My Platy Is Pregnant But Roughly How Far Along Is She?

[Reannone96]

We have two female and one male platy. He keeps chasing both females and like head butting them. He is quite violent towards them. Anyway, she has been pregnant a while now but I'm wondering when will she drop? She's eating fine but isolating herself a lot at the back of the tank near the surface or behind rocks and plants. Can anyone give me a rough estimation? Please

 

[EllieJellyEllie]

She is starting to square off, so I would say seperate her into a breeding box. I hope the fry survive!

 

[Reannone96]

I was told not to seperate her because it causes stress which can lead to possible death.. But I'm worried about the other female and male.. Also they share a tank with plecos and leopard, zebra and yellow zebra danios.

 

[mrhidley]

I agree with breeding boxes leading to stress and potential problems, plus they only stop her eating fry if they swin down below her, and i've found this doesn't always happen. If you do have a breeder box, i would think the best thing is the wait until she pops then net as many of the fry as you can and put them into the breeder box until they're large enough to fend for themselves. This is pretty much what i do with my Guppy and Platy fry, except I move them to a small 20 litre tank for their first 3-6 months.

 

[EllieJellyEllie]

Scratch what I said on the breeder box. You dont know when she is going to give birth. So I wouldn't use one.

 

[DiddleBug]

What I do for my guppies is watch them closely when I know they are about due (you'll know fairly well once she has babies a few times) and when i see a fry or two (or can tell definitely by looks) I move her to a breeder net with plants in it.  I had 45 (all live) beautiful fry today using that method.  I have had some mollies who would miscarry in breeder nets.  I find some fish can handle it and some get too stressed out.  Good luck!

 

[Reannone96]

She had some fry but the other fish are them, poor little babies ;(