huneebee

I bought 2 female fancy guppies almost 2 weeks ago, I knew they were pregnant, and I knew that guppy fry is tiny, so I strung a length of dense plastic plant along the top of my tank and I put a sleeve of pantyhose over my filter intake, in case I didn't get her into the breeder box before she had the fry.* 2 days after I brought them home, one of my girlies' gravid spot wasn't black, more of a brownish, almost translucent and she looked smaller, so I figured she had her babies.* I looked around and I didn't see any at all.*

Then she started to swell again, and her gravid spot turned big and black, and today the same thing happened: translucent, smaller, brownish gravid spot, and no fry to be seen.* I'm wondering where the fry is (or if she even had them)?* * I'm worried that they have been eaten, but I have quite a few plants, along with the dense plants lining the top for them to hide in.* I also know that their gestational period is longer than 2 weeks (or I think a lot of us would be in trouble, lol), which only adds to my confusion as to why, if she did in fact have her fry right after I brought her home, she looks just like she did after having her fry such a short time later.

Does anybody know what may be going on?* I didn't have nearly this much stress with my own two pregnancies, I knew for a fact when they were born and exactly where they were!* * I'm really hoping that at least some of her fry survive (if they were born), even if I can't find them, I'm really interested in what the babies will look like when they get older.

Thanks in advance..

0morrokh

Well, Guppies can have up to 4 batches of fry from one mating, so I suppose it's possible she just had an unusually short gestation period for the second batch... or...I don't know if fish can do this, but some animals can abort their babies and "suck" them back in if they're disturbed too much before giving birth...I'm not saying this happened, just a thought...

About the fry, I can almost promise a few survived, and one day you will notice a few tiny brown slivers darting from plant to plant.

huneebee

Thanks for the reply. I know that guppies can hold a few sperm packets at a time, but I didn't know that each mating can produce a few batches, thank goodness I'm not a guppy!

I really hope some of the fry survived and are just hiding, she is a really pretty female, silvery white body and a beautiful black tail, I'd like to see what her fry with their "mystery" sire look like,

Thanks again!