loudini

hi guys

background - i have a 300litre coffee table aquarium. the tank has cycled and i have several fish in there. 2 x silver sharks, 2 x platys, 5 guppys, 1 snail.

so....i was doing a water change earlier and i noticed a baby fish!!! upon further inspection i counted 5. i took all the ornaments out of the tank to catch the little blighters as they were so fast and great at hiding in the small places my net couldnt reach. i have them in a small floating tank. about an hour on i have now just spotted 2 more - i think they are hatching?!!!

so what do i do now?

by the way i dont even know how fish get pregnant i assume they come from eggs laid in the tank?!

lilsoccakid

hi, and welcome to fishlore.

platys are prolific breeders, as well as guppys, they never stop!

both these fish are livebearers, which means unlike most fish, they are born able to swim and not from eggs. you can expect between 20-40 babies each time they breed, which will be about every 30 days.

i would reccoment buying a small in-tank breeder net for them. they can be fed ground up flake food

good luck!

ps, show us some pics!

loudini

they are in a flaoting tank which was recommended to me for fry - was kind of a panic buy!!

when can they go into the big tank? when you say they are born able to swim what do you mean?

i didnt even know my fish was pregnant how the **** do i tell - im so worried i dont want they to die but i am clueless!!

Barbrella

They can go in when they are too big to fit in the mouths of the biggest fish.

When the babies of livebearers like your guppies, platies etc are born, they are alive and are tiny copies of their parents, able to eat and swim right away as lilsoccakid said.


They have big bellies when pregnant. Since you have males and females together, they will never stop having babies. Unless you want to get many many tanks to raise the endless batches of fry in, it might be better to just leave them in the tank to get eaten.

If you save a lot of them and return them to the tank, they'll start breeding too very soon.

pepetj

Hi loudini: You do have a big enough tank to let them try to survive -let nature take its course, although without your intervention, it's likely the fry won't make it. Maybe it's time to go planted. ...or it's the begining of MTS!

Pepe
Santo Domingo

COBettaCouple

Yea, unless you get all males, platys tend to mean platy fry. Some might make it with enough hiding spots - plants, caves, etc. - in that tank or they can be moved to a tank if you'd like to raise them in their own tank.

loudini

there are loads of hiding spaces - the tank is huuugggeeee!!

i rescued all of them last night sadly though this morning 2 have died. i have 11 left which i plan to keep fingers crossed. i shall be giving my niece some of them when they are big enough as she has a tank of guppys and wants some more fish for variety.

what do you mean when you say time to go planted? and MTS?

goggles

MTS is more tank syndrome. if you plan on keeping them all be carefull all the ones which become female will breed and breed and soon you will have hundreds of them. then the mts will kick in. good luck

Charmaine

Hi. If you do want to keep your new babys in the same tank, make sure you have lots of floating grass, they will love that and it provides plenty hiding space for them and the adults can't get to them.

loudini

i have a small 20 litre tank which i bought as a qt tank, how shall i go about setting that up to move the babies into there? i dont want the tank to cycle.

Charmaine

Take about 40% of the water from your main tank and put it in your qt tank then top up with new treated water and don't for get to top up your main tank aswell. I did that and it worked for me, make sure the water is at a temp of 26-28celcius before adding the fish. Hope that helps a bit.

Jermaine Watson