Very Happy Platy Keeper

[Betta_Shark5678]

Today while I was cleaning out my tank I saw a slightly tan thing float (or so I thought) onto the little cave I have in the tank. At first I thought it was poo, but the way it floated seemed a little weird, so I put my finger near it and it swam away! It is the first baby platy I've found! I don't know how old it is, none of my current females showed any signs of being pregnant, and I lost my three that did, they had been sickly since I got them. The last of my females that looked pregnant died almost two weeks ago, but I'm pretty sure the baby isn't that old. I'm so excited

 

[lolobunnz]

Congratulations. I just had my first batch (since i got back to the hobby) a week ago. I love platy!

 

[Betta_Shark5678]

Thanks! Congrats to you too! I'm thinking about getting a few blue mickey mouse, too, my best lfs sells some beautiful blue ones.

 

[darciekim]

Congrats! I just started a tank with guppies and danios.. Thinking about eventually breeding guppies. I can't imagine how exciting it must be to find fry.

 

[lolobunnz]

Its cool to watch them grow and get their colors too

 

[Betta_Shark5678]

Congrats! I just started a tank with guppies and danios.. Thinking about eventually breeding guppies. I can't imagine how exciting it must be to find fry.

I've been waiting to find fry since July! I don't know where it is now though. I'm going to be breeding Guppies, and Platys intentionally when I get my new tank, and get it setup.

Its cool to watch them grow and get their colors too

I bet! I'm so excited to actually start breeding them, and I'm hoping the fry I found is still alive!

 

[Betta_Shark5678]

I just found it again! It's a little bigger now, last time I saw it was five days ago. I got Java Fern today, so my sister decided to name it Java. Hoping it lives!

 

[lolobunnz]

Nice name i like it! Especially due to the relation

 

[Betta_Shark5678]

Yeah! I figured it would work for either a girl or a boy, since it's too small to tell still.

 

[lolobunnz]

They say you can sex fry at a few days old. But you have to put them in a tank with black background and a hole cut out and flash a bright light thru. You should be able to see tiny gravid spots in females.

You can tell the sex also at 2-3 weeks by looking at the anal fin. If the first couple of spines on the anal fin are thicker or thikining it is developing into a gonopodium

Thickening* lol

 

[Betta_Shark5678]

I didn't know that you could tell so early! Right now I don't have any other tank to put it in, but next time I see it I'll see if I can tell if it's a girl or a boy by the fin. My friend and I are going to try to make a DIY breeder trap I've seen a few, so I'll be looking for Java today!

 

[lolobunnz]

Java is so hard for me to find here! So good luck to you .

I have never tried the above methods as i didnt know about them! But i did just read them in the two recently published livebearer books. So let me know if you try it and if it works well and is easy?!

 

[Betta_Shark5678]

Java is gone again, but I did try to figure out gender. The anal fin looks just like the adult females in my tank. I couldn't put it in a tank with a black background or anything like that though. So for now I'm going with female. All but one of the ones I got originally are females, and apparently they were born after that person got them, so there's a good female survival rate anyways