Platy Dance

[sally2]

Hi yesterday I bought mickey mouse (mm) and tuxedo platy. The Micky mouse platy do an electric dance to each other - what is this any ideas?

Also one female mm is very pregnant and I can see 2 black spots on each side -one must be gravida spot but the other?

Please help! I nervous to loose the babies as I tried her in a breeding trap but she didn't like it so she's loose in the tank.

Are there any early warning signs?

Thanks

 

[vancouver]

The gravid spot should be right behind the back bottom fins (not the tail)

Are the spots small enough to be fry eyes?

 

[Annastasia]

It sounds like a mating dance...I'm guessing it's a male and female? How many males and females do you have total?

Letting her give birth in the tank is the best idea. Floating plants are great places for fry to hide, so that will decrease the chance they'll get eaten. Any other plants/hiding places are good too.

For signs, they may include:

• Increased/Decreased appetite
• Aggression to other fish
• Stay in one spot
• Chasing fish away from her spot
• Lying on the bottom of the tank
• The male may start nipping at her gravid spot. This is most likely to get her to abort so he can have a snack, so it's not espesically good!

Keep in mind, all fish are different. Your's may show all, none, or some.

Also, have you taken a look at the pinned topics and FAQs? Good luck!

 

[sally2]

Hi Thank you .

We can see some eyes in her tummy.Would it be better to switch the light off? How long do you think?

WE have 3 tuxidos (1 m 2 f) 6 mickey mouse (2m 4f) in a 27.5 gallon tank.

In the breeding trap she was banging herself against the walls so we let her out not to cause stress.

thanks for your help.

 

[neon_platy]

Hi Thank you .

We can see some eyes in her tummy.Would it be better to switch the light off? How long do you think?

WE have 3 tuxidos (1 m 2 f) 6 mickey mouse (2m 4f) in a 27.5 gallon tank.

In the breeding trap she was banging herself against the walls so we let her out not to cause stress.

thanks for your help.

i would definitely as they said above let her give birth in the tank...what I did was put a TON of floating plants and stuff to the point that it's crazy hidden...I found at least 10 platy fry and 2 green goodeid fry hanging out in the upper/middle layers of the plants...I'm not sure about the light thing, but I did the same thing once to keep them hidden also one more thing, I bought a tank divider and put all my prego fish in that section kinda as a relaxation area so as to not be harrassed and in hopes they'd give birth, fry would hide in the jungle I built and then I'd have more babies, it worked really well, except i think when the flow from my airstone started moving the plants around, the mother fish would swim into the plants and hunt down the fry....anyway you might not be able to put a divider up, but i would definitely put a ton of floating plants as that has been the tendancy of my platy fry to go up to hide rather than to go down and hide in plants at the bottom...good luck

 

[icecrzy]

Mating Dance?? Can someone please explain in more detail? I've never seen this since I am new to fish & have only had females. Some of my platy fry (2 months) do a sort of dance that seems strange to me, but so far they both appear to show as females. Any ideas?

 

[sally2]

hi ive found the whole situation very stressful - chasing the tiny fry round the tank and they go under the gravel and I cant get them for have to wait. i managed to rescue 4 orange together with a black fry my daughter rescued yesterday .

The plants are a good idea but I'm hoping to put some endlers in as well but although the endlers don't eat their fry the platys do - the dividers are also good but there none that fit my tank.

The platy dance is like they've been electracuted -all fast shaking.

The other thing is my daughter wants a catfish -I think its a bad idea it will eat the fry.