Hi! Need Help!

[brimon92]

Hi, My name is Monica and I have 2 male and 2 female platys. Last night I noticed that one of the female platys look kinda a bloated and not to social. My mother thinks that shes pregnant, and to some investigation she is. My other female was being harassed by the male and I think she got impregnate last night. How long should I wait to see if she's pregnant.

Also, I was reading about breeder boxes, but I am a little iffy on those. What works best putting the females in a separate tank (which i do have-empty) or a breeder box. If the breeder box is more efficient, when should i put the female in?


Thanks
Monica-Rome NY

 

[WILDER]

Welcome to the board.
Post in the livebearer section of the forum. Get alot of help over there.

 

[brimon92]

thanks
I will do that

 

[OldMan47]

The breeder box is something that I try to avoid. While you wait for the female to get ready, put a spare filter on the main tank. That way when she is ready to go, you should have a filter cycled. Fry are sensitive about their water quality and an uncycled tank is really rough on them.
I try to always have at least one or two cycled filters ready to go but recently got caught short by bringing home too many fish from an auction. When one of the new fish dropped fry, that group went into a tank that was properly cycled and I worked hard to keep the fish alive that I had no cycled filter to support. After a week, my usual crisis approach had all of the fish living with cycled filters. Two were good on day one but the other two took a week to get fully cycled so it was large water changes for a few days to keep things sorted for the fish. The fry are doing great and the other fish were saved by the big water changes keeping pollutants down.