Guppy pregnancy

[FalconStorm]

I've got a question. I have two female guppies. Both are pregnant. Yesterday, I found four small fry in the tank, but both females still have large gravid spots. They are the only female fish in this tank. Is it possible for one of them to partially give birth?

Also, that tank had a break out of ich just a day ago and I'm having to do treatments for ich. What is the likelihood that it will kill the babies? (I was intending to let them stay in the tank and take their chances with the adults. The tank is heavily planted. I don't have another tank to move them to right now.)

 

[Annastasia]

Yes, it is possible. Usually they are done within 24 hours though.

Sometimes my females still have a gravid spot after giving birth though...


As for the ich meds..I can't see it working well with the fry. Since they are so sensitive...

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Yes they can partially give birth, as weird as it sounds i once had a female guppy give birth to 12 fry one day then another 10 four days later.

It depends what treatment you're using; i once had whitespot a very long time ago and i used the Anti whitespot med by Interpet while i had fry in the tank and i didn't lose any fry but i suppose most of its down to the individual fry and luck.

I wouldn't move the fry as you could transport the desease to another tank which would be very bad; i would just treat the adult fish for whitespot with the fry in the tank, you may lose some fry but with guppys you are likely to have more fry in the future anyway.
If you leave the whitespot untreated you will most likely lose all your fish

 

[FalconStorm]

Yeah, I know the meds will probably hurt them. I get paid tomorrow, so I may go get a one gallon kit that they can stay in for a little while. I'm not sure. The guppies came pregnant (big surprise, there) so I really had no idea when they might give birth. I'm mostly concerned that the meds might hurt the mom since she's giving birth, but leaving her with the ich might hurt her more. Not sure which is the lesser of two evils.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Treating her is far more important; meds can be stressful for the fish but whitespot is a lethal desease left untreated and very horrible for the fish too, medicating the fish far out weighs the harm the desease will cause.

You could buy a small tank for the fry, but the move would also be very stressful for them and when you move them back into the main tank some of them could be carrying the desease and only re-infect the tank.
I would say take your chances and treat the tank with the fry in as you are most likely to be more successful in getting rid of the desease that way which is more important than the fry as they will die too if the desease is left untreated.

 

[FalconStorm]

Good point. I think I will do that. Three days into the treatment, we've still got the four fry I spotted two days ago. They haven't been eaten, and haven't gotten sick, so I guess we're doing pretty good. Hopefully, they'll make it, although, what I'm going to do with them if they do survive is still up for grabs, especially since they've been in a tank with ich. I hate to take them to my lfs if there's a possiblity they'll spread ich to everyone else... *sigh*