miraloma

Thanks everyone for the great input. I've moved my platys to my 10g tank and they are "happier" in that they swim around. But, they are both also getting harassed by the 2 male guppies. The guppies chase the platys all over the tank, one platy at a time, while the other platy tries to hide.

I'm seriously considering returning that fancy but rather useless tank which cost me an arm and a leg. I bought a bowfront 28 gallon tank yesterday. I will soon be able to have more fish, i.e. at least one more girl platy and 4 more girl guppies to keep the boys happy.

On the good news front, I think my girl platy's pregnant with fry ready to come. I've had her for about a month now but I've only had her boyfriend with her for about 1 week. She's getting gigantic and I can see little black dots in her belly. I can't wait to see the babies come out, if they don't get eaten by their parents and mean guppy uncles first.

miraloma

I have fry! How very exciting! We had a power outage this evening. By candle light, I went and checked on my fish. I noticed the prego platy looked thinner. I thought, ehm, candle light doing tricks. When the power came back on, I checked on her again, and the little black dots in her gravid spot were all gone! I didn't see any fry at first so I thought maybe she aborted 'cause of the stress of being in a not yet fully cycled tank. Then I thought, fry like to hang out at densely populated areas so I checked my fake plants. Low and behold, I saw a little thing with black eyes and orange head just resting on a leaf! I was so excited that I moved all the adults to a new tank that I started just yesterday. I felt responsible for the little guy even though it might be the only one survived the birth/after birth, being that 4 adult livebearers were in the same tank with him. After I moved the adults and put a nylon stocking over the filter intake, I looked around some more, then I saw a little cluster of them hanging out on the gravel. I counted up to 7. Hopefully there are more when they get a bit bigger so that I can see.

I wonder if they platys were hovering 'cause the mommy was about to pop...

COBettaCouple

congrats on the fry! Guppies are like that, especially with females and they may have been trying to get her to abort the fry so they could have snacks. We currently have 2 red fancy male guppies in a tank with female platys, but they're less timid I guess and stood up to the guppies. The largest platy is a big Platy and the guppies now keep to themselves.

be on the lookout for more fry the next few days. Platys usually drop a few more in the few days after the initial drop.

miraloma

Ehm, the female platy is now in a tank with 1 male platy and 8 guppies. I seriously doubt any additional fry will survive. It's odd that the male guppies are still chasing after the platys and completely ignoring the fine ladies swimming around them. The ladies are, however, a bit smaller than the guys. I wonder maybe it's because they are not sexually mature yet so the boys are still bullying the platys for fun. My male guppies are about 1 inch long while the female are only about 1/2 inch long.

You were so right, COBettaCouple. This morning I was having breakfast and looking at the community tank where the mom and 9 other fish swam. I saw a tiny fry darting behind the filter intake! I've since moved the mom to yet a different tank hoping she can finish her business in peace (without the guppies nudging her for snacks). Last count, 12 fry.

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COBettaCouple

they're fun to catch, aren't they?

miraloma

Yes, I find myself hovering and inspecting the breeding tank counting how many fry I can find. I did a water change today 'cause the nitrate level was high. I hope I didn't toss out any fry with the water!

I also like to check out my guppy ladies and see if I can spot any pregnant ones. They swim so fast that it's hard for me to tell either way. My platys have been hiding again. Not sure why... They are in their own tank, with no guppies bothering them. I wonder if it's the water quality. This is the small tank that I thought had issues. Will have to test the water and see...

0morrokh

Water quality would have to be pretty bad before it'd bother Platys.

Congrats on the fry...they're cute aren't they?

COBettaCouple

It's perhaps too much, but I do a 3-part system for moving water from the tank to the drain. I move the water to a container from the tank, check for fry, then move it to another container, check for fry, then slowly pour the water out into the sink with the drain stopped up, check for fry, then unstop the drain and let the water out. Sounds crazy, but even checking like that, I have found fry swimming in the water in the sink on the 3rd check.

miraloma

My platy just dropped fry last week and now she's gigantic again. It looks like she's ready to pop. She seems bigger than she was right before she dropped fry last time. Do they get progressively bigger, where the belly is?

