Mollies - Info Needed Please Re Pregnancy, Also Platties

[Charlie06]

We have a happy aquarium of Mollies, Platys, Swordtails and Guppies.
We are just in the process of having some guppies born. This is the second batch so we are a dab hand with them. My question is with black mollies how do you know they are pregnant? Is it just a case of watching them getting bigger? Has anyone had similar repeated behaviour from them before they give birth, signs to look out for? We have 2 other mollies, one is yellow with a black tail and the other is yellow with black spots. Are these the dalmation ones I've heard about on the forum?
How many fry can a platy give birth to? We have had one baby a few weeks ago and we can see a few tiny black spots in both platties, (very different to the guppies whos' gravid spot seem to go very black) so wondering whether the tiny spots are natural or babies. Also how long is a platy pregnancy?
I really do appreciate anyone being able to answer any of the questions.
Thank you.

Charlie

 

[donna123]

Hi,
mollys give birth every 5-6 weeks,
the only way i could tell mine were about to give birth was its size and she got a bit grumpy right near the end, and hid a lot. platy can have anywhere from 7- 20+, every 4 weeks.
hth Donna

 

[Charlie06]

Hi Donna

Thanks for that. Gives me a better idea.
Our one and only platy baby was the only survivor of we don't know how many. We saw one baby gobbled up by a molly, so not sure how many there were originally.
Our guppy tonight has so far given birth to about 14 but again not sure if any had already been eaten. Most were taking cover in one of the bushier plants and are now safely swimming in the fry mesh tank we made. Very happy little things.
I will keep an eye on our mollies and again thank you

Charlie