Platies and swordtails

[fishguy18]

I have a few questions about platies and swordtails:

Ok I have a nice blue mickey mouse platy and I am pretty sure she is pregnant....she isnt too big yet but she has been growing and I can see a gravid spot whichis not visble on my other female. Will a platy eat her babies when she has them? I want to know before I put her in my breeding net.

I also have a big yellow coloured swordtail and I notice that her gravid spot is almost a dark orange colour....is she pregnant? it is hard for me to tell because I am so new at this...but she is plump and it appears to be a gravid spot the only thing is the colour....do they have coloured babies? I mean why would her gravid spot be orangy and not black? oh and will swordtail moms eat their babies?

if anyone has pictures of their pregnant swordtails or platies could u please post them or send them to my e-mail
drummers_secret@hotmail.com

Thank you very much my fish loving friends

 

[Spilk]

I have a few questions about platies and swordtails:

Ok I have a nice blue mickey mouse platy and I am pretty sure she is pregnant....she isnt too big yet but she has been growing and I can see a gravid spot whichis not visble on my other female. Will a platy eat her babies when she has them? I want to know before I put her in my breeding net.

I also have a big yellow coloured swordtail and I notice that her gravid spot is almost a dark orange colour....is she pregnant? it is hard for me to tell because I am so new at this...but she is plump and it appears to be a gravid spot the only thing is the colour....do they have coloured babies? I mean why would her gravid spot be orangy and not black? oh and will swordtail moms eat their babies?

if anyone has pictures of their pregnant swordtails or platies could u please post them or send them to my e-mail
drummers_secret@hotmail.com

Thank you very much my fish loving friends

I had a batch of swordtails and plattys not too long ago, the father went around eating them, but the mother didn't seem very interested. Most fish will eat something tiny that moves if they're omnivores, and while platty and swordtail fry are larger than guppy fry, the only fry I've ever seen not get bothered with by the parents and other fish in the tank were Molly fry, which are a bit larger.

As far as being pregnant, yes the fry are colored from birth--much more translucent, but when packed together in the mother you can see the deeper color. Also, I find it particularly funny that you can see their googly fry eyes inside the mother.

 

[Polardbear]

Here is a pregnant lyretail swordtail. Sorry, not the best quality photos I've ever taken. It is very difficult to see a gravid spot on her. She had babies about 5-6 days after these pictures were shot.

Some of my swordies will have a black gravid spot, like my green wag and my neons, but my marigold wag girl's gravid spot is usually kind of an orange color. On the bright orange lyretails you can barely see it and it's just a little bit lighter than the rest of their body.

I only have 2 swordtail females that will refrain from snacking on their babies. All the others look at them as snack time.

I don't use breeding nets. I either move the mother to be to a seperate tank or let her have them in the main tank. Either way, it's a heavily planted tank with lots of hiding places. I put glass marbles on the bottom as well as the plastic breeders grass and have floating hornwort up top.

 

[vidiots]

The mother platy will usually ignore the fry atleast initially, I asume that she has things other than food on her mind while giving birth and shortly after. The first thing the majority of the fry will do is search for a place to hide. If they are left in a tank with other fish large enough to eat them and they are unlucky enough to swim in the wrong direction looking for a place to hide they will often get eaten. In a heavily planted tank some of the fry usually manage to find a place to hide and survive and grow rapidly to the point where the larger fish can't eat them whole. If you want to have a larger amount of fry survive you should move the mother to another tank just prior to giving birth, and I strongly recommend one larger than a breeding trap to reduce stress. I have had success with using a 2.5gal tank as a birthing tank without stressing the mother fish. The problem I ran into with a fry tank that small is that I quickly had too many fry to keep them in there. I had one mother give birth to 75 fry in one day. Better success may be had with a 5 to 10 gal tank. Do you keep the swordtails and platies in the same tank? If so you may get swordtail/platy hybrids. I have read that most prefer their own species, but if for some reason it is easier for them to mate with a closely related species they may try.

 

[Kittycat]

My platy gave birth today, and since she just came from the store yesterday, I wasn't expecting it. Anyway, it was a bare 5 gallon tank with a corner filter, there were 3 female platies in the tank (including mother), and there were 6-10 fry when I got home. So I guess even if you don't remove the mom/fry, some fry still survive. But I suggest you put in plants like java moss.

 

[vidiots]

If you don't want to mess with live plants you can also buy clumps of that plastic baby grass from any petstore I've been in. I've found though that it works best if you wedge a rock or large marble in the center of the clump to keep it in place on the bottom.

 

[fishguy18]

Thak you so much for all of his information! Those pictures were a fantastic help to me....my swordtail has a few weeks to go now that i see the picture....she is not that fat!.....How many babies did that female have?

Also, I know not to many ppl like to use breeding nets....but i kind of like to use them...I have had success with guppies in the breeding nets....but they are much smaller than my swordtail! I think i might go out and buy an 8-10 gallon tank tonight and let it cycle for a week or so

I found a good way to clean my tanks....When I do my 20% water change every week i put the water from my big tank into the small 5 gallon guppy fry tank....this way i am changing both of the water but the guppy fry are still getting cycled water....I find this to be the best way to do things...and the fry are still alive so i must be doing something right lol

Thank you very much for your help...and if anyone else has any picture of pregnant swordtails, platies, and mollies please post them so new guys like me can see what they look like....that will help me out alot!

Thanks so much
Fishguy18

 

[vidiots]

You can speed up the cycle by placing a dirty filter cartridge or some gravel from an estabolished tank.

 

[Kittycat]

I haven't tried breeding nets, but I used a breeding trap (plastic) a couple of times before, I feel that the fry grew out rather slowly in them.

As for pregnant platy pics, I posted a couple here:
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=74196

Luckily with mine, I can see the gravid spots pretty well...

 

[fishguy18]

Thanks Kitty!

I have blue mickey mouse platies too! and that is the one i nneded a picture of! I know now that mine is pregnant by comparing her to your pics .....she isnt as large though so i think she might have a few weeks left!.....what colour were the fry when they cam out?

 

[Kittycat]

No problem. The fry was sort of flesh-orange, a lot similar to guppy fry, I guess, except that they seem a little bigger to me (like a couple of weeks or so old guppy fry)...

I haven't counted them as they're all hiding in the java moss, but there must be 20+-30+ fry, mom wasn't done when I first saw them yesterday.

 

[Polardbear]

The lyretail had about 35-40 babies.

 

[Kittycat]

Here's an old thread with links to pics of different livebearer fry:
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...hl=favorite+fry