Aaaaaahhhhhhh! Pregnant Platy! Help!

[nikkifro8994]

[font="arial][size="2"]I went to the store today to "look" at fish and bought 5 platys for my livebearer tank. I have 4 male guppies and 1 male platy in there (his friend is sick). Stupid me forgot to check the gender of the platys before I left the store. I just picked the healthiest looking ones. I came home and discovered 2 females. 1 looked skinny compared to the other. Then I looked closer and saw that the other has a gravid spot and is pregnant!!! I have all males in my livebearer tank so I put these 2 in my 1.5 gallon hospital tank. I should probably take them back to the store tomorrow morning (they close in 5 minutes and it's a 15 minute drive). But I feel bad giving back a pregnant female when they wouldn't care for the fry. So I want to try to raise the fry. But that's insane!!! I don't have the tank capacity or the TIME to raise fry. But they won't survive at the store. They will be eaten by the other platys. I have a 1.5 gallon hospital tank and a 5 gallon Betta tank that I might be able to put the fry in. But What would I do with baby fish? I was about to buy a 5 gallon for dwarf frogs. I guess this could be a fry tank. Then where would I put the mom? She can't go in with my 8 MALE livebearers. I would need at least 15 more and then I would be WAY overstocked. Please help me! I have no clue what to do![/size][/font]
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[/size][/font][font="arial][size="2"]fat platy[/size][/font]
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[font="arial][size="2"]Gravid spot[/size][/font]

 

[hughessomefish]

Okay from the pictures I can see both of the platys don't look close to a drop. So you could return the females and they could be bought by someone else. Or if you do keep the females who most likely are in some stage of a pregnancy because they were kept in a tank with other males. So what you could do it get a floating trap to put in the large tank you have with all the male livebearers. This allows the fry to grow with out getting eaten by the adult fish, But you say you don't want any female livebearers, most likely you will raise fry up that will be male and female.

I think the best solution for your scenario is for you to return the female platys because, I understand that you don't want the fry to be born at the store, but these platys are pretty far out from a drop from what I can see in your photos. So If you don't want fry then you should return the females, it saves the hassle of keeping the fry which you don't seem to want to deal with.

Best of luck

 

[nikkifro8994]

This is 2 pics of the same fish. my other female isn't pregnant. I am trading her in for a boy in the morning.

I really want to keep the pregnant one and to raise the fry, it's just that I have no idea what I'm doing. And I cant keep girls with the boys unless I want to overstock trying to get at least a 2:1 female to male ratio. So any girls would have to go back to the store. I could keep the boys though!

Maybe, if I'm successful with this, I will keep a few females in the 5 gallon and breed them

I have no clue what kind of fry this platy will have. She was in a tank with sunset mickey platys and 2 kinds of mollies. When do fry start to show gender? I would have to split them before they would breed.

 

[Man of fish]

She was most likely not pregnated by the store platys as they can store sperm for 6 months. So I wouldn't keep them because it MAY be pregnant but isn't even close to a drop and you could be overrun with fry in a few months. As for sexing them at around 2 months usually. Depends if they thrive or grow.

 

[nikkifro8994]

I traded the other girl for a male platy. He it's in with the rest of my boys. I have a 5 gallon cycling for the mom. I seeded with part of the sponge from my livebearer tank. Ph is at 7. Ammonia is only 2ppm. Nitrite is 0 and nitrate is 10 ppm. Are these good readings?
I also bought a breeder net. When she gets closer to dropping I will get some plants. Right now I have a bare floor. Should I get some gravel? I can use some gravel from my gourami/tetra tank and have a double seed