Marymuffin

I'm new to the fish world. I purchased 3 platy's about 3 months ago and put in a 2.5 gallon tank. They are doing fine. I then decided to upgrade to a 10 gallon tank... and when talking to the girl at the fish store... told her that one of my platy's was getting fat... she said to get a breeder tank. Well, I bought it just incase. I set-up my 10 gallon tank last night so I could get it going and hopefully buy fish next week-end (of course after testing the water)... This morning when I was checking on my fish in the 2.5 gallon tank and cleaning... noticed 2 little tiny fish --- my yellow platy gave birth overnight. I didn't know what to do... so I separated the red & orange platy by putting in the 10 gallon tank (hopefully I didn't shock them in the transfer) and isolated the yellow "Mother" platy.... I haven't seen any new ones in the breeder tank... How long should I keep "Mother" in the breeder tank?

Help!

Mary

Meenu

Hi, welcome to FL. would you mind filling out your tank information? It;s under "my settings".

The adults will eat the fry, so you should separate them if you want to keep the fry (even the mama).

You also will need to keep a very close eye on the 10g, as it isn't cycled. do you know about the nitrogen cycle?

If you need help figuring out how to feed the babies, get the new tank cycled, etc., please feel free to ask - we're here to help.

Congratulations on the fry.

callichma

Welcome to FL. Congratulations on your platy babies. If you provide places for fry to hide, they can live in the same tank as long as it doesn't become overstocked. I have the survivors of several batches of babies in my tank. I'm getting a bigger tank ready and plan to take the male back to the LFS. Good luck with your new tank.
Just thinking--You might be better off leaving all the fish in the cycled tank and waiting for your new one to cycle. You can be sure that there will be more babies, maybe more than you'll want. You could lose your fish by putting them in the uncycled tank.

Marymuffin

The orange and red platy (haven't name them yet) are doing fine in the 10 gallon tank for right now... I've added Mother to the 10 gallon so I can try to keep the baby (only see 1 for the last few days)... I've added tiny algea eaters to the 10... all seem to be doing ok!