Fry Born Dead

[dortiz24]

Another one of my guppies started having her babies. Not the one I've been expecting to burst still! This however I'm concerned about. She has given birth to 4 babies since I woke up this morning..not sure how many more were born this way before I got up. All four babies I witnessed were dead. They were eaten up almost immediately. She's still showing all signs she's not done giving birth. Should I expect the remaining fry to be dead? Any ideas why? She was pregnant when I got her. She has never shown any signs of stress. I feel sorry for her! The white dot in the photo is one of the babies. This is how they've all looked.

 

[dortiz24]

Well, she's had 2 live ones that seem to be just fine. Thank goodness. Unfortunately she seems to be done having fry. Which means if she started giving birth the same time I noticed her then she only had a total of 6 babies. I hoping she had the rest during the night. I'd still like to know why she had such a high rate of dead babies. Poor little guys.

 

[altselgreen]

Has the mother mated with a male from the same generation? It could be a case of inbreeding.

 

[dortiz24]

I'm not sure. She was already pregnant when I bought her. I have found two babies. Maybe 3. I had 4 from another guppy but couldn't find the 4th for a couple days..assumed it got eaten. But this morning there were 4 then I saw a 5 th a while ago and as I was scooping then into the breeder cage I discovered a 6th baby. She seems to be done giving birth though. And her stomach is much smaller now. I'm hoping to discover at least a few more fry hiding somewhere.

 

[altselgreen]

do you seperate her? or notice any one chasing etc? could be stress is causing her to give birth prematurly or to start aborting the fry

 

[LauraFrog]

As far as I can tell, the thing sitting on the plastic plant in the photo is a guppy egg. For some reason, part of the drop failed to develop and she either aborted and some fry were more developed than others (they may only live for a few days, or they may be strong enough to survive) or she might have been ready to drop, some embryos just didn't develop fully.

This happens quite often. Fry are born rolled up, and most straighten and start to swim within a few seconds. Some are stuck together and never unroll and fill their swim bladders. We call them taildraggers. If they aren't stillborn the only thing to do is put them down - I feed them to the mollies. They will never unroll and cannot live.

Sometimes if she is stressed during pregnancy, a female will abort her entire pregnancy before the fry are viable. If this happens there isn't much you can do except try and work out what went wrong, but if you got live fry out of her it doesn't sound like a spontaneous abort.

Sometimes females also get some undeveloped eggs, or a few deformed or unviable fry that stop developing during her gestation. They come out with the rest of the fry when she gives birth. This is normal. It can mean that she is running out of sperm if she has not had access to a male - if you allow her to mate again, the problem will stop. There are loads of other causes as well, but other than reduced fry production there's nothing wrong with the fish.