female guppy birth-->then death

[darkstar22]

i know that the whole birth thing can be quite an experience... and i had two batches of fry from different female guppies... one that is still alive... but the female of the recent batch died as of this morning ... maybe she stressed out and died although there are 2 other females in the tank with her... any ways to keep the females that just give birth alive or do alot of time they die?

with my first female that reared fry she kind of went through the same "phases" as my recent one, but obviously didnt die, but looked like she was going to... any thoughts?

-water params are fine if any1 is asking .......

 

[Annastasia]

Female Guppies usually don't die while giving birth, so this isn't normal. Can we have exact water params? Are the two female Guppies all that was in the tank with her? What's she been acting like the past few days? Any signs of disease?

I'm personally betting it was stress, or birthing complications. But if you search around on here, I'm sure you'll find some threads about this which might help you some.

Edit: I'm going to quote Toxis, as this was one of her many awesome posts.

Most likely, fish can die during giving birth just as much as we can as its a very stressful proceedure especially for a first time mum fish.
Creating a stress-free enviroment will help prevent these bad consequences, heres some factors you need to take into consideration;

a. Females will often get harrassed by other fish when they are trying to give birth, this is normal behavior from the other fish as they will try to eat her fry as she gives birth to them and the male fish will eagerly try to mate with her as she becomes available.
As a consequence this is very stressful for the mother fish and providing lots of planting for her to hide in and enough space will help avoid this.
If the harrassment is realy bad though it is advised you move her to a breeding net/trap or empty fry tankso she can at least give birth in peace. Also if you have an agressive fish like tiger barbs in the tank with her, move her to somwhere where she can give birth in peace as soon as she starts going into labour, these fish like tiger barbs will undoutably over harrass her as they have a reputation too.
b. Creating a stress free enviroment; if your tank is cycling/newly setup the fluctuating water quality conditions will be very stressfull for any pregnant fish, particually one that is trying to give birth, so keeping good water quality conditions via by doing lots of 20-30%water changes daily with dechlorinator is more than essential in this scenario. Keeping good water quality via water changes is a must in any scenario as if there are issues with the water quality this will make the tank conditions stressful for any fish, pregnant or not; you can find out wether your water quality is good by montering the toxins ammonia and nitrites and nitrate levels weekly via test kits bought from your local fish store.

So, you have managed to secure good water quality for your fish. After checking that your stocking levels and gender ratios between your fish are correct and need no changing, let us turn to the enviroment of the tank itself.
When a fish is trying to give birth, she will instinctively try to find somwhere in the tank where she can hide and do this in peace. Providing some densely planted areas and a couple of caves in the tank is very nesarsary for her to do this, we are not talking just one or 2 plants and a rock in the tank but somwhere that she can realy hide from the other fish and cannot be seen by them or you. When the fry are born they too will also instinctly hide in these hiding areas away from the mouths of other fish, the more hiding places the tank has the bigger the survival rate of the fry and the less stressful giving birth to them will be for the mother fish.

c. fry/birthing tanks and breeding nets/traps; if you have a decent sized cycled spare tank for the mother to go in that is not inhabited by other fish, you can avoid these processes to a certain extent(although good water quality and a certain amount of hiding places for fish is a must for any tank). A decent minimum size for a birthing tank is 5gallons and so is for a fry tank, if you have more than one pregnant female in a birthing tank this is no better than keeping them in the main tank together though.

It is good to have a breeding net or trap at hand in any situation although these themselves can be very stressfull for the pregnant fish due to the lack of space, try not to keep a platy/guppy sized fish in a breeding net for more than 4days and a molly/swordtail sized fish in it for 2days as anymore time than this will make the whole proceedure worthless and more stressful for the fish- more than one fish per tank/net/trap is also totally unaceptable.

d. food; feeding your pregnant fish lots of high protein foods like bloodworms/tubifex/daphinia/krill(freezedried, frozen by thawed out or live) will help give her some extra energy to help her cope better with the pregnancy and birth too.

 

[darkstar22]

its like after she gave birth to about 25 fry.... she was active for a few days then was like kind of lurking by herself... and i noticed randomly like 1 or 2 more fry so i figured she had more in her that she was releasing n what not... cuz i know they want to be kind of alone while gviving birth (stress free) the other two females in the tank kind of hang out with the male or sometimes just 1 female with male depends.... also...

with my first female who gave birth like 1-2 weeks before this recent one that died...she kind of went through same thing were she was alone and quiet kept to herself... but did not rear any more fry like the recent case...

thanks for the information i will keep reading more.

 

[Annastasia]

Do you seperate them when they give birth? Or just leave them in the tank? And what do you feed them after they give birth?


And did you get both these femals from the same store? As you may have gotten a very weak batch that can't handle the stress of birth....or they are more prone to birthing complications. Or something along those lines.

 

[darkstar22]

different stores... the first female gave birth into the tank second feamle started birth and was placed in a breed trap thing...then released after... (flake food)----so ya

 

[Annastasia]

If she was disrupted while giving birth, and she was in a Breeder Trap for a while, I'd say good chance she died of stress. I'd say either get a small tank for them, or just let them give birth in the tank. Less stress for them. And after they give birth you might want to consider alternating in some good, high-protein foods like Brine Shrimp, Bloodworms, Tubifex Worms, etc, to help them get their strentgh back up.

Sorry about your losses though.

 

[darkstar22]

ya thats what i was thinking too good stuff... also i mean she died like... 4 days after she reared her fry so ya...

 

[SnowyzMom]

Thanks for all the info. I enjoyed reading all this. I had one rather old female who had birthing complications and everything got jammed and she died. Now I've got clove oil and she'd not have to suffer. Once of that was enough. Every female right now is very healthy.

I just wanted to comment on feeding the guppy females top notch food. Such a great idea. I can always tell when they're nearing birthing time because they get ravenous...I mean they double their food intake or more. Everybody else scatters and they scarf all of the food if they can grab it. I guess given how many babies they are feeding inside them, no wonder! And I'm sure they need the energy for giving birth just as much as we human females do. I am soooo glad I only gave birth to one kid at a time...I was just looking at one of my guppy females, she is SO square right now....she'll be sooo relieved shortly!