Pregnant Platty?

[sgreen]

im quite new to tropical fish and believe 2 of my plattys are pregnant. i have 3 female sunset plattys and 1 male orange platty. two of my females have had a gravid spot for around 3 weeks but have not got any fatter and the third had no gravid spot but is very fat and hides behind the filter. im a bit confused about them all. any one have any ideas whats goin on??

 

[matt_99]

I have similar issue... and one of them died the other day.

 

[sgreen]

well i was starting to think the fat 1 migh have dropsy but it swims around fine and has no other signs of illness

 

[sgreen]

still no fry and very confused about my fish. Any one know whats happening?

 

[nosoup4you]

The presence or absence of a gravid spot isn't really a good indicator. If you could get us some pics it would be most helpful.

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum SGreen.
As NoSoup mentioned, the so called gravid spot is very misleading in many of our common livebearers. In a molly that has any color to its skin, the gravid spot cannot be seen but the fish do reproduce, . In many fish like guppies, a gravid spot will appear whether or not the fish is carrying fry. Instead of going by the color or size of a female, I keep an eye on her shape. A squared off shape of a female means she is close to a drop while a large size could be nothing more than eating well. A gravid spot is even less reliable than a large size. Try having a look at this girl. The picture was taken the day before she dropped 30 fry. You cannot see her gravid spot, she is not especially heavy looking but her belly is definitely squared off.