zerotona

I am so bummed out. I made a post on here last week to say my molly had babies, when we actually realised later that it was my red wag tail platy, Cosmo. We got her from the fish store fat, so we thought that was just how she was, but yeah.. she was pregnant. She had the babies about 1:30 am a week ago but there was nothing I could do to save the babies as we only have one tank and it was the middle of the night. My molly ate the babies, but there didn't seem to be that many and Cosmo was still fat.

Anyway, ever since Cosmo had the babies, she started acting strangely. She would hide in the rock cave and only come out for food and she was still fat. She was eating right up until yesterday (but still hiding) when she suddenly wasn't fat anymore. She had the same physique as the other platies at the store. I wondered if maybe she had a couple more, and our molly had eaten them before we even realised? Then last night she was still hiding, and this morning she was dead

It was a new tank (3 weeks old) but we have been very vigilant in water changes and were getting the water tested for ammonia/nitrite/nitrates at our lfs and they said we were doing everything right and the ammonia/nitrite levels were never dangerously high. I've ordered the API test kit online and am waiting for it to arrive so I'll be able to measure water quality myself which will be much more convenient. But the rest of the fish (molly and two guppies) are blissfully happy with absolutely no signs of lethargy or illness or anything.

I also thought that the lfs must have been correct about the water quality not being dangerous (due to water changes etc) because I didn't think Cosmo would have had babies in the first place if the water was bad.. ?

Is dying after birth something that is common with platies or livebearers in general? Because she really was fine up until she had those babies.

Chief_waterchanger

Stress during or after pregnancy kills a lot of them.

When they begin to get ready to have the babies they tend to go up (lower water pressure), but if there are no floating plants or anything up high for them to hide in they will try to stay hidden rather than go out in the open. Sometimes they stress out and die from it. ('it' is kinda theory more than anything, but perhaps the worry of keeping themselves and the fry hidden, or choosing and caring for a birthing location or whatever.)

zerotona

There is a large live plant in the tank, which is higher than the tank itself (so it fans out a bit at the top) and she was hanging around in there alot towards the end. I'm sure she probably was stressed at least during the birth because our molly was literally stalking the babies. Even the guppies hid from him.

It really is odd that she became less fat yesterday.. from what you have said I don't think she had anymore babies yesterday because she was staying as low as possible in the tank. Ahh well, guess I will never know. Poor Cosmo.

COBettaCouple

It most likely was the stress and/or some of them just have trouble unfortunately.. we're sorry that you lost her, they're cute little fish and we lost our platy Daisy not long ago. She probably dropped some fry before she passed away. Daisy would always hang out lower in the tank when she dropped her fry for some reason.