Sword Tail Giving Birth!

[euroandrew]

She Is Giving birth as we speak! she has been popping out fry for the past few hours, theres about 30 or 40 on the bottom of the breader tank.




How long should I wait before putting her back into the main tank? shes not as fat anymore but still has a gravid spot. She has only eaten 2 so far, but a few fish are swimming up in her part of the Breeding tank. Should I feed the fry or the mother yet?

Lol 2 more questions:

There are a few fry sitting on the bottom of the feader they are tiny and not moving much.. are they resting or
premature (dead)? and is there anything I need to do? or just watch nature run its course.

Andy

 

[kribensis12]

Take the mom out after she stops giving birtha dn the ones that arent moving are probably dead.

 

[euroandrew]

shes stopped. she was starting to freak out so I put her back in the main tank.

oh ok... soo when should I feed the fry?.. will most of them die throughout the night?

because theres only about 20-25 moving now.

 

[theotheragentm]

Having stillborn fry is not uncommon. I would do it like popcorn. Move her out as soon as you no longer have fry shooting out constantly. She may give birth to a few more in the main tank, but normally she will birth most of them immediately finishing up over the next twenty four hours.

 

[helterskelter]

Ye move the mum out and the sure some fry may be dead, but they will soon have no colour and be visabily dead,

How ever you need to watch out as a lot of livebearers have problems filling their tiny swinbladders with gas, keep them in shallow water as they may need to get to the surface to get the gasses needed, once their filled they will swim propley.

Feed the fry on crushend flake food about 24 hours after birth, they should feed striate away.

 

[euroandrew]

They are looking good today, I removed the dead ones.. but I have about 20 swimming at the top looking a bit bigger even after one night!.
I have put in some leaves so that they have somewhere to hide and they look happy. Should I try to feed them tonight? or start tomorow morning?

= Andy

 

[helterskelter]

if their swimming of and on the surfae then try them with a little flake food.

 

[euroandrew]

they are all swimming around alot and sitting ont he surface but when I put some tiny crushed up flakes they didnt touch it.

I go the dead fry out with a plastic spoon, but I cant get the left over flakes out that are on the bottom.. what should I do?

- Andy

 

[helterskelter]

takes time for them to realise that they can eat it, they will lurn soon.

 

[theotheragentm]

Yeah, to add to helterskelter, they don't eat right away necessarily, partially due in fact that they may have a bit of egg sack leftover that they can feed off of when they are first born.

 

[roman]

congrats!

my platty had fry about 3 weeks ago

i had a bunch that weren't moving the day she was giving birth i thought they were dead but the next day i saw them gone and then i also saw alot more fry than when i first counted the fry that weren't moving started swimming!

they are probally in shock like mine were because they were just born and don't know what to do as they just got out...give it a da y

 

[theotheragentm]

congrats!

my platty had fry about 3 weeks ago

i had a bunch that weren't moving the day she was giving birth i thought they were dead but the next day i saw them gone and then i also saw alot more fry than when i first counted the fry that weren't moving started swimming!

they are probally in shock like mine were because they were just born and don't know what to do as they just got out...give it a da y

Most likley what you saw were new fry and the fry that weren't moving were probably eaten.

 

[mnbyiuopre]

they are all swimming around alot and sitting ont he surface but when I put some tiny crushed up flakes they didnt touch it.

I go the dead fry out with a plastic spoon, but I cant get the left over flakes out that are on the bottom.. what should I do?

- Andy

Well, I havemy fry in a net righ now and all of my fish will suck up all the food that goes to the bottom! If that doesn't work than you have to kinda push the net down so that the food moves up.

 

[GuppyGirl<3]

when my guppy gave birth a few weeks ago the babies wouldn't eat for about 24 hours than when i moved them to there own tank after a like 15 minutes they started to eat everything they swarmed the sponge filter and the extra food on the bottom grew a coting of more food when ever they were hungry and i wasn't at home they would eat that and they are huge for just 2 and a half weeks old its amazing and i make crushed flake food by putting it in a really really clean coffee grinder and grind it up and its great for there little months now yesterday at 2 weeks and 3 days old they started eating freeze dried blood worms

 

[millym]

hi & congrats
i used to use a little bit of leftover airpump tubing as a little syphon to suck out old flake etc from the bottom of our breeder box, id tape the other end of the tubing to a plastic jug & hold the jug just a little lower than the level of the breeder box ( outside the main tank) so the suction wasnt too great whilst syphoning the muck out.much less risk of sucking up the fry & it worked well. i also feed our fry powdered flake to start off with, crush it up with a spoon or something till its a fine powder.