I Got Platys!

[goldfish98]

I'm pretty sure its female. 

 

[KieranBoyne]

Well, you will almost definitely have platy fry. they are livebearers which means that they give birth to live young. Plus, since their last "session"

 they can store sperm for 6 months from that point. So, lots of babies is very likely.

 

[goldfish98]

Oooo how fun. I was wondering if one of them was pregnant. It looks a tad fat. 

 

[daizeUK]

Almost definitely
 
I keep red mickey mouse platies and sunsets, I'd love to see pics of yours!

 

[goldfish98]

Sure, heres a video. View My Video

 

[daizeUK]

Lol at you chasing them around the tank with the camera!
 
Lovely platies, I like those yellow colours.  Both look female.  Sometimes they can surprise you if one turns out to be a late-developing male!  I can't tell if they're pregnant though, they don't look very fat to me.

 

[goldfish98]

The sunburst platy looks a little chubby. The camera won't really pick it up though.

 

[goldfish98]

Whats the chance of having fry survive? 

 

[daizeUK]

The adult platies will eat the fry if they see them.  Your tank doesn't have much cover for fry to hide in.  I used to get 0-2 fry surviving with few or no plants.  Now with lots of plants I get far more fry than I can handle, which isn't a good thing either!

 

[goldfish98]

It would be cool to watch a fry grow up into an adult.

 

[KieranBoyne]

Do you have a spare tank? Size doesn't matter THAT much as they are only fry and small. Just put the pregnant mum in one of the breeding trap thingys, when she's finished put her back in the main tank. Then put the fry in the spare tank if you have one.
Yep. It sure would be cool. I want to start off with a female platy in my next setup and have lots of babies!

 

[DiddleBug]

I put my fry in a trap for a few weeks and then release them after they get a little bigger and faster.  

 

[snazy]

I've always fed mine once a day. It hasn't stopped them from growing fully and reach nearly 4 years of age.

I understand the excitement of growing your own platy babies but there are a few misunderstood facts about platies.

1. The can reach 4 years of age
2. They can grow big if given the space. My females reach 3 inch long and over 1 inch wide. Obviously not many people keep them alive to see this.
3. They are one of the biggest poop machines so they either need a large well filtered tank or extremely well maintained smaller tank.


Judging from the video yours can be anything from 3 months to 6 months old and your tank isn't that big. I honestly would not subject this tank to a breeding platy population. I keep mine in a 80g and a 100g tank not without a reason. 10 adult platies were too much for a 30g tank to be honest.

So question is whether you want a very long and healthy live for your current two females or you want to subject the tank to a possible load it can never handle.

Picture of my adult female platies to give you an idea:

 

[KieranBoyne]

Nice tank Snazy. Platies are really healthy aren't they?

 

[snazy]

Nice tank Snazy. Platies are really healthy aren't they?

Yes, they are normally very hardy/healthy and happy looking fish. They like their own company too. Females are inseparable when there are no males. They are like schooling fish always swimming together.