Can a pregnant platy pretend to be male?

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MamaJasmine

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Nov 15, 2011
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I have a black and white spotted platy that when I got was all female parts and even named her Eliza. Eliza now not only looks pregnant, but not it looks as though Eliza has had a sex change and grown a gonopodium. Eliza is getting bigger in both the belly area and in the gono area.... what gives??
 
with livebearers all males carry some eggs and all females carry some sperm in case they need to change gender to promote the survival of their genetics.
does your female population majorly outweigh your male?
they should be kept at 1 male : 2 females

it sounds like she is changing gender, and has happened to do it in between a pregnancy.
watch her very carefully after she drops the brood, i would love to hear this weird story's update :)
 
I had started with 3 females and had to wait to get my male because the LFS was out of blue platys and had to special order him for me... lol it only took a week and he has been in there at least 3 weeks..
 
sounds like you were just unlucky and she decided to change very quickly.
no males = females changing
sorry Eliza changed on you... maybe it can be Elijah now? :)
 
I did not know this... This might explain how one of my 3 original guppies who appeared female ended up a male... And a pretty one at that. Either that or he was just young, but he colored up and showed a gonopodium a couple days after I got him in my tank. He's now my only male adult, as the other one became a crayfish snack.
 
I did not know this... This might explain how one of my 3 original guppies who appeared female ended up a male... And a pretty one at that. Either that or he was just young, but he colored up and showed a gonopodium a couple days after I got him in my tank. He's now my only male adult, as the other one became a crayfish snack.

either one is possible. if they were all young, then it was unavoidable for at least one to be male, and if they were all female, one would have changed anyway. sorry to hear that one became a crayfish snack... how many males and females do you now have? if your ratio is anything but 1 male : 2 females, then more may change.
 
djtypykuhl said:
either one is possible. if they were all young, then it was unavoidable for at least one to be male, and if they were all female, one would have changed anyway. sorry to hear that one became a crayfish snack... how many males and females do you now have? if your ratio is anything but 1 male : 2 females, then more may change.

1 male, 1 female, and quite a few juvies. My girl just dropped again a couple days ago, actually. It's really cool that they are able to do that.
 
1 male, 1 female, and quite a few juvies. My girl just dropped again a couple days ago, actually. It's really cool that they are able to do that.

a perfect pair... nice.
what will you do with the young guppies? if you decide to keep them, they will be "going at it" within 10-14weeks, and then you'll really be over-run! :)
 
djtypykuhl said:
a perfect pair... nice.
what will you do with the young guppies? if you decide to keep them, they will be "going at it" within 10-14weeks, and then you'll really be over-run! :)

I'm sure some of my juvies are already hit. Once they get to be about an inch or so long they are going to my LFS, all but maybe a couple pretty ones if there are any. And of course any low swimming ones are nice snacks for the crawfish. She helps keep the population down for me.
 
djtypykuhl said:
how much are you getting from the lfs for the guppies?
stop letting the crayfish eat them! :(

Honestly I don't care if I get anything for them, my LFS gives me so much free stuff I consider them a donation. The lady who runs it has given me enough marine salt to get my brackish tank started until she could get more small boxes in stock, she gave me my crawfish, some little catfish fry (none of them made it, in my tank or hers for very long, bad batch of fry), every guppy fry she had in her tank when I got my adults (they didn't survive the week or so they were left in our roommate's care, sadly), and countless snails for feeding my puffers (ramshorns, pond snails, and some really nifty white ones). She also held onto the tank I wanted for a couple months until we could finish paying for it, despite many people with cash in hand asking about it. As for the cray eating them, I don't mind. She very rarely grabs one. Most of them just swim where she can't grab them and there's lots of cover in the tank. She's worse about grabbing the ramshorns, actually.
 
Honestly I don't care if I get anything for them, my LFS gives me so much free stuff I consider them a donation. The lady who runs it has given me enough marine salt to get my brackish tank started until she could get more small boxes in stock, she gave me my crawfish, some little catfish fry (none of them made it, in my tank or hers for very long, bad batch of fry), every guppy fry she had in her tank when I got my adults (they didn't survive the week or so they were left in our roommate's care, sadly), and countless snails for feeding my puffers (ramshorns, pond snails, and some really nifty white ones). She also held onto the tank I wanted for a couple months until we could finish paying for it, despite many people with cash in hand asking about it. As for the cray eating them, I don't mind. She very rarely grabs one. Most of them just swim where she can't grab them and there's lots of cover in the tank. She's worse about grabbing the ramshorns, actually.

sounds like you have quite a set-up going on. it's good that you have a good relationship with you LFS owner, so that's cool. i'm currently over-run by molly and platy fry and trying to find homes for them, but nobody wants to buy them :( i hit 97 small ffry this morning... so i'm screwed...
 
djtypykuhl said:
sounds like you have quite a set-up going on. it's good that you have a good relationship with you LFS owner, so that's cool. i'm currently over-run by molly and platy fry and trying to find homes for them, but nobody wants to buy them :( i hit 97 small ffry this morning... so i'm screwed...

That's a lot of fry... My last count was maybe 20. Little things won't stay still long enough for a headcount.
 
That's a lot of fry... My last count was maybe 20. Little things won't stay still long enough for a headcount.

i gave up on doing head counts...
determine one day to do this, and do a "catch-and-count"
just get a big bowl or something, fill it with water from the tank, and catch all of them :)

yeah, i have way too mant fish... and they are in a freaking 10g... super screwed.
 
Does anybody have any articles about livebearers changing gender? I have heard some people talk about it, but I haven't ever seen any data about it.
 
I have it in my breeding boom and have witnessed it myself with the male breeding after as well. Gono is fully developed. I think it's crazy how some fish can store the sperm until they are ready to get pregnant.
 
djtypykuhl said:
i dont think that there is any hard-core proven data out there, but i have experienced the gender changing for myself.

I know that there is some info on some oceanic fish doing the switcharoo, they did some type of documentary on it. They went from male to female and back again if needed.
 
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