How Many Days Does It Take For Platys To Drop Their Fry ?

[Babsibaby]

I am a new tropical fish keeper.I have only had my tank for about 8 wks now. I have noticed over the last couple of day that 2/3 of my platys are much more rounded than they were b4. I only feed them once a day so this is not due to over feeding. I suspect they are in the early atages of pregnancy at a guess i would say 7 to 10 days (2 wks tops) Can any tropical fish breeders out there tell me how many days it takes for platys to drop their fry please. And give advice on what is the best action to take to ensure i do not lose my fry to other fish in my community kept tank. Any advice would be very helpful to me as i have not long started with tropical fish and want to do the best for them to make sure they stay as healty & happy as possible. I await for your replys.

 

[the biffster]

any chance of a photo

 

[hughessomefish]

Alright, first lets check to see if your platys are pregnant, Even if you feed them once a day it matters on how much you feed them that determines wether they are over fed or pregnant. (so pictures please so we can tell if there pregnant.)Secondly if they are two weeks into there gestation period (time the babies are inside the mother)they wouldn't be all to round platys get more rounder around 4 weeks of pregnancy, also another answer for your question, platy pregnancyies last about 4weeks-5weeks it varyies.When a mother gives birth to her fry it takes about 12-16 hours for her to complete her drop.If you want to ensure the survival of fry then I recommend getting a floating trap or one that clips onto the side,so you can catch the babies and put them in there so there not eatting by anyother fish, another method you could use is if you have a well planted tank or lots of hiding spots, this helps baby fry hide from the older fish which could easly eat them.(this method isn't the best if you want to keep some fry.Finally one more method is putting a pregnant mother into the floating trap as she is about to give birth so you don't have to catch the fry, I do not at all recommend this for you though since you are new to the platys birth cycle for these reasons one because if you put the mother in the trap to soon you risk her aborting the fry (so she basicly kills them inside of her), but even worse she could die of stress from the small space in the trap.I don't even do this because I find it to risky, also You shouldn't do that method because you don't know how along there pregnant (or even if they are pregnant.)any other questions just ask and I and others will have answers.

By the way welcome to the fourms

 

[OldMan47]

If you want to judge your own platy's readiness for a drop, try giving a read through of the two threads I link to in my signature area. One I have called My Molly's progress and it more or less walks through a complete cycle of one of my mollies from one drop to the next. It has lots of pictures and some comments that I hoped would help people figure things out. The other I called Ready to Drop. Rather than walk you through the development cycle leading up to a drop, it tries to identify signs of an immediately pending drop. Both can be useful, from quite different perspectives, in judging your females.