Gold Platies - Pregnant? Help!

[PermanentXHate]

Hello all!
While I am not new to fish tanks I am rather new to this forum thing, so please bare with me. Sorry for any inconvinience ahead of time.

On this topic I will also add pictures later of my personal gold platies.

Usually I am rather good at figureing out the gender in most fish, I can tell mollies and australian rainbows like crazy. I know platies are not much different from gender telling in mollies but I just can't seem to figure out the two gold ones I have. I was going to post a picture sooner but my camera died before I could get them to hold still long enough for me to get a decent picture.

I have two red platies that I am POSITIVE are both female. Then I also have two gold platies (which are the ones I'm not sure about). When I bought them they were both rather small in size and have grown in length about the same. However one of them has a larger belly. I'm not sure if platies get a gravid spot or not. But my platy looks like it's about to pop compared to the other platies in the tank and has no visible gravid spot.

I tried searching on google and other search engines for pregnant platy pictures, but since I am unaware of what they look like pregnant in the FIRST place it makes it hard to diferenciate the right from the wrong pictures to have something to compare to my fish.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

The bottom one I think is male.
The top one, pregnant?

 

[luque]

any pics yet?

 

[PermanentXHate]

any pics yet?

This was the best picture I could get of them because they wouldn't hold still! lol.
The bottom one is the one that I believe to be male and the top pregnant?

http/img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/Plu...in/S4300286.jpg

 

[5teady_2012]

Here is what i can tell you

 

[PermanentXHate]

Here is what i can tell you

View attachment 49132

Thank you so much!
I was pretty sure about that but if it was pregnant I wasn't sure how much.

How long is their gestation(sp?) period and when would you suggest I separate her from the others (does the male go with?).
I do have a breeding net set up and ready.

 

[5teady_2012]

Thank you so much!
I was pretty sure about that but if it was pregnant I wasn't sure how much.

How long is their gestation(sp?) period and when would you suggest I separate her from the others (does the male go with?).
I do have a breeding net set up and ready.

When it comes to these platties, it can be anywhere between 4-6 weeks, usually more at the 4 week end...

When her belly is alot bigger, like the platy in this pic...





Thats when i would put her in the trap, usually when they are going to drop, they will dwell near the bottom of the tank, or near a heater or plants, or near the top and corners...

If you have a internal filter always check for her moping about near it, for some reason, in my years of breeding livebearers, i have always noticed my go near my filter when they are going to drop, i dont know why they do this but they do

always keep a diary of the dates when they drop thier fry, then you will see a pattern to thier breeding habits, my platties are dropping every 29-31 days very consistently.

 

[PermanentXHate]

Thank you so much!
I was pretty sure about that but if it was pregnant I wasn't sure how much.

How long is their gestation(sp?) period and when would you suggest I separate her from the others (does the male go with?).
I do have a breeding net set up and ready.

When it comes to these platties, it can be anywhere between 4-6 weeks, usually more at the 4 week end...

When her belly is alot bigger, like the platy in this pic...

View attachment 49133



Thats when i would put her in the trap, usually when they are going to drop, they will dwell near the bottom of the tank, or near a heater or plants, or near the top and corners...

If you have a internal filter always check for her moping about near it, for some reason, in my years of breeding livebearers, i have always noticed my go near my filter when they are going to drop, i dont know why they do this but they do

always keep a diary of the dates when they drop thier fry, then you will see a pattern to thier breeding habits, my platties are dropping every 29-31 days very consistently.

thanks so much. i will indeed do that.
one last question: when she drops, how long do i wait to remove the female from her fry?

 

[5teady_2012]

Usually i remove her as soon as i think she has finished having them, if you leave her in she will try and eat them if she can (the reason being she will be very hungry after giving birth)

Make sure you feed her well after her dropping her fry

Good luck

And your welcome anytime

Ooops forgot, one more more thing, get some liquifry for the fry to eat, or mash up some flake witha blender

They will like this very much, fry has very fast matabolism so you need to feed them every 2-3 hours about 4-5 times a day, not to much though