sjlchgo

My Platies are expecting fry at any time. How does temperature effect breeding? Will raising or lowering the temp help or hurt? I am dealing with a fungus problem and have seen that raising the temp to 80+ can help. The treshold for platies temp is 77....how will this effect them?

COBettaCouple

I believe with platys, they like the temp a little warmer. And we've had platys living at 78-80 happily, so i wouldn't think temporarily raising the tank to 80-82 would be a negative.

Dino

Sex ratio can be affected by temperature, especially in the first few days of development.

Generally, the higher the temperature, with livebearers, the higher % of males you get.

COBettaCouple

interesting.. i hadn't heard that before.. and higher pH can effect a higher % of females, right?

sjlchgo

Thanks guys! I'm well past the first few days.

melawii

what about in kribensis fry? does anyone know if there is any influence in male/females regarding temperature and/or ph? My temperature is pretty high, and so is my ph.

Tom

I think the temp thing only had to do with livebearers and not egg-layers.
Tom

Allie

I know it's the ph but I am not sure how the % works....going to research now...


This all that I could find thru Google:

One interesting thing about kribs is that it has been shown that the sex of the fry is pH dependent. If they eggs are laid and incubated in a pH that is very high or very low, the sex ratio is very heavy to the males....but a neutral pH produces a 50/50 ratio males to females. This is why you see a lot more males out of Florida, where the water is very alkaline.
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sjlchgo

How do I know when it's close enough to put the expecting mom in the breeding tank I have? I hate to have her in there for too long...just seems inhumane? Is there a way to tell when she's a day or two away? I'm talking about the platy.

COBettaCouple

unfortunately, they can hold the fry some and it's really hard to tell that. It's best not to move them unless you have to for about a week before having the fry.. you'll know it's close when you see the eyes in her belly (if she's a light color) and when her back end squares-off (very close usually).

we ended up letting ours have her fry in the main tank, then moved the fry to the breeding tank.. when we put her in there, she just refused to drop the fry.. but they are different, so it's hard to sawy how yours would react.

Butterfly

Livebearers tend to mature faster in warmer water and so reproduce earlier.
Eggs tend to hatch faster in warmer water also. I've had angel fish and bristlenose eggs go wigglers in 2-1/2 days at 80-82F but take 3-4 days in 78F. Although the fry seemed to be smaller in the ones that took a shorter period to hatch.
Carol

sjlchgo

That's what I was thinking about doing.....letting them have them "au natural" and see how that goes. Do you need a special net to catch the fry or will a regular aquarium net work?

COBettaCouple

a regular small net will work for most fry, including platy fry.

swords3711

platy fry are extremely small so youll have to look carefully

COBettaCouple

true, fry can hide in all kinds of places as a natural survival instinct and we've found guppy, platy and betta fry to all be quite good at hiding. i've taken everything out of a tank, including the flat marbles substrata in order to find all of the fry in the tank.

sjlchgo

What can you do to keep them from getting sucked up into the filter? I thought about tying a media bag over the filter tube but that keeps the filter from removing debris.

Butterfly

You can put a media bag or the foot off of a pair of panty hose. You just have to pull it off and rinse it occasionally.
carol

swords3711

ya mollie fry are pretty stupid though
they just seem to swim around like the adults then jump when nipped at lol