 female platies and the females pretty much always look fat. Until recently i just assumed thats just how they looked but a week ago i noticed we had a baby platy about the size of a grain of rice. Hes been hiding in the plants and growing fast. I had always been under the impression breeding was hard and was not expecting fry.
My questions are would the platy have had lots of fry and just one lucky one survived and should i be expecting this to happen frequently? How long are they pregnent for and how can i tell if they're about to burst so to speak.
Thanks for any help

 

[*Fishkies*]

Well depending how many times before the females have had babies will depend how many babies they have had. If it is their first time they could only have a few, like 1 fry. Although she could have just starting having the babies and therefore many more could be coming along.

Guppies, platies are easy to breed as they are livebearers.

If you want the baby to live and not get eaten you may want to consider separating him in either a breeding net or tank of his own. You can feed them finely crushed flakes, or live baby brine shrimp, that you can hatch yourself and is very easy, i have done it before.


Good Luck.



And to TFF!!