Hooray a baby! / Question about different colored fish

[wschalle]

My 3 female Blue-Grey platies came with extras... Only one appears to have survived, and it is about a centimeter long. It looks like a female, but its hard to tell. It poked its head out of my java moss today to nab a big piece of flake food that got overlooked. I was very excited.

I have them(the three adults) in a tank with 1 female and 3 male Red Wag platies. The blue-grey ones are bulging again... One looks like it will explode any day now.

That single poor RW female has had a gravid spot for 2 months straight, and I think something may be wrong with her reproductive system. It showed up one day, and has been there ever since, with no sight of any young-uns...

Will the male RWs mate with the BGs? Will it be an awesome mix of colors, or a drab flat mixture of orange and blue/grey?

 

[Nuriel]

My female guppy has ben in my 20 gallon since June. I had prior to her, two males and two other females. They all died except for one male, so I got the female (the same one I have now) Ever since I had her she has had a prominant gravid spot but never has had babies. I think she may be stressed or she realizes with the others in the tank that her young wont be safe. I have read that if they dont ffel secure and safe they will not have their young. Of course, I honestly dont know..I know of people who have seen sucessful livebearing in tanks full of multiple species.... I think it just depends on the fish maybe.
As for the color- I have no idea. It would be fun to see the results.

 

[NatakuTseng]

Water quality, diet, and water tempature play a huge role in the reproductive cycles of livebearers. A female may not give birth for a long time if these things aren't met. Water temp around 80, a high protein diet for platies and guppies along with swordtails, and clean water will speed up the process. Yes both of the color varients of your platies will interbreed, they are the same species just different colors. On average most of the common livebearers, guppies, mollies, swordtails and platies will give birth, if all the conditions to do so are met, about once a month. Though I currently have a female guppy that gives birth every 2-3 weeks to fairly large batches. Platies also as a general rule of thumb won't eat their own fry, so you will probably have a large population boom quickly, keep that in mind. Another factor may be the male to female ratio in your tank. You should have at least 2 females for every male in the tank due to the harassing factor and the increased stress the males cause to the females. This could also hold the birthing process up as the females seek out a spot in the tank where they won't be disturbed, but this would be very hard if she had 3 males constantly harassing her.

 

[wschalle]

Thanks for the info on water temperature. My water quality is usually very good, though I have been overfeeding a tad lately.
I am going to start feeding frozen tubifex and spirulina flakes to help out the diet, but I don't know exactly how much to feed them of the tubifex. Should I let the cube defrost, then just put a little bit in? I did that today and the big fish thought it was poop. They just spit it back out. My baby fish loved all the leftovers though, and now her belly is fat. I fed my danios in the other tank some, and they devoured it like candy...

Should I forget the frozen stuff and just go with freeze dried tubifex?

My 3 grey girls are about to explode...