platies have babies?

[Iced Galaxy]

my platy have white tummy and behind it is black. does that mean she have a babies?

[NJ Devils Fan]

Yes, platties are live bearers, which means that they have babies.

[Iced Galaxy]

but i don't have a male for 2 or 3 months in my tank cuz the male dies. i will just keep watch. btw, how long would take the babies to come out?

[kveeti]

Livebearers can store sperm, that is how she can get pregnant without a current male. Gestation is approx 30 days.

[Iced Galaxy]

but is over 2 -3 months. i keep watch.

[BBN]

Originally posted by kveeti
Livebearers can store sperm, that is how she can get pregnant without a current male.

This is why she can get pregnant w/o the male for 2-3 months. Be sure to have some type of thick plants or something they can hide in once they're born.

[Iced Galaxy]

WOW that's long....

[FASTRAKR]

This is freaky, I just went on to put in a post that our Platy had babies and I found this post. Our two females were looking a little bloated the last little while and we thought they might be pregnant, then last night while vacuuming the tank we saw a couple little guys swimming around.

Our question is how do we keep from losing them, if we haven't already, and how long have they been in there? They might be 2mm long and free swiming.

Thanks, and sorry for cutting in on your post.

FASTRAKR

[Iced Galaxy]

is alrite. may be u should use a breeder net next time to keep the fry alive...

[FASTRAKR]

This is actually the first time I have seen a pregnant fish(new to the hobby). At first I just thought that two of them were getting fat, then I realized that the two identical ones were getting fat and the other two identical ones were not.

How do you know when to put them into the net?

On a lighter note, we didn't lose them all. There is atleast one free swimming fry in the tank. Every once in a while we get a glimpse of him/her. Hopefully there are more that we aren't seeing.

[OrionGirl]

I would decide now if you want to try to keep the babies or not. If you do, make sure you can provide a home for them. Live bearers can quickly over run their tank if all the young survive.

If you don't want gobs of them, but would like to see a few from each batch make it (which you will still need to provide living space for), then add some floating plants, a clump of java moss, or some of the plastic breeder mats. This way the fry can get away from the adults. Make sure to crumble some flake food up very small so they fry can eat--they will appreciate the plants more, since they will likely come with a swarm of microfauna the fry can eat.

You can use the breeder boxes if you want, but you'll need to pay attention to the female, and put her in the box a day or so before she gives birth, and you don't want to remove her from the water or stress her when doing this.

[thom336]

as always i seem to be agreeing with oriongirl....but i would strongly advice against using a breeding trap (or breeder net as it has been called here) as they can cause the females to give birth prematurely through stress or, again through stress, abort altogether. as you can guess, they find the breeding traps stressful. i would go with the dense planting method, as those that do survive will be the strongest and fittest of the fry, and hence the healthiest.

hope this helps.

[tricksterpup]

Total agreement with Orion and Thom..
With my livebearers, i tend to keep them in heavily planted tanks were the young can hide. I tend to have a ton of guppies, platies and swordtails. I have always had a bad experience with Breeder nets and containers. Finding dead aborted fry in the net. Never a pretty sight.
jim

[KateA.]

Nice tip to know. I've never kept livebearers cause I don't want the babies. I'll keep that in mind when someone wants to buy one next time.