bolivianbaby

I found a platy fry in my 55 tropical community tank this morning.

Unfortunately, my bolivian ram Spike is the one who showed him to me right before he turned him into a snack.

All three platys in that tank came with Craigslist tanks so I haven't sexed them or anything. I just wanted to give them a better home. I set up a breeder net and did a thorough search of the tank for more fry, but I couldn't find any.

There was no breeding until I combined the platys into one tank. However, the "newest" platy is supposedly two years old according to his/her prior owner so I really wasn't expecting any breeding to take place. Oops.

So, now I'm off to research sexing platys and how to figure out who's pregnant (all of mine are very well fed) and how to get her in the breeders net before she pops the fry next time. I'm only going to allow it to happen (hopefully) once more so my daughter can have a few to raise and keep, then I'm putting the instigator in my daughter's tank so I'm not trying to rehome more babies than I can keep up with.

mathas

It's pretty easy to sex them, once you know what you're looking for. There are good pictures of the differences in these threads:

Sexing Livebearers
A picture is worth a thousand words: MALE and FEMALE platy pics!

That said, livebearers have extremely efficient reproductive systems. Females can store sperm from one mating and fertilize themselves several times... so if you have two females and both were impregnated by the male, you could wind up with as many as six or more batches of fry, even if you remove the male immediately.

Of course, Spike will help keep the population under control too. The only time I have ever seen my rams give chase more than a few inches is when chasing molly fry to eat.

bolivianbaby

Thanks for the links! I printed them out so I can "compare" them to my tank to figure out who the naughty little fishy is. Two males, one female. the female is the one whose supposedly over two years old. I'm going to put her in the breeder's net until she "emptys". She's till pretty chunky, but it could be her appetite After she's done, I'll just put her back in and let everyone keep the population in check. Between Spike, the gourami, and Mom/Dad/Uncle, I may not have any problems.

Oh dear, well, at least I have the breeders net set up so my daughter can have a few for her tank!

Your rams sound like mine.

Thanks for your help! I really appreciate it.

Update

I found 3 more fry. I was able to catch 2 and they're in the breeder net. The other was too quick for me, so I'm going to increase the amount of plants to help him hide.

I'm feeding the fry in the breeder net brine shrimp. Is that okay? I finely grind it. If so, I'l also start feeding the tank brine shrimp, so any other fry can get some.