My "So called" male coral plattie is pregnant!

[(GTV)Chris]

Hi there,

I asked the chap at my local FS to give me 2 male Red Coral Platties. He did so, but today I checked and one of them looks mighty preggers to me. I checked the private parts regions on both platties and they differ, so I assume I am going to be a daddy
It is only an 8 galon tank and I have two silver mollies and two platties...
What should I do about the fry, if and when they are born?

Should I get a small Fry net, as there are no real hiding places in the tank since I took out the Java Fern...

Any help would be great

Chris

 

[terrorist_124]

if you want to save the fry,you "could" buy a fry net but it would be better for the fry(especially if there are more than 15) to get a seperate 3-5 gallon tank.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

An 8gallon tank is too small for mollys to begin with, they need at least a 10/15gallon tank and for both platys and mollys, if you have mixed gender groups you need at least 2-3females per male as the males will often harrass the female, particualy when she is pregnant, and this can lead to abortion of the fry or even death of the mother fish.
A 3-5gallon tank is no where near big enough to raise any decent amount of platy fry(taking into consideration platys can have 30 or more fry, even 50+) let alone molly fry as adult mollys can have 100 or more fry and their fry can take over a year to mature...

If you realy honestly want to breed livebearers you need to upgrade your current tank to a 15gallon and add some more females for both your mollys(depending on what your molly gender ratio is) and platys and use your current tank as a fry tank, both tanks are going to need cycling too(do you know what cycling a tank is?)...

 

[(GTV)Chris]

to be honest I don't want to breed.
But the guy at the fish store gave me a female when I asked for a male?
I went to see them and they suggested waiting to see how many are born and how many survive, then when big enough send em back the the shop?
My Mollies are only small as are the platties, about an inch and a half..
Do they grow much bigger than this? I am beginning to doubt the intelligence of my local fish store as whenever I buy fish I always explain the conditions

Cheers


Chris

 

[Annastasia]

Yeah, you can wait until they are born, but you still need a place to grow them up in until they are big enough. So you probably need another tank, or you should take the Platy back. You can't have all the fry, Mollies, and Platies in the 8 gallon.

And yes, Mollies will grow bigger. Up to 4" in fact.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Mollys grow to 3-4inchs on average and they prefer to be in groups so a 10-15gallon is realy the minimum and even a 10gallon is rather on the small side- if your mollys are still fairly small you may have to wait a couple of months until you tell their gender for sure as mollys are slow developers.
You may only get a couple of fry if your fish decide to eat them as livebearers have been known to even eat their own fry although you cannot rely on this to sort out large fy batchs as it realy depends on the individual fish and they may not even eat a single one- i suggest you swap the female platy for a male so you don't have to deal with fry and upgrade your tank to at least a 10gallon if you want to keep the mollys if they are the same gender, you'll need an even bigger tank though if they are mixed gender.
The problem with overstocking is that your tank and filter can only handle so much waste the fish produce and their waste produces ammonia, which is lethal to fish, and when the filter can no longer handle the waste you get an ammonia spike which kills off your fish or makes them very sick.
Right now if the mollys are still fairly small you can hang on to them a bit longer but you will realy need to upgrade to a large tank in the near future if you want to keep them healthy and happy.

 

[(GTV)Chris]

I really want a bigger tank, but my wife doesn't want to go bigger...
Guess I'll have to work on her.
I can probably afford to get another small tank, but would prefer one large one.
Cheers all,

Chris