my husband bought home a few females plattys yesterday and it appears one of them is pregnant. however im not entirely sure. i have added a link to my online album so you can have a look at a photo for me. im in a bit of a quandry as i dont have a spare pump to set her up in a tank and im sure these fish will need aeration to survive and i know if she births in the main tank i will prob lose all the babies.

is there anything i can do in the tank other than a breeder net to keep the bubs safe?

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t8/fish...um/100_1290.jpg

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She's pretty. I can see a dark area in the back which could mean that she has babies in there. Aside from moving her or any babies to another tank or a net breeder, to help provide more cover in the main tank, you can add real or fake plants or even a ball of loose white (no dye) nylon yarn to the tank. Depending on the tank size and what animals are in there, the babies may all be eaten or some could survive. They also sell tank dividers for the smaller tanks to separate fish.

Yeah I totaly agree good cover lots of plants, I have a large tank with platies, guppies, mollies and a big fat goldfish provided you have a good amount of dense plant you wil be suprised at how many manage to survive.
My best was finding 15 babies during a water change then finding a further 6 a few hours later !
If you have tetras, neons and the like , the babies will not do as well as they will get eaten by these fish.
Gestation lasts about a month and I have found that they favour birthing at night it always happens I come down in the morning and fing babies everywhere !

thanks guys

she is pretty isnt she?? :) *proud mum* :)

i decided to go down and buy a pump and airstone etc as i found a pet shop that sold them cheap enough for me (why does everything happen two days before pay day and why must we insist in putting money in a savings account we cant touch until we have a certain amount lol) anyhoo i moved her into her own tank so i can rest easy knowing all i need to worry about is her eating her babies :)

i was a little concerned about her being stressed from the moving but she seems reasonably the same as she was in the big tank. she is eating and swimming around quite contentedly. i think in a way it was a relief for her as my male platty was chasing her non stop so i guess shes enjoying the peace and quiet.

i do have some more questions about gestation etc. is there anyway i can judge how far along she is? now i have her in the non-lit tank i cant really take any more pictures that are worth posting but the dark mass in her belly extends about 2mm past her poop shoot. she is still swimming up the top and all over the place and doesnt seem to hindered by her belly yet. will she prey on her babies straight away or do i have a window of time? how big will they be? i have a general idea on feeding...finely crush up normal flakes i believe is ok. how often should i change their water? do i need to do the same as far my main tanks or more often?

i hate asking people so many questions but between my snail constantly laying eggs and unexpected platty pregnancies im left with all these situations i know little about :) and im the last person to deny any little creature a life through ignorance :)

thank you for all your help so far, maybe one day i can post something to answer a question rather than asking them all the time :)

emily

oh i nearly forgot, do i need to feed her any extra than normal while shes pregnant?

It would be hard to tell how far along she is. You normally go by how big she is but that also depends on how many babies are in there.

If there's a lot of cover, she should miss eating a lot of the babies. She probably won't eat them at first because she'll be tired from birthing but she can eat them at any time. Once they unravel, the babies will be about 5 mm long I'm guessing.

Crushed flakes may work. For more details on raising fry, see http://www.fishpondinfo.com/breed.htm
How much water you change depends on how big the tank is, what's in it, how many fish, and so on. A small partial water change every few days is normally enough.

You shouldn't need to feed her any differently, just be sure she gets enough food, especially protein.

Watch her behavior when she is relly masive she will star hanging aroung shelters spots, Ive seen mine do it she swims around the fake plants I have as if looking for a place to wher she cam give birth then the next da she was totally thin and there were babies every where !
As a rough guide by my recent batch she could have around 60 babies !
She does not need to eat more but give her live food such as bloodworms this will help the babies develop better an dshe will like the change to i'm sure !
I've also seen that like crocs she will go into a birthing trance and pay no attention to what is going on around her when she starts to show interest in her offspring it is time to remove her as she will have finished doing her stuff (even if she still looks fat).
As with any fish thing the best thing is vigilance,keep an eye for the signs and you will be knee deep in babie fish good luck !!!!

