Fry With Bent Spines. What Would You Do?

[ripil]

i pretty much think of bent spines in my guppy fry like a birth mark. wish it hadn't happened but love em all the same. altho i've only ever had one with a bent spine and he/she is growing well.

 

[snazy]

Got some videos for you below. It is not perfectly visible, but pictures were even worse.

First video is of the deformed fry in the adult tank. You should be able to see 2 blonde and one half black fry(2 brothers and a sister). I could not see the 4th blonde one so wondering if he got eaten?

Second video is the fry tank with normal fry. The 3 reddish males are 7 weeks old. They are the older brothers of the deformed fry in the first video.
The rest of the fry in the fry tank are 4 weeks, 2 and 1/2 weeks and some babies including a platy at less than a week old.

Sorry for the background noise, please turn off the volume prior to watching


Deformed Fry:

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=44kbUJ4x8Mk


Fry tank

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwOUo7KY1xY

 

[fish48]

your deformed fry look happy enough they will probably live a normale life. don't breed with them just to be on the safe side as you have other good healthy fry. it is always best to breed with the best of the fry i my self discard all deformed fry however on a number of times i have bred from deformd fry one reason is because i was given a perfect single pair of rare goodeid livearer Goodea atripinnis laguna opopeo ) to get them in good breeding condition i feed them well on a variety of live foods female soon become graved i then removd the male as i didint whant the female to get to stressed. she gave birth to 20 fry a few were born dead the rest of them were just under a inch long and were bent up almost dubbed and seemd to to look a bit on the weak side (The reason why the fry turned out this way was due to over feeding live foods) i removed them to a shalow tank to recover. after a few days the fry started to straighten out look and swim normal. unfortunately not long after my adult female gave birth she suddenly died however i was glad to still have some fry to bred with after a few weeks I noticed the fry had Slightly bent dorsal fins however I did not and do not believe for a second that this Slight deformity has as any thing to do with inbreeding . I have since grown them on to adults and cut down on the live foods well females are graved. they have since had fry and None of them bent up or deformed, i know of one person in the uk with this fish and they are from my stocks
Although it is best adding new blood or fresh stocks) It is not all ways possible to do this with some of the rarer fish

 

[Cazgar]

It's all about quality of life.
If they can swim ok, & can compete with the others for food, & don't seem to be struggling then, I would let them live, but in a separate tank so they don't breed

 

[snazy]

Thanks for your advice everyone.

Hoping to get a new tank in max 3-4 weeks time to sort out this.

 

[snazy]

Just on a side note. I mentioned previously that I saved 2 fry from the third batch of the same blonde female and moved them to the fry tank. I have noticed that in general for some reason guppy tend to chase blonde fry more than the grey ones, but didn't expect fry to eat fry. I kind of saw they attacked them in a way once I put them in a week ago, but didn't take much notice until one of blondes disappeared. I did a bigger tank clean up yesterday, and there was only one of them left.
Today, I looked to see if the second one is still alive and what can I tell you..... There is such a big chunk missing of the middle of his tail that he looks like a lyretail . I had left the poor thing to fend for itself, although I saw that everytime it was trying to get a bit of food, the bigger fry were chasing straigh away.

Now he is in the breeder box getting special treatment.

One of my platies also gave birth the same day this guy was born, but I only saw one survivor the other day, who is doing well in the fry tank. I was fixing some lose plant in the adult tank today and I saw a fry that I initially thought was another blonde fry from the guppy batch. A clever little thing took me an hour to catch and I had a lot more plant fixing afterwards Well, when I put him in the breeder box in the fry tank to keep company to the other blonde fry, I actually noticed it is a platy. By being left fending for himself in the adult tank he is only half the size of his sibling that I saved previously, and his stomach is so flat, that he nearly looks like a guppy fry.

The bent spines fry are looking ok and surviving, but not doing too much growing compared to the ones in the fry tank. Since they are not sexually mature yet I may put them back in the fry tank for now to get fattened with the rest of the savages.

 

[snazy]

Yesterday the juvenile female guppies joined the adult female guppies in my main tank.

All males are in the fry tank until they grow and I get a new aquarium to themselves.

