Platy And Guppy Pregnancy Questions

[CherryDanio]

Hi all, hoping if you guys could clarify a couple of things for me as I keep reading slightly conflicting advice on different sites.

This white ball platies develop on their 'bum' before giving birth, when it appears how long roughly untill she drops? I ask as I have a recently bought female who isn't especially big but she has this white dot (no it's not poop, it stays even after she's just pooped). I have read that sometimes platies don't really show though so the fact she is't huge doesn't mean she's not pregnant. Is this right? She also doesn't appear to have a gravid spot but again I've read conflicting advice. Some people say she can't be pregnant withut a gravid spot, others say you don't always see them. She has been hiding in plants and being antisocial however this may also be because I have recently added new fish to the tank (and she was only fairly recently added as well).

Secondly, do female guppies get this white ball as well? I'm trying desperatly to get a pic of one of mine as she is quite large now and appears to have this white dot as well (it looks a bit like the end of a tube sticking out of her bum but no it's not poop, again it's still there even when/after pooping).

Sorry for all the questions but i'm quite eager for one or the other to give birth. We got our first female guppy about a month ago. She was sick (internal parasite I think) and died promtly after giving birth. At exactly 1 week of age all the fry dropped dead within 24 hours of each other with the same symptoms :'( Water stats were spot on etc. Hoping I have better luck with this lot!

Ooh thought of another one. Due to havig a tank reshuffle I needed to put my females in with my mles which means there will be lots and lots of babies (yes I have places for them to go). I only have 2 fry tanks however so would be looking to put batches of fry born close together i with each other. How big can the age gap be do you think before the older ones would eat the younger ones? And could I put platie fry in with guppy fry? Thas again!

 

[CherryDanio]

.. no one?

 

[OldMan47]

I would not hesitate to mix fry that were only 3 or 4 weeks apart in age.

I always judge the readiness of my livebearers by observing how squared off they are getting. If a female is getting very square, I don't really care how big she is or whether she has that white tube-like structure or even if her gravid spot is visible. In a typical situation you might say that this girl is huge and ready to deliver fry.

Unfortunately, the fry in the picture are hers and they were born the day the picture was taken, just a few hours earlier. Then she did not get much bigger and her gravid spot was not getting darker when this picture was taken.

Now for the revelations. The second picture of her has her very much squared off compared to the first picture. Her actual size had not changed enough to notice if you were around her every day but her shape had become more easily recognized as squared off. So where was she in her fry development? This is her picture 3 days later.

The fry swimming near her head is from the drop already shown in the other pictures but she is noticeably smaller and rounder. She has delivered about 20 new fry and is no longer carrying any. Fish like her are the reason that I focus on shape, not size or color or even a ovipositor look to her anus.

 

[goldlasie]

Wow that is really interesting. I am new to tropical fish. 10days after introducing my first fish i did a water change and found 1 baby in the tank. I have no idea which fish gave birth as had no idea it was pregnangt. I have since seperated it into a basket at the top of my tank. I have bin advised it was probably the plattie that that gave birth to it. Im having to learn very very fast. lol.

 

[OldMan47]

The fish that dropped that fry will still be at least another 2 1/2 weeks before she delivers any more. Depending on which species she was, i could be considerably longer. M y endlers deliver fry at about 3 1/2 weeks like clockwork but my mollies take 6 weeks and the group of fish called goodeids often take about 8 weeks or a little more for each fry drop.
If you want your fry to survive in a group tank type of environment, I like to use java moss. The moss keeps the adult fish from swimming through it easily but to a fry it looks like wide open spaces. TYhe LFS is likely to carry som and it is as easy to grow as throwing a clump in the tank and standing back while it grows. Sometimes I will tie a bit to a bit of tank decor like I did in this guppy tank. The result is a nice clump that does something besides lay on the tank bottom.

If you don't tie it in one place, you are likely to end up with a huge lump on the bottom of a tank like this one in my Heterandria tank.

You can just make out the adult Heterandria swimming in the top left corner of the picture.

 

[CherryDanio]

Thanks guys. Well she certainly isn't squared off so I think I'll pop her back in the main tank. I suspect one of the guppies is only a ccouple of days off though I'm really excited about her fry as she was pregnant in the shop so I can't wait to see what colours the babies turn out!