Pregant

Hi im trying to find out of there pregnant? As when you get a close up there belly towards the tail looks black



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Hi and yes, they are pregnant or rather the correct term is 'gravid'. The black spot you can see is actually the fry's eyes showing through the mothers skin. The fry are curled up in a tiny ball and so this is why you can see their eyes.
 
Do you have a mix of males and females? If so you can expect fry on a regular basis now. The males tend to haress the females and so it's best to keep at least 2 or 3 females to 1 male. If you don't have any males and want the female's to stop producing young I can tell you this can take around 6 months as a female live bearer can hold sperm for up to 6 months. 
 
It's a good idea to remove any fry as male fry will eventually breed with their mother and sisters and this can lead to birth defects and it also helps to weaken the species. Many local fish stores will take in the fry but most in the U.K won't give you anything for them as they have a plentiful supply

Oh yes...expect to be inundated with babies!
 
I had a similar problem with my mollies until I re-homed the male. My biggest female is still producing fry, it's almost 6 months since he went now so she should have run out of sperm soon! All the fish shops that I know of who take fish won't take livebearers (although my experience is fairly limited!) I managed to shift all of my fry through aquarist-classifieds.co.uk. Good luck...
 
I never did a thing for my fry, they stayed in the same tank as the adults, I didn't even feed them anything special but they all survived - if you do want to keep them it's a good idea to get another tank since you'll need the space anyway, even if you don't separate them when they're born, but you will be getting anywhere from 2-40 from each female every month! If you have any other bigger fish they can perform natural population control by eating them - most people say that the adults will eat their own fry, in my case that never happened though...

Yes i have a mix of male and females. Just had baby guppies lol there in the nursery tank. Just wasn't sure as its easy to see the black spot on them. How long do you think they have to go as i have 2 floating hatcherys. Thank you for replying i have mollies,plattys, guppies,neon and glow light tetra 2 pepper corys and 1 albino pleco. My mam wants some and my partner's dad has just reset up his 3 ft tank. so they will be going to brilliant homes

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Also got a female guppie expecting

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the peppered cories need some friends. Cories are a shoaling species and need groups of 5 or 6 of their own kind so you really need to add 3 or 4 more peppered cories. The tetra's are the same - a shoaling species and will need a group of 6 or more of their own species - you don't say though how many of those you have but I just wanted to check you knew this
 
As to the live bearers - I once had a female guppy that dropped around 170 fry in one go. I thought she had dropsy as her scales were sticking out. I had the 'death jug' ready, I netted her and then she dropped a fry ... and then another ... and an hour later I was setting up an emergency 'aquarium' ... which was actually a plastic storage box! My lfs loved me when I turned up with the bag full of guppies!
They don't call them 'millions fish' for nothing 

I have many tetra in groups i have 4 corys did have 5 but lost one a few weeks back. Just havent got round get getting a few more yet.

Neon's i have 10
Glow lights 10
Black neon's 10
They all stick together

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Well everyone one of my mollys is in the hatchery just in time shes on having her fry

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Akasha72 said:

 
It's a good idea to remove any fry as male fry will eventually breed with their mother and sisters and this can lead to birth defects and it also helps to weaken the species. 

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 In what way does it help to weaken the species , what problems have you had with breading Livebearers    

Just wanted to up date. here are my molly and platy fry.

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fish48 said:

 

 
It's a good idea to remove any fry as male fry will eventually breed with their mother and sisters and this can lead to birth defects and it also helps to weaken the species. 

Click to expand...

 In what way does it help to weaken the species , what problems have you had with breading Livebearers    
 

Click to expand...

