Male looks (acts) pregnant?

Dear lovely fish fans.

My name is Kate. I'm an experienced fish keeper. I won two goldfish at a funfair when I was 12 (remember when funfairs used to give kids fish in bags as prizes? I was one of those kids...) Anyway, I kept those same goldfish for 14 years until they were a foot long and moved into a friend's pond. Then I rescued a fish with anchor worms, and another one with cancer, both also grew huge over the years and joined a pond full of koi. I've also had guppies. Then a 6 year break to have my own kids. So that's me

I recently picked up a used 8L aquarium because we wanted to adopt some blue shrimp. When I went to collect it, the guy had what looked like 20+ platys in there (horrified). He asked if I wanted it with or without the fish (again horrified, i dont know if he was going to flush them or something).

I took it with the platys. Grabbed two extra used 20L tanks to split the boys and girls and left the fry in the 8L. I know the girls will keep squeezing out fry for a while. We will let them get eaten, and rehome some of the overstock.

Suffice to say, we never got those shrimp! But my son and daughter are delighted to each have a tank full or orange friends.

Anyway, there's one fish in the boys tank that has me a little concerned.

This fish is fat, looks pregnant, and seeks solitude. But the analfin is definitely hokey stick shaped.

Is this a fat boy? Or a pregnant female? I dont want boys in my girl tank (I know girls can change sex) but if this is a girl, alone with 10 boys, that will be cruel for her, and I will move her out.

Thanks for your help!
Kind regards
Kate

 

I would try fasting him for a few days, see if he gets smaller.

 

So definitely Male?

Ps, everything I read about platys says their size is 2-3 inches. These fish are 1 inch maximum from nose to tail. The guy who had them said he had them more than a year, so they are adults. These are some kind of dwarf platy, I guess. Definitely not 5-7cm!

I am rehoming some to get down to about 1/gal. Will take a while. That guys 8L tank had ~10 males, ~20 females, ~10 dontknowyets, plus ?¿ tiny fry.

 

So definitely Male?

Ps, everything I read about platys says their size is 2-3 inches. These fish are 1 inch maximum from nose to tail. The guy who had them said he had them more than a year, so they are adults. These are some kind of dwarf platy, I guess. Definitely not 5-7cm!

I am rehoming some to get down to about 1/gal. Will take a while. That guys 8L tank had ~10 males, ~20 females, ~10 dontknowyets, plus ?¿ tiny fry.

Don't know definites, i can't see the pics so well...but yeah they are easy to tell. I would still try fasting for a couple, 3 days if male, that will take care of that belly a lot.

I usually just let my wife tell me what our platies are, they zoom around too much for me to get a decent glimpse a lot of the time.

 

So definitely Male?

Ps, everything I read about platys says their size is 2-3 inches. These fish are 1 inch maximum from nose to tail. The guy who had them said he had them more than a year, so they are adults. These are some kind of dwarf platy, I guess. Definitely not 5-7cm!

I am rehoming some to get down to about 1/gal. Will take a while. That guys 8L tank had ~10 males, ~20 females, ~10 dontknowyets, plus ?¿ tiny fry.

Hi, the specimen you're talking about is a male as already stated. He doesn't look bloated to me but just wellfed. And the dark spot close to his gonopodium is a pseudo gravid spot (which "can" occur in male platies when they get close to adulthood. But it could also be a male that used to be a female with a "W" sex chromosome (the story behind the sex change in platies). These are functional males (for such fish were born with male and female gonads). But it's a bit hard to tell wether this is an actual pseudo gravid spot from these pictures. Also a pseudo gravid spot, once it's shown, will never fade again.
Yours ain't dwarf platies. What you may have red about the size they can reach, should be read as the potential max size. Depending on the circumstances, they do have the potential to grow up large. If the right circumstances are lacking, they won't reach that size. Yours have the average size.

 

Thanks so much!

Then I shall worry no more about this little guy being harassed. He's hiding less now too. Probably just getting used to the new tank. It's totally cycled now too (I did share the old gravel and filter medium between the new tanks, but there was still a brief bloom before it settled to only nitrates between changes).

These little fish are so delightful. Now I just need to gradually rehome some of them. We are at about 2L/fish now. Vastly better than the 5 fish/L they just came from!

I'm really happy we accidentally ended up with platys instead of shrimp. They are more work for sure (not much of course) but that little "feed-me" dance they do at the glass every they see us, it makes it so worth it!

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Yours ain't dwarf platies. What you may have red about the size they can reach, should be read as the potential max size. Depending on the circumstances, they do have the potential to grow up large. If the right circumstances are lacking, they won't reach that size. Yours have the average size.

Interesting because I can get my platies to only about 1-1.25 inches big and I was wondering why I'm seeing that size for platy is listed as 2-3 inches generally. So one inch is the average size?

 

Interesting because I can get my platies to only about 1-1.25 inches big and I was wondering why I'm seeing that size for platy is listed as 2-3 inches generally. So one inch is the average size?

Yes, your platies do have the average size. Only if the circumstances are right, they'll reach up to 2-3 inches. Most people don't have the space to give them that.
Overhere some big ones:




But these were kept in an outdoor tub in the backyard, where they had the space to size up that much.
It would've been better if the page you've read this all, would've have left out the word 'generally". So, don't be worried about your platies. They're quite normal in size.

 

Yes I was looking through one of your posts yesterday and saw that pic. Those are monster platys. Anyway good to know that there is nothing wrong with my platys. Thanks for the feedback.