thanks guys

thats a big help. even more helpful now as i just scored a job at a pet shop the other day and they have lugged me with 2 pregnant swordtails and 2 pregnant mollies. tank space is rapidly running out there as until today the males and females of all our livebearers were kept together. there are babies everywhere and more pregnant females than you can poke a stick at. so today i had this amazing idea...seperate them!!!! lol so i spent half the day seperating the mollies, guppies, swordtails and platys so hopefully i wont be bringing home any more prgnant girls but for now i have many babies on the way...call it a baptism of fire if you will lol

the two mollies, a silver and a beautiful chocolate colored one, are heavily pregnant and was a little concerned about bringing them home and stressing them out but so far they seem to have settled in really well. the two swordtails are less pregnant and also seem to have settled in well. so yes, soon i should be knee deep in babies and i cant wait to see all the little fellas.

i hear platys dont often become cannibalistic but im not sure about the other two. any thoughts on this?

Guppies are a bugger for eating their young, mollies on the other hand are quite good mothers and will often ignore their offspring for a while.
I don't really know about swordtails but they seem alot like platies so they should also be relitivly ok.
Now you have mollies you need to put a little aquarium salt in the water, trust me the will benifit greatly and the platies and swords wont mind it either, I think it is about a tea spoon per gallon or something I have seen a marked imrovement in the health of my mollies since I put it in- they kept on dying off for no reason.
As a guide to off-spring amounts swords will have between 80 and 120 babies and mollies have around 70 as their sproggs are quite big though they can have more.
Enjoy being a mum to all those new fish !

thanks for that. yeah i bought home some salt with me yesterday but i wasnt sure about whether or not it would be any good for the gouramis and fighter fish in the tank. i can always take them out if need be which i was thinking of doing anyway to try and avoid them eating bubs. i didnt have a heap of plants in the tank so until i get more, ive moved pretty much all the plants into one corner and put a few other things there that bubs can hide in. i dont have anywhere near the resouces to give them all their own tank. but as i find the fry i could move them. i have another 20L (5 u.s. gallons) tank set up that has been cycling with a couple of my guppies for the past week or so. can i move them that young?

thank you for all your help so far
emily (50 questions girl lol)

It sounds like you'll soon have a lot of firsthand experience with livebearers and their babies! The mollies can take up to a tablespoon per gallon. Actually, they can even be adapted to saltwater over time but brackish is best. For most fish, I do a tablespoon per 5 gallons of salt. The other livebearers might like about a tablespoon per 3 gallons or so. If you're putting them all together, that sounds about right.

It boggles the mind that a hundred liveborn babies could issue forth from a not-that-big mother fish.

It boggles the mind that a hundred liveborn babies could issue forth from a not-that-big mother fish.[I]

im still trying to figure that one out myself lol with one of my swords you can see right into her belly and you can see the little pink things with their black eyes hehe its amazing to me. it just wanna know where she puts them all lol

so basically if i add 1 tsp per 5 gallons to start i should be safe? should i take my gouramis and fighters out?

cant wait to see all the little squidgy babies :)

It's a tablespoon (Tbsp) per 5 gallons not a teaspoon (tsp). Gouramis and bettas can take that amount. That's how much I have in all my tanks. The mollies like more, maybe a tablespoon per gallon or two. The other livebearers like it in between which is why I suggested a tablespoon per 3 gallons.

awesome

thank you :)

will the salt harm the baby snails at all?

Hi gouramigirl

Congrats on your new job at the pet shop.Soon you will have tanks all around the house.I know because I am doing the same thing.I started with a goldfish tank.Then I got another tank for guppies and other fish.Then the guppies had babies so I needed another tank for them.I don't work at a pet shop but if I did I would want to bring everything home.
Good Luck with the job.
swampview

Aquarium salt at a level of a tablespoon per 5 gallons will not harm any snails or baby snails.

thanks :) it is hard to work there and not bring everything home :) so much cool stuff but im slowly but surely building my tanks up at wholesale prices ;)

im also fighting to urge to end up with tanks everywhere. i started off with a female fighter and a three spot gourami and now all of a sudden i have a gourami tank and live bearer tank and a guppy tank (with only males) hopefully they dont multiply too much more :)

thanks for the info re: snails robyn. i forgot to ask about the neon tetras but they seem to be doing ok in there :)