 
 
Like any creature on the planet breeding mother's to son's father's to daughter's and sister's to brother's can cause birth defects. In fish it's usually bent spines ... this is what I've seen mostly.
I have read that it is this practice that has weakened what once were hardy fish. My Dad kept guppies and platies when I was a kid. They were seriously hardy and lived long lives. It's well documented that this is no longer the case

Inbreeding never goes well! It's a funny one, since in the wild some populations are so small that they must all be related - but then their gene pool is kept healthy because even though they may be closely related, they still have all the difficulties of survival to contend with, meaning that the ones which make it to sexual maturity are strong and healthy, with good genes. In captivity, the fish are in safe environments with no predators so the weaker fish breed, and any genetic abnormalities get passed on and effectively concentrated. I wonder how much the immune problems are down to tanks being too sterile, so that the fish are never exposed to natural pathogens which weakens their immune systems through under-exposure? 
 
That bent spine thing is interesting - I assume that's how all the balloon varieties of various fish came about!
 
BTW, I have no idea if any of this is accurate, I'm just typing as I'm thinking!
 

chrisdenyer said:

 
I assume that's how all the balloon varieties of various fish came about!
 

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Yes, that's exactly how they came about and this is the reason I refuse to buy any 'balloon' type fish.
 
It's the same as the Norwegian Ridgeback dog ... that breed came about from a birth defect. I was told that the 'ridgeback' is actually the dog version of spina bifida 

Akasha72 said:

 

 


 
It's a good idea to remove any fry as male fry will eventually breed with their mother and sisters and this can lead to birth defects and it also helps to weaken the species. 

Click to expand...

 In what way does it help to weaken the species , what problems have you had with breading Livebearers    
 

Click to expand...

 
 
Like any creature on the planet breeding mother's to son's father's to daughter's and sister's to brother's can cause birth defects. In fish it's usually bent spines ... this is what I've seen mostly.
I have read that it is this practice that has weakened what once were hardy fish. My Dad kept guppies and platies when I was a kid. They were seriously hardy and lived long lives. It's well documented that this is no longer the case
 


with due respect you read about some of the problems that can be caused by inbreeding of fish and assume that it’s a bad thing. What amazes me is when people talk about a fish with a bent spine and assume it’s to do with inbreeding .
A few things that can also cause bent spines for example disease, old age, incorrect feeding, temperature, and of course water quality.
I can remember more than 30 years ago going to my local pet store and buying some guppies and asking many questions on how to keep and breed them. The one thing that has always stuck in my mind was when the assistant said don’t let them inbreed as it can be bad. at first I worried about them inbreeding But Soon after and  With success breeding loads of guppies I just let them get on with it
 and let them inbreed with each other. I then started breeding sword tails, moly’s, and platies, all been bread in the same manner I rarely find any problems with inbreeding  livebearers.
On a recent visit to a friends fish house and looking at some of he’s fancy guppies. he showed me a nice pair of top sword guppies that he had bought and a number of young that were all born deformed /bent spines he said the cause of it was through breeding brothers and sisters. I was not convinced. I asked if I could have some to experiment with he said of course and gave me two pairs.
They soon produced fry and have grown up into adults and are producing the next generation of fry so far they are all doing well I have not found any problems with deformities. i believe the cause of the problem may be due to a change of environments .

Akasha72 said:

 

 
I assume that's how all the balloon varieties of various fish came about!
 

Click to expand...

 
Yes, that's exactly how they came about and this is the reason I refuse to buy any 'balloon' type fish.
 
It's the same as the Norwegian Ridgeback dog ... that breed came about from a birth defect. I was told that the 'ridgeback' is actually the dog version of spina bifida 
 

Click to expand...

 
 
yeah, I've never liked the idea of the balloon varieties! There are so many breeds of pretty much every domesticated animal which are hideously malformed...half of which have serious internal problems as well as the visible physical deformations, because someone decided that they liked the look of it with no knowledge of what else was going on.....Argh!!!
 
BTW, I'm not intending to offend anyone who does keep balloon varieties, they all need a good home! Who can really say how 'happy' any captive fish is, and in a way there's not much difference between breeding a variety of fish with an aesthetically pleasing physical deformity and selectively breeding for any other trait (usually colour I suppose) - there's always a chance that the overall strength of the fish is compromised, as it has been with guppies, neon tetras and however-many-other fish. A proper ethical can of worms....