Pregnant Mickey Mouse Platy...?

Question

I just started my 55 Gallon aquarium this week and the lady at the petstore who sold me my mickey mouse platy said she was most likely pregnant. She does have a dark spot @ the bottom of her belly, I don't know how long to wait untill i put her into a breeder net or should i even do that? I don't have any idea what to expect I am just a beginner, and I don't want the babies to die...Please Help! Thanks.

Answer 1

Yep, any platy that has been near a male is sure to be pregnant.
Don't put her in a breeding net. If you breed platies a lot, you'll get to the point where you can tell when they're within an hour or two of giving birth - at that point you can use a breeding net. But now, you could stick her in there a week early and it would stress her out to be stuck in that little space and she might abort her fry.
If you want to keep the fry, put lots of plants in the tank for the fry to hide in - and you can set up a breeding net or another tank for the babies (just catch them with a net - they're much easier to catch than the adutls are!)

When you set up your tank, did you cycle it before you put fish in? In the wild, and in established tanks, there are nitrifying bacteria that break down toxic ammonia from fish waste and excess food into less toxic nitrates. In a brand new tank, these bacteria don't exist, so any fish in the tank will produce ammonia, which, not being broken down by bacteria, will kill or weaken the fish. It's a little late for that now, but you can help lessen the effect of the ammonia by doing small daily water changes (about 10-15%). In about 4 weeks, the cycle will be established, and you can just do regular weekly 30% changes.

Answer 2

Thats OK if you are a beginner. The platy doesn't need any help having her babies. If you want to help some of the fry survive, make sure you have some good hiding places for them. If you don't want live plants, place some of the artificial plants in heavy clumps to provide some cover. The young fry will be able to eat finely ground flake food also. If you are worried about your tank quickly becoming over-populated, do not provide much cover, and most of the young fry will end up being eaten by the adults. Unfortunately, there really is no way to keep this type of fish from breeding other than keeping the sexes seperated. Now that your female has been inseminated, even seperating her from the males won't help. She can have multiple broods from one insemination. Don't really know what specifics you want to know, but I will do my best to answer any specific questions if you post them.

Answer 3

You should put her into a breeder A.S.A.P. However you will most likely lose some of the babies. Some will just die, others maybe eaten by the other fish. But if you buy a separator, the chances of most of them living is higher than if you don't do anything. A great thing about Platys, Mollies, and Swordtails is that they are live bearers and breed like crazy. So if you have males and females of any of those types of fish you will have babies all the time. Good luck!!!!