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0morrokh

Not sure but I think they tend to have larger batches after their first few. Also it's possible she didn't drop all her fry at once, sometimes they drop them over a period of a few days or occasionally even longer. Again congrats on the fry!

susitna-flower

Hi Miraloma, sounds like you are really committed to your fish. That is so great! Your platy was pregnant before you bought her, and from looking at your u-tube, she looks perfectly healthy, except maybe a little red around the gills.

Did you ever get a API test kit? If you did what are your readings?

When you say your nitrates are high, just what are they?

I am super glad you have gotten the equipment to be able to control your tank better. If your fish flash at all, I would suspect ick, it can hide in the gills and not be detectable until it is epidemic. But if you raise your temperature up to 82 or just a tad higher for several weeks, it will kill it off.....a really good reason to be able to adjust your temp.....

How are the fry? What are you feeding them? I keep frozen baby brine shrimp for mine. I have them in a tank with cherry shrimp and what the fry don't get the shrimp do, it keeps the tank clean.

Best of luck with the babies.

miraloma

Hi Susitna-flower, I'm glad to hear that you have fry with cherry shrimps. I've won an auction on aquabid.com but asked the seller to postpone the shipment till my tank is ready for them. I can't wait! At what stage do you move the fry to the adult tank? I read that livebearers are notorious in eating baby shrimps.

I feed my fry with decapsulated brine shrimp eggs. Hatching brine shrimps just seems like a lot of work, not to mention possible side effects like accidentally getting the shells in and equipment setup, etc. The website that sells the brine shrimp eggs claims that eggs are more nutritious than actual brine shrimps 'cause no energy was used to actually hatching the shrimps. That's why I went that route. We'll see how well my fry turn out.

I did a water change today but haven't done a test yet. My API reading yesterday were as follows:
6.6G - NH3 0.25-0.5 ppm; NO2 1-2 ppm; NO3 5-10 ppm; pH 7.5
10G - NH3 <0.25 ppm; NO2 1 ppm; NO3 <5 ppm; pH 7.5
28G - NH3 0.5 ppm; NO2 0.5 ppm; NO3 0; pH 7.3

My fry are in the 10G, roughly 15 of them. The 6.6G has the platy couple while the 28G has 5 guppies. The fry tank doesn't have a heater yet. I'm getting one shipped to me shortly. The other 2 tanks have the temp set to about 80. I could raise it to 82.

Other than flashing, I really don't see any other symptoms on my guppies. I don't see white spots, gold dust, red gills, etc. Although one guppy that died a couple of days ago seemed to have velvet, faded color on the torso right before the tail. No one else has any discoloring any where on their bodies right now. It's possible that it's still in the early stage of whatever is developing. I'd hate to medicate for the wrong thing and causing more stress on my fish. I've got different medicines on hand. As soon as I'm 100% sure what they have, I'll start treating.

0morrokh

Probably a good idea to wait to medicate till you're sure of your diagnosis. However if they start dying then you should probably take a guess and try something. Sometimes fish will get sick but not show a lot of symptoms and it's pretty much guesswork.

Bbs is fine for livebearers but make sure they are also getting some veggie matter in their diet, such as ground up veggie flakes. I've never heard of feeding brine shrimp eggs...I guess it would probably be fine.

COBettaCouple

It's quite possible that internal parasites are causing the problems that you see.

To help balance their diet, I'd recommend feeding the fry a combination of Omega One Veggie Flakes and NutraFin Livebearer Flakes. You can pour some of both into a baggie, fold it over and crush it with a rolling pin or glass.

Vitachem and/or a garlic liquid with vitamin c would be good to add daily to the tank with the fry to aid in their spinal development.