Pregnant Fishes

[ibb]

Hello,

We have recently begun to have smallfry of guppies and 1 plattie. The first lot was born while we were away on holidays and our automatic fish feeder did not work properly so they were eaten along with some of the plants. The 2nd lot the night after we'd come home but we had separated the mothers in a special breeding box.

This is the first time we have bred, we only got the tank in December and i know how to tell the guppies and platties are pregnant but i'm wondering how you can tell how far along they are as i don't want to seperate them too early. Also how do you tell the sex of neon tetras and if they are pregnant?

We now have 7 guppies and 1 plattie baby. We bought a seperate tank set to house them to protect them. We are feeding them special small fry food drops 3 times daily. Is there anything else we should be doing? They seem to be thriving without larger predators to annoy them.

We have 3 bristlenosed catfish
2 guarami's -male
4 neon tetras
7 guppies-5 female
3 platties- 1 female
2 glass sucking fish-can't remember the names.

Any advice appreciated.
Thanks

 

[dwarfgourami]

This is the first time we have bred, we only got the tank in December and i know how to tell the guppies and platties are pregnant but i'm wondering how you can tell how far along they are as i don't want to seperate them too early. Also how do you tell the sex of neon tetras and if they are pregnant?

We now have 7 guppies and 1 plattie baby. We bought a seperate tank set to house them to protect them. We are feeding them special small fry food drops 3 times daily. Is there anything else we should be doing? They seem to be thriving without larger predators to annoy them.

Hi!

You seem to be doing really well looking after your guppy fry. The only other thing I can think of (and you probably know that already) is to keep the water really clean, so maybe step up a bit on the water changes.

Signs that a livebearer is ready to drop is that she gets really square, irritable towards other fish, hides at the back of the tank, and sinks to the bottom as she is going to give birth.

I prefer not to put mine into breeding traps, as I've had bad experiences with guppies being stressed out by the traps. (Also, I've had livebearers who just turned on their own babies in the trap and ate them all- nowhere to hide). Instead, I try to fill the tank with lots of plants, and rescue the babies as soon as they're born.

Neons are egglayers, so they're not going to get pregnant; the eggs have to be fertilised by the male as they are laid. The females tend to be plumper than the males. They need to be conditioned to breed by being fed live foods, the water needs to be soft and acid and, if I remember rightly, the eggs are light-sensitive, so needs to be hatched in darkness (and protected from other fish). I've never tried breeding neons, though I've kept them; it's not the sort of thing that is likely to happen by accident in your community tank.

 

[ibb]

Thanks for your reply. I am really attached to these babies so i'm glad i'm doing things right. I have a question regarding another plattie which i am sure is male but our swordtail plattie is bullying it. It is being kept seperated from the other fish and we really have to monitor the swordtail to make sure this plattie can eat. It is acting how you said a pregnant plattie would hiding in the plants and down the bottom of the tank but i'm sure it's from the bullying.The swordtail bothers the females but it really nips at this plattie. It will chase him around the tank all day if we let him. Just today it's bottom fins are really hard to see.

Today we seperated the swordtail until we could go out and buy some more female platties thinking that may be the problem and it worked for a while but it is back to it's old tricks and bullying him again. We have 4 female and 2 male.

Should we get rid of the swordtail? Taking it back to the fish shop? I don't know much about the diseases but nothing is wrong with it's scales that i can see.

Thanks again for your help

 

[dwarfgourami]

Sorry to hear about your bully. Swordtails and platies are quite closely related, and can actually interbreed, so it may be that he sees the platy as a rival. In which case, you should probably try to rehome one of them; fish can be stressed to death by bullying, and it would be a shame to have that happen to him.

 

[Kitikat]

Reading the story above of the bully of the tank, I have the same problem. I have 3 Baloon Mollys Im not sure but I think it is two males and one female. One of the Baloon Molly follows the female around very closely and wont let the other one anywhere near. The other one spends most of his time in the corner of the tank because everytime he comes out the other one attacks him.

I tried putting the bully in a net, but he went berzerk and I felt awful, I have another tank but I have some newborns suspended in a nursery net on that one, if I were to put the bully in that tank then I think he might nibble through the net and eat them, if I put them in a net in the big tank then the other fish could get them, has anyone any ideas what I can do??

I did put the the bullied fish in the other tank before the babies were born for a while but he prefers it in the big tank with all the other fish, he went motionless in the small tank. Please help!! Also any advice on how to look after new borns, Im not sure what they are yet? Im not sure if they are from live bearers or egg layers, they just appeared one morning and I had to fish them out pretty swiftly. Im feeding them ordinary flakes is that ok??

 

[DirkW]

With mollies, paties, and swordtails, it's best to keep only one male in a mixed-sex tank unless it's a large tank with lots of places to hide. If you have more than one male, you'd need several so the most agressive male can spread around its' abuse. The most common recommendation is to use one male for every two females. My preference is only one male, and three or four females. Most male livebearers will have no problems making the rounds.

Livebearer fry can do well on finely crushed flake. If you have live plants, just about any type of fry can eat things that are growing on the plants. Check the other threads/FAQs for info on feeding fry.