Preagnent Platty

[Phil Crane]

how do i know when my preggo sunset platty isnt far from giving birth to the little swimmers, its fat got the flattened belly at the bottom but i keep seeing things about a dark spot or something but im not sure what that is

 

[dh058977]

A dark spot or gravid spot is a bad way of telling, just wait for her to square off. What are you going to do when she drops? I wouldnt advise breeding traps due to the stress on the fish. Just try to make sure they have enough hiding spots around your tank.

 

[LucyB]

IMO The flattened belly, or "squaring off" is the best way of telling when she will give birth. When they square off usually they give birth a few days after.

 

[mrp3]

Defiantly the squaring off

 

[Phil Crane]

it doesnt look as flat as first thought it was hard to get a picture so ive added a link to a video on my youtube account could you guys please have a look at it and give me any ideas how far off it is from giving birth??

thanks guys much appreciated

 

[chokko]

ive only got 2 platys in my tank and both have given birth multiple times over the past 2 months (still got spermies inside from fish store)

the larger red one is hard to tell when pregnant...looks same as if it has eaten a lot. i.e. just fat n round

the blue/silver platy however which is normally slimmer...does get a square shape.

what i've noticed when they are gonna drop the babies very soon, is they go crazy in a corner of the tank, swimming up and down constantly (possibly cause i dont have many hiding places in the tank ???).

The pregnant fish is also aggressive to other fish that swim by (including innocent corydoras). The non-pregnant platy will sniff around the pregnant platys bum a lot...looking for a snack.

cause i'm new to keeping fish, and saw all initial 30 babies 'disappear' - i thought i would attempt to raise the babies on the next batch...so stuck the parents in a large breeder net/box for a week or so - with the breeder box being 5mm below the surface of water so fry can escape. The parents seemed pretty relaxed about the breeder box, but some fry were gobbled up within 2 seconds of being born.

After doing more reading about what prolific breeders these fish are...i've since removed the box and let the parents eat most babies (and some get sucked up by filter). Out of say 30 being born each time, 3 might survive...and i now have groups of 3 fry in 4 different sizes. Very cute at 1 inch long..spitting image of their mother.

 

[Phil Crane]

ok few options i have then, another thing i have read about them being preagnent is see through poo (i read this somewhere on the net) if this is the case and that is a sign of them not being far from birth then i think miss platty is close to giving birth because everytime i look theres a see through string which i can only think is poo trailing along behind her sometimes its part see through part not. you read too many things on different websites and get confused

 

[LucyB]

it doesnt look as flat as first thought it was hard to get a picture so ive added a link to a video on my youtube account could you guys please have a look at it and give me any ideas how far off it is from giving birth??

thanks guys much appreciated

She looks pretty square to me! I can see the dark gravid spot and shes really fat. My blue mickey mouse platy gave birth a few days ago and she lookd exactly the same as your platy, but blue. I would definitley start preparing for fry If I were you!!