Platy Not Getting Pregnant

[ParadiseGuerrero]

I don't particularly want her to get pregnant but seeing as they get pregnant on a regular basis it seems odd that she isn't.

I have 3 females and one male. The larger female isn't getting pregnant despite the male being there; it's been about about a month now. Is this something I should be worried about? could there be soemthign wrong with the female or male? The other thing is that since I got them (about 8-9 months ago) niether the male or female have gronw and they're still about 3cm (male) 3-4cm (female) nose to tail base. the other two females I got later and have grown a little but not much- they're still no bigger than 4cm.

All eating fine ect.

So can anybody think of a reason for this? Like I said I'm not looking to breed them but it seems incredibley strange and I'm a bit worried

 

[FishBlast]

Aren't Platies normal at 4 cm size?
Also they might have had fry and it got eaten (unless you never saw them getting their belly bigger). Maybe the male is sterile or he never catches them.

I'm still waiting on my swordtail to have fry. She's round as a ball, has a huge black spot, I saw the male mating with her recently too, but they were together for 3 months now and I see her still pregnant but no drop.

 

[OldMan47]

A platy at 4 cm from nose to the base of her tail is a juvenile, not an adult. An adult platy will go at least 6 cm SL, not merely 4 cm. I am sure that older platies who have simply not grown large yet are capable of producing a few fry, but they are far from adult fish.

 

[ParadiseGuerrero]

It's not that I haven't seen her drop but She's not getting pregnant as of about a month ago. So is it something I should be worried about or keep an eye on? Or just be glad I won't we over run with platies any time soon?

 

[FishBlast]

It's not that I haven't seen her drop but She's not getting pregnant as of about a month ago. So is it something I should be worried about or keep an eye on? Or just be glad I won't we over run with platies any time soon?

Could they be turning into males? Not sure if this happens to platy as well...

 

[ParadiseGuerrero]

how would I tell that? ...I didn't think fish could actually change gender

 

[FishBlast]

how would I tell that? ...I didn't think fish could actually change gender

Did the fan-shape fin under the tail base change?
This usually happens to swordtails. They don't change completely, but they no longer give birth and are probably sterile.
Or other times they are already males and look like females for a while.
But in the case of having a female have a drop or more before and then stopping suddenly, they can turn into males - this in swordtail case, but platies are mostly hybridized with swordtails so... it could be possible.

 

[ParadiseGuerrero]

anal fin is still fan shaped

provided this isn't a sign that theres somthing up with her or the male then I really don't mind, it's just a bit odd and figured it was best checking

 

[FishBlast]

anal fin is still fan shaped

provided this isn't a sign that theres somthing up with her or the male then I really don't mind, it's just a bit odd and figured it was best checking

There was only one incidence I've noticed this: my F3 generation of guppies ended up being sterile (either all the females or all the males or both). Normally this shouldn't happen, as inbreeding seems to not cause sterility to fish, however all that batch never had pregnant females and for their entire life, the females just had a very small pinkish dot and no change whatsoever. They died when they were about 1.5 years old, with no pregnancy.
Though water toxins might cause sterility, but I don't know if this is true. (nitrite, ammonia and/or nitrate).

 

[ParadiseGuerrero]

The tank did have a mini-cycle a couple weeks ago for no particular reason- I didn't link it but purhaps that caused it? ammonia rose to about 0.5 and nitrite 1.0 over night.

 

[FishBlast]

The tank did have a mini-cycle a couple weeks ago for no particular reason- I didn't link it but purhaps that caused it? ammonia rose to about 0.5 and nitrite 1.0 over night.

That 1.0 in nitrite is said to cause some damage to fish organs. Now I don't know how resistant fish are to that increase and for how long... Mine had to tolerate that for about a week in the past and yet my swordtails were breeding and so were the former two generations of guppies.
So I'm not sure about it.

 

[OldMan47]

FishBlast: a platy, or any other poeciliid for that matter, will not change gender. Sometimes they are late maturing so you will see a gonopodium develop in one of the typical juveniles they sold you at the LFS. They will never drop fry and then start to develop a gonopodium, see post #4.

Some cichlids, far from all of them, can actually change function from male to female or vice versa when they find themselves in a single sex colony, but that is never true of our livebearers.

According to Darrell Mefford, a rather celebrated fancy swordtail breeder, some of the crosses that are done to establish a new appearance can lead to sterile groups of offspring, so it is entirely possible if you were dealing with an third generation cross, that the fry fell into that category FishBlast. That is not a sex change, it is a generation of sterile fry. These things happen when you are experimenting with crosses.

Nitrite of 1.0 means you had fish that were having trouble getting enough oxygen. Nitrite replaces oxygen in the fish's blood much like carbon monoxide will replace oxygen in our blood. With that reading, I would expect to see fish hanging at the surface trying to get some oxygen.

 

[FishBlast]

FishBlast: a platy, or any other poeciliid for that matter, will not change gender. Sometimes they are late maturing so you will see a gonopodium develop in one of the typical juveniles they sold you at the LFS. They will never drop fry and then start to develop a gonopodium, see post #4.

Some cichlids, far from all of them, can actually change function from male to female or vice versa when they find themselves in a single sex colony, but that is never true of our livebearers.

According to Darrell Mefford, a rather celebrated fancy swordtail breeder, some of the crosses that are done to establish a new appearance can lead to sterile groups of offspring, so it is entirely possible if you were dealing with an third generation cross, that the fry fell into that category FishBlast. That is not a sex change, it is a generation of sterile fry. These things happen when you are experimenting with crosses.

Nitrite of 1.0 means you had fish that were having trouble getting enough oxygen. Nitrite replaces oxygen in the fish's blood much like carbon monoxide will replace oxygen in our blood. With that reading, I would expect to see fish hanging at the surface trying to get some oxygen.

Old females that have dropped fry start growing a tail and a gonopodium sometimes, had it happen to me. But I think it was sterile (as in: cannot function as a male, just has the aspect of one).
There are also reports of the same thing so it isn't an isolated case.

I never said guppies changed gender. I said swordtail female changed appearance to look like a male after having dropped fry before. She was an orange swordtail.
The F3 guppies just never had fertile females, no change in aspect.

Here is a link to a similar case on this forum: http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/273683-why-do-some-female-swordtails-turn-male/

And I have also experienced the late-blooming male swordtail. The fake female looked totally different from the orange one, the belly wasn't round, but still made it look similar to a female. Never got pregnant for several months and then grew a giant yellow sword and then started attacking the other male it was in with.