Rachel

Hi
We have one male and one female platy, the female is pregnant but the male seems to be chasing her around the tank and she has spent the last few hours hiding. Is this normal behaviour?! I really wouldn't like her to become stressed out and ill, they usually swim around happily together all day. I have tested the water and everything is fine there and all other fish seem to be there usual selves. Any ideas would be welcome.

Thanks

Rachel

COBettaCouple

This is normal for platys when you just have 1 male & 1 female and the female is pregnant. I've read it's his attempt to get snacks by stressing her to abort the fry & drop them. With platys it's recommended to have 2 females to each male and maybe you can even exchange him for a female and get another female if you have room in your tank's bio-load. Platys like 3 or more if possible. If you don't want to exchange him, then he needs to be seperated from her until you can get at least 1 more female.. And any other females you get will end up pregnant & producing up to 6 or 8 batches of fry and pretty much stay pregnant until they die.. they're VERY easy to breed.

Rachel

Thanks for the reply, Its so horrible to watch I feel really sorry for her. I hope she will last until we can get to the lfs in the morning. It was my other half who wanted the fish but I can't believe how attached I have become to them, especially our platys as they are such little characters.

Thanks again

Rachel

COBettaCouple

Do you have a container or something you could keep the male in overnight? It outta be ok if you could put some tank water in it and it would stay above 74-76. I take it you're going to get another female? Try to get one near the size of the pregnant one.. hard to judge i know, so just do the best you can on that. Good luck with them and I understand.. those Platys are such funny little characters, even though they are shameless suck-ups for food to ANYONE, we love the little girls.

vin

If you don't have a place to put the male, you can get a breed-n-show tank insert or a breeding net. These hang inside your current tank and separate mom from the rest of the population. She'll have her fry in there and you can then return her to the general population while raising the fry in the breeder. The thing about live breeders is that the males will constantly harrass the females - pregnant or not. Which is why they recommend 2 females for every male. This keeps them from overstressing one female. The other thing about livebreeders is that they can stay pregnant for as long as a year. So even though your platy will give birth to one batch of fry, she can continue long afterward....

COBettaCouple

how are your platys now? Did you return the male platy to the store? Any fry yet?

Rachel

Hi

The Platys are fine. We brought one of those breeding nets to put her in but after a few days returned her to the main tank. No fry as yet and the male isn't bothering her at the moment but we are keeping an eye on them and will return her to the breeding net if he starts chasing her again. How long does a platy pregnancy last?

Rachel

COBettaCouple

glad to hear they're doing well. From what I've researched a platy pregnancy can run as long as a year, but is more likely to run 4-6 months. During that time, she'll crank out up to 6 or 8 batches of fry. Males also tend to harass females more when they're pregnant. If you end up with her pregnant, we'd love to tell you about how we setup for our little Daisy's fry or whatever questions you have about them. The fry are really cute and very good at hiding.