So Iāve had platies for a number of years now & thought i was pretty good at telling males & females apart...I have just been to clean out my āall maleā tank to find a baby in there! I only have 3 males in there...so Iāve singled out the 2 I suspect 1 may be female...as the 3rd is definitely a male...so pic 1 is the one I suspect is a male as his anal fin is quite obvious & pointy & then pic 2 is the one i now suspect is female however she does not have the usual fan shaped anal fin...in fact Iām struggling to see much of a fin there at all....Iām guessing this one is female though as she appears to have a larger gravid spot than the other...i want to get this right though as dont want to put a male in with my all female tank...
Male or Female please!?!
- Thread starter Chantal38
- Start date
The April FOTM Contest Poll is open!
š Click to vote! š
no they are all males i think, the fins aer there. it is perhaps poop or strange colouration. can i see the male?(real male)
Hi, yes this is the other male...the little fry is spotted so Iām assuming this is dad...Iām pretty sure itās a boy...
Attachments
Number two could be a female with the fan tucked in, if they're holding it close to the body, it can be hard to tell, especially when they're young. Number one is definitely a male.
It can be really hard to tell, I've raised a lot of livebearer fry too, still get it wrong occasionally! But put it this way, better to accidentally have a male in a female tank than a female in a male tank.... A single male surrounded by females will have a fantastic time, a single female in with a load of males is in for a terrible time!
so I'd stick the one you're unsure about in the girl tank and keep an eye until you're sure about the sex.
It can be really hard to tell, I've raised a lot of livebearer fry too, still get it wrong occasionally! But put it this way, better to accidentally have a male in a female tank than a female in a male tank.... A single male surrounded by females will have a fantastic time, a single female in with a load of males is in for a terrible time!
so I'd stick the one you're unsure about in the girl tank and keep an eye until you're sure about the sex.
I thought that too about number 2 but when he/she is relaxed the fin does not fan out...do you think the spotted one is a male? Also would you have any idea how old the fry is in the pic...it doesnāt look ānewbornā to me...i moved some female fry out of this tank 2 weeks ago so Iām wondering if one of them had a batch of fry before I moved them...but they are still really small...so I didnāt think they would be sexually mature enough to have fry....this is her in the pic ...she is only about 1-2cm...
Attachments
They can have fry younger than you'd think! Since you have fry, I'd say one of them was old enough, if there were no adult females in there? How old is the batch of females you removed two weeks ago?
Yes, the spotted one on the left in this post:
Is definitely a male. The fry, it's hard to guess, but since it's pretty coloured up, I'd say between 2-4 weeks old, at a guess! More likely 3-4 weeks old. Definitely not newborn, anyway!
You could do a thorough sort of the 'male only' tank where the fry appeared. When I'm sexing and deciding which fry to keep and grow on, I use a set of tall drinking glasses. Feels a bit mean, but any I'm not sure of the sex, I'll put in a few inches of water in the drinking glass, so I can hold them up to the light, and see them from all angles. Usually solves the question. Also if I'm trying to decide which to keep of two or more similar males, I'll put each into a drinking glass so I can compare them more closely and decide which one(s) to keep.
The more I look at the photos of the two you showed above, the more undecided I am about their sexes! Gonna tag our lvebearer expert, @emeraldking , because if anyone can be positive about their sex, he can!
Pretty platies, anyway! Do you introduce new blood now and then? Do you stick to similar colours, or is it a mixed bag?
Ok thats great thank you! So I only have the 3 males shown in the pictures in the male tank...I have 6 females in my female tank...to be honest my plan was never to have fry...I started off with 2 platies for my little boys first pet & we ended up with fry...since then ive just tried my best to keep as many alive as possible...& decided to split them up as over the years have had several batches of fry & itās been hard work so I was trying to avoid any more!? Ive got 3 different types at the moment...salt & pepper, blue Mickey Mouse & neon blue wagtails...wow if the fry is that old it definitely could have come from one of the young females then....Iām not sure how old the young females are...ive had so many different batches of fry ive lost track...I kept various ages in the nursery tank then would just move them across to the bigger tanks when they were older/big enough...
A better pic from the side of the platy in pic#2 would tell a bit more. For it's hard to tell from the picture if the anal fin is clamped or not. The others are male for sure.
yeah, more hd picture will def help, the male fin is different
EmeraldKing is a livebearer expert (writes articles and everything!) so you can definitely take his word on sexing
Completely understand, livebearers churn out a lot of fry!
I started with guppies, knowing full well what they're like, but I only wanted a little community tank, thinking most of the young would get eaten, and when a good amount survived and grew up, I'd take them to the LFS (I checked he'd be happy to take youngsters before I bought a single guppy!). But my adults didn't seem to eat babies, and I have a lot of live plants in my tanks (see profile pic!) so I ended up with way more fry surviving than I imagined. So I got another tank so I could sort into male and female. Then a third tank to grow out batches of fry before sorting into male and female, since 30-40 fry were surviving from each batch. But of course, the females can have fry every month, but it takes 2-3 months to raise each batch... it gets out of control quickly! Fun for a while, and educational for kids, but it gets wearing after a while...
Depending how attached you/kids are to particular fish, you can rehome/send the females to the store, and keep a male only tank. As long as there are plenty of hiding spaces and decent plant cover, males can happily live in a tank without females. The females can store sperm and continue churning out fry for up to - perhaps even beyond - a year, without seeing a male. And as you might have experienced, they can get knocked up at a pretty young age, so with six females, presuming you didn't separate the sexes quite quickly enough this time and they're all storing sperm... that's a lot of fry you'll be dealing with for a long time!
Most reactions
-
280 -
234 -
157 -
140 -
137 -
134 -
114 -
113 -
100 -
95 -
92 -
85 -
78 -
67 -
59
Staff online
-
CaptainBarniclesModerate Pleco Tolerator -
EssjayModerator
-
FishmanicTFF Contest Czar