Pregnant Platy Questions

[juliethegr8t]

Just a few days ago I bought a Platy female who is pregnant. She's pretty darned fat, but I'm worried she may abort since I've heard this is common when transporting heavily pregnant fish. However, would she have already aborted? It's been umm... 3 days, and she seems quite content - she's eating and swimming around pretty actively. If she does abort, it will be obvious, correct? I mean, I would expect she'd be much slimmer and no fry swimming around.

Another question - I would like to know exactly what to look for, if anything, signaling how soon the birth will be. I don't wanna miss this and lose all my babies, my cherry barbs might be feeling particularly hungry that day.. hehe. I have heard the female will get "square", but is this pretty obvious? I'm afraid I'll miss it if it's not. And will she get a gravid spot like guppies? Whew, sorry for all the questions, I'm stressin, it's my first live bearer birth. Right now egg layers are lookin easy! Any extra advice or experiences appreciated! I'm very excited. Thanks!

 

[peter101]

Look at your female from behind if you can. If her belly is almost flat, and she looks kind of sqaure, she'll burst any day and depending on the other fish in your tank and how heavily planted your tank is, if you want to save large amounts of babies i would suggest putting her in a net breeder or a separate tank if possible.
If you are just breeding for the hell of it and it doesnt much matter to you if the fry all survive, leave her in the tank. Only time can tell if she has aborted pregnancy. As time passes, and she get back to normal size, but there are no fry, she has aborted
hope this helps-only from my personal experiance
keep us posted on the fry! good luck

 

[haaris]

its quite hard with the squarish stomach thing but she probably is pregnant and if
she aborts it will be very noticable and she will release withe stuff but she seems
to be doing fine
they lose thier appetite before birth and seem to behave strange
hope this helps