987preston987

Hey there, i am new to this whole fish breeding malarky, im pretty positive my red wag platy is gona pop some wee yins out soon and i wana know whens the best time to put her in a trap to allow her to pop them out, i think she has been carrying for a good month now, but i duno what the normal times are n stuff, can anyone help me? muchly appreciated fish lovers, thank you!

Tom

Do you have lots of plant(live or fake) covering for potential fry? If you have enough cover, you don't need any breeder trap since most are really small.
Tom

987preston987

well i do have some, wouldnt say alot, i have seperated (lets call the pregnant one Sally) sally is in the breeder tank as we speak now, i dont think i have enuf cover so not risking it, u got any tips?

Tom

Sadly not really, I kinda depended on lots of plant cover to hide the fry until I got them into a breeder net.
Tom

COBettaCouple

Has your Platy dropped her fry yet? Our little Daisy had fry 34 days AFTER we bought her and we only bought females.. i read they can take up to 35-45 days for the 1st batch, i think. Those breeder boxes only stress out the mother and can make her hold the fry longer, abort them or die.

What we do is turn the tank temp up a little. Then cut the netting off of it's frame (the nets are cheap) and use a sterilized rubber band to secure the netting over the filter intake. (keeps fry from getting sucked in). Some sites say to use pantyhose, but we tried that and all we got was a totally covered intake - the netting allows stuff through but still is small enough, just clean it off every now & then of larger stuff stuck on it. On the side of your tank near the heater, plant as many fake or real plants as you can, as close together as you can.. this will give the fry a place to run to then just keep an eye out for fry. Might not get 100% of them, but you'll get plenty of them and give the mother a low-stress place to drop her fry. She will drop them over a few days.

The last time Daisy dropped fry, she started Monday & dropped the last one Friday so each day I'd carefully take out the decor & substrata and do a fry check. (we had flat marbles not gravel in - easier for fry to hide in) Then I'd net them & put them in a cup to acclimate them in the nursery tank after I found all of that day's fry. You'll want netting on the intake of the nursery tank filter unless your nursery tank has a filter that they wouldn't get sucked into the intake.

987preston987

not dropped yet, i put her in the tank and yeh she didnt seem to happy! ive took her out now and lined the bottom of the tank with plenty fake plants for the fry to hide, just got to wait n see what happens now! thanks for the help

COBettaCouple

You're welcome.. we've been learning on the fly with Daisy about Platy's, their pregnancy and raising the fry. We're also waiting on fry here as Daisy should be dropping her 3rd batch in the next couple days.. so cool to look at the eyes in the tummy looking back at us.. please let us know how it goes and when the fry arrive, look thoroughly for them - they are incredibly good at hiding.. i guess since everyone wants to eat them. Good luck with your platy & her fry.