Platys And Guppy Propblem

[Lil_Aimz]

First off i have a mummy guppy she gave birth 1 week and 2 days ago to only 5 fry but 1 died, is this normal amount because i recon she ate some i only left her for half hour came back and there were fry swimming in home made breeding trap. But the problem is she still has a black gravid spot and fairly fat and squared, is there somethink wrong? she seems fine.

Finaly my micky mouse platy a black gravid spot and has been like that for a bout 5 days, she has a tiny white bump under her anal fin and is starting to look squared but her backend still not dropped as much as her front, it has dropped a little. Help when will she give birth? i dont want to put her in a breeding trap, i thought id just catch the babies i find and put them in there is that ok?

 

[KittyKat]

All female livebearers permanently have gravid spots, regardless of whether they are virgin or pregnant.

It is *much* better to let females give birth in the tank and then remove the babies with a net because most breeding nets are very stressful environments for the fish.

Female livebearers usually give birth to around 10-200 fry, but 30-60 is most common for young females like yours are, although first birthing can have as few as 5-15 young.

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Lil_Aimz.

I agree completely that I would rather have a fish drop in the tank compared to a drop in a trap. I often place a gravid female in its own drop tank and leave it there awaiting the drop. That gives me high survival rates of fry with no real stress on the female. If you move the female back to the main tank after the drop you have a situation of fry in their own tank and can go into a feeding and water change regime to promote good growth.

A drop from a young female could easily be only a very few fry. In the wild, guppy drops run at less than 5 fry for an average drop. Domestic guppies often will show 20 to 50 fry for a large mature female.

Losing 20% of a drop is not expected but can be accepted. On a drop of 30 fry I sometimes will see one or two die but I do not try to raise fry in traps. If the 1 that I lose happens to be among the 5 you collected, losing 1 in 5 is OK.

Your platy sounds close to a drop but it is hard to say without a clear picture.

 

[creeker]

I'm also not a big fan of the breeding traps. Just make sure you have a lot of bushy plants for the fry to hide in until you can remove them. I have a few plastics that I put in for that purpose. The average number of fry I see from guppies and platies is usually around 30-40.

 

[This Old Spouse]

While I had my guppies, since I wasn't trying to breed them for numbers I'd just keep all the females in one tank and let the fry fend for themselves. The tank was heavily planted so the fry had lots of places to hide. I still had high numbers of surviving fry, and the moms weren't stressed.