I was surprised that the ratio of the fry males to females is half and half, maybe a couple less females.

The only downside is that the grown females tend to eat most of the food before the small females get any chance

At least I can control the breeding this way.

Thanks again for all your responses.

 

[fish48]

looks like a lyretail lol
one of my not so peaceful Livebearers jumped from its tank into the guppy with in a few
hours had bite out Enough chunks to create a nice looking crown tail type guppy lol.



before


and after

 

[tmh0921]

Hi all,
It's time for a new thread.

I have that lovely blond guppy, that previously gave birth and the fry so far turned out looking very good. So 21 days after, she was looking really due... Since the first time I only saw 4 survivors, I decided to move out her 3 tank mates in my bigger tank, to give her some space and be able to save more fry. The moment I did that, she started hanging around the filter and heater on one spot and looking really stressed. I thought it is because she is close to giving birth and wasn't worried too much. And I was right, the next morning there were fry in the tank, and the guppy was still looking stressed. I started collecting them, there were about 10, but the fry could not swim!! They were in by breeder tank with their yolk sacs still attached and looking very premature. I thought they would all die, but they all survived( I killed one by accident when moving them from one breeder trap to the other).

I waited about a day or two for the mother to recover, but she was looking even more stressed, standing on one spot all the time. Then I thought she is maybe missing her buddies, so here she went to the big tank where her previous tank mates were moved. Well, I could nearly see that fish smiling I am telling you, straight after that she joined the group of her friends and never looked stressed any more.

Unfortunately, 3 of the blonde and 1 of the grey fry she gave birth to turned out to have bent spines. All of tthese fry are not growing really fast, although the rest of the fry in the same tank born from the same female and my other females are corouring and growing rapidly, so it is not the tank conditions, but rather them being premature. Of course, they were half the size of a normal fry, but still..

However, what's done is done. Since I don't really want guppies with deformities to pass on the genes, I recently decided to move them to the adult tank to get eaten(cruel I know). Well, they are there for a week now and are happilly surviving the constant chases of the adult females, which seem to be less and less severe now. The fry are even swimmming freely in the open now.

So there is no way I can cull them/kill them. I don't have the heart for it. Although not great looking, they are happy and healthy looking in a way.

What would you guys do if you were me?

 

[snazy]

I may be getting a new aquarium next week if I am lucky so the males will eventually get a big home.
The curved spine males seem to look a bit better so far after growing a bit. I think once they get their body coloring and the spine is not that visible it may not look that bad and they are healthy otherwise. The female with the spine going upward in the other tank is the smallest of that batch of fry, but may turn out to be a good looking fish as her body looks almost fully black. If it wasn't for the gravid spot I would think she is a male. There is another one like that with the males, that I can't figure out the sex yet. All the body to the tip of the head is black, which is kind of impossible for a female, but it seems to have a gravid spot?

Forgot to mention, the fry that had his tail bitten, has grown it back and is not a "lyretail" anymore

 

[OldMan47]

Regardless of the fish looking somewhat better as adults, don't allow those fish to breed or you will get more of the same. To prevent breeding, it is enough to move all of the males to one tank and the deformed females to another. You could put the groups into two of your community tanks.

 

[snazy]

Regardless of the fish looking somewhat better as adults, don't allow those fish to breed or you will get more of the same. To prevent breeding, it is enough to move all of the males to one tank and the deformed females to another. You could put the groups into two of your community tanks.

The point is they aren't too damaged to affect their quality of life.
As for breeding, females and males are already separated(Does anyone want any virgin guppy ) I am just waiting on another tank to move the males to as they will outgrow the fry tank pretty quick. I'll be picky what to breed, so I doubt it the poor guys will ever see a female

 

[XeroTolerance]

Sounds like a good plan. Exactly what I would do.

 

[snazy]

Update.

All male guppy and platy fry will eventually live in a 90G, which is still empty but will start setting it up as soon as I have everything delivered for it. I put this video on my other thread, but realised how good to see are the two males with bent spines on it. They are the blond/colourless ones that look a bit rough
They are happy though bless them.

Turn off the volume!!!

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5fkdsKitlw

 

[XeroTolerance]

Nice vid.