Pregnant Guppy Not Having Fry

I have a pregnant guppy I just bought from the store 2-3 weeks ago. I've been looking after her and started noticing signs of labour ie. square belly, anti-social, not eating as much, and a very dark gravid spot. I gave her a day or two and watched to make sure this was her in labour and she wasn't too stressed out or anything. Afterwards I moved her into a breeder box because the males were stressing her out and she was about to give birth. I had her in the box for 2 days and put her back in the main tank for another day. I've done this twice. Every time she is in the main tank she looks like she's going to give birth. Even ended up giving birth to a single 'egg' that didn't grow with the other fish. When I transfer her back into the breeder she goes back to normal and doesn't give birth. She's not stressed, she's very active again, the tank has water flow to the breeder, and she has plants floating on top of the water for her to hide in. Is she not as close to having fry as I thought? I'd like some advice from experienced breeders so I can make sure she delivers her babies as smoothly as possible as she is my most prized fish. I've included some pictures for you to look as as well. Seeing her square belly and black Gravid spot (harder to see in pictures it's bigger than it looks).

 

The breeder box can stress her out and she can hold in or abort the fry.

Leave her in the main tank and let her have her fry. Move the fry to another tank or to the breeder box (with plants or decor inside so they're not stressed either.

She will have her fry when she's ready, and she knows when to have them better than you do

 

She doesn't seem to mind the breeder box and seems more stressed in the tank with the males chasing her. We have a black fancy guppy that won't leave her alone. We bought 5 guppies for our 10 gallon tank. 2 are males 3 are females. But we have a younger guppy that the males don't seem to care about. The other male we have doesn't bug the girls as much just the black one. We're looking to either switch the male with another female or something else. The pet store does accept fry and will give them for free with the guppy purchases.

 

Thank you so much. She successfully had 15 guppy fry. Some may have been eatten but I saved quite a few. They all look good and happy. The fry are all over the breeder at the moment. It was hard to catch them. Took about 45 mins but I have them all and everyone looks happy!

 

You probably won't see visible stress in your female in the breeder box, but there's no hiding spots in there, so she likely feels very exposed and stressed. Either add plants to the breeder box or get a separate tank for her to give birth in. After she does that, you could move her back to the main tank and leave the fry in this other tank.

 

You can also make some spawning mops for the fry. Combine the mops with floating plants and you'll be able to save tons of fry. Make sure you don't starve the parents too, if you keep em full they won't try to eat the babies as much

 

What's tank temp ? I had a similar issue with my platy female. I turned my heat up by a degree every day for a few days as I had also just added some electric blue rams and needed to get my tank temp range closer to their comfort zone. One night I changed temp so that the tank would be 79 for the next day and when I woke up I had a few fry bobbing in around my drift wood. So I scooped them out popped em in the breeder as I usually turn my air pump down during the night I then cranked my air pump up a bit and the suction created from all the bubbles popped about 30 more fry up to the surface of the tank. I left the tank at 79 for the next week or so and by the time she stopped having fry I had stopped counting at 85 fry. I popped all the fry into the breeder box and fed them for awhile and as the more dominant stronger fry grew bigger faster I would remove them into a 10gal tank I had and I popped their mother in with them for company and also so she wouldn't get pregnant again by the father and I left the second female in with the father until she became pregnant and then I popped her into the 10 gal as well. And now I ve got a great cycle of breeding with 2 females and 2 males. Although I'm not planning on keeping any right away as I ve got so many still despite selling the fit ones to my lfs.