Birth control

[Minnie]

I have a 10 gallon tank that it a month old and not finished cycling yet. The ammonia levels are finally dropping, nitrites and nitrates going up. I had bought a pregnant Mickey Mouse Platy, not on purpose, and now the darn thing is having babies. It had another today, so we're up to 3 babies, 2 platys and 2 dwarf blue gouramis. What should I do? The woman at the fish store said that they won't take it back and gave me a method for euthanizing fish :eek: Is that what I should do? And do you euthanize the momma or the babies? I don't want to end up with a tank full of platys.

Any advice appreciated.

[Redeyes]

best reply - find another fish store! see if they'll take the babies (and maybe your business as well...). i don't know how many more births you'll get, but it could be quite a few, so you may do well to try and get rid of the mother as well.
as for euthanasia, i would say try your best to give them away first. it's the nice thing to do!

[Redeyes]

i remember i had this problem with a molly a couple of years back, the darn thing just wouldn't stop popping them out! i did a bit of phoning around and managed to find a LFS that would take the babies, although only once they'd grown a little (after about 3 weeks).

PS the species profile says platies can eat their fry, so maybe she'll solve the problem for you?? :)

[victimizati0n]

I hope you know that euthanizing means killing.

[daveedka]

I hope you know that euthanizing means killing.

I'm pretty sure no one is confused on that.



I would let nature take it's course if it will, if not give them away. Then I'd get rid of the female as soon as I could. trying another LFS is a good idea, sometimes you will get better results elsewhere. Even if you givethem to the lfs, they might end up in a good home

[becky_e]

The adult fish will eat the babies. I never once thought of a female platy having babies as a big problem. When I had them, if I had the time, I would fish the little guys out and try to raise them to adulthood, I did have a few successes. If not, I'd let the fry swim around in the tank until the other fish ate them. Any female livebearer (platy, molly, swordtail) will have a lot of babies if there's a male in the tank.

[TKOS]

Most likely the gouramis will do the deed for you and munch most of the babies. I never try to put any of my babies down but I also don't do anything special to help them survive. The strongest do, the weaker ones get eaten quickly.

[eclipse96]

The platy we have has always been fat but we thought that's just the way they are untill today we saw that her scales are sticking out more like she is going to burst. So now she is in the baby room just in case. Should we be expecting soon???

Thanks

Us

[Boohoo]

If her scales are sticking out it sounds more like she mave have dropsy.