Breeding Platies

[timmyboy73]

I have a Biorb which is now about 9 months old. I have 2 pearl danios, 1 female swordtail,  4 neon tetras, 2 glowlight tetras, 3 rummie nose tetras and about 7 baby platies. Originally I had just the one female platy, but she died a couple of months having had her. A couple of weeks after she died, 1 baby appeared which has now grown to maturity, a month or two later 3 tiny fry appeared from under the gravel in the bottom of the biorb which have all also survived and now I have another three or four tiny fry also.

I presume the female platy that died was pregnant when I got her, but I don`t understand where all the other babies are coming from!

Can anybody help ?

Thanks

 

[Gunnie]

Your babies have probably been hiding. You have quite a few fish in that tank that would have loved to eat them as a snack. What's a biorb?

 

[timmyboy73]

A biorb is a tank from Reef-one ()

Understand what you are saying, but what I don`t understand is how do I get one baby platy, then a month or so later another two, and then a month later another 3. All are different size and therefore (I presume) different ages. The first one to appear is now approx 3/4 inch, the next two are about 1/2 inch and the last three are now about 1/4 inch long.

In my local aquarium shop, the guy there told me that platies can give birth in 4-5 batches, which would make sense except that the original platy I had died about a month before the first baby appeared. What is the gestation time for a platy ? Is it possible for the platy to be interbreeding with the swordtail ? I can`t think of any other explanation.

Many thanks for your help!

 

[fletch]

its about 28 days gestation. That sounds weird. I can only think that the original babies started mating pretty quickly and had more babies.

 

[Butterfly]

Platys and Swordtails will interbreed since they are from the same family(Xiphophorus).
Carol

 

[Jason]

I think livebeares can start breeding from the age of 3 months so maybe the first lot were breeding

 

[ricky2272]

My platy had babys and sha had six that survived bit i did not see themnall at the same time. i saw the first one and then a few days l8r saw the next and then it was about 2 weeks be fo i saw the nex two and then another week befor i saw the last 2. they are all grown up now and breeing. ;D. not together obviously because then they may be deformaties. i used to just keep them in my comunity tank but my cold water fis died so i cleand that out throughly and pit a heater in. it already had a filter and a light. now that tank is my breeding tank.

I hope to breed many moore platys in there lol