Ghost mamas??

[K8Shores]

....Ok.... I'm completely confused. I have fry in my tank (yay!!) But my females are still pregnant and none of them are dropping.... any ideas?

 

[pip walters]

What are they?
Livebearers can keep having babies even if the original 'fathers' have left the scene, so they are 'pregnant' for a long time and may occasionally only drop a few babies.
Guppies tend to have low numbers in their first drop, so could be your fish have had a small drop.

 

[Kittykat364]

Sometimes Livebearers look bloated even after having fry, and as pip walters said, they can keep having babies even after the males have left. If there are males in the tank with females, well, they are normally eternally gravid.

 

[K8Shores]

They are platys and mollys. They've been separated from the males for about 3 weeks now. I've heard they can store sperm for up to 5 batches. But I've been checking my females today and they still are squared off and have very noticable gravid spots. Could one of them have just done a test run (lol) and just dropped a few?

 

[K8Shores]

Also, is it true that they can self abort the pregnancy?

 

[Kittykat364]

They can abort by reabsorbing the fry. Is one of the mollies possibly a balloon Molly? She could have dropped fry but still looks gravid because that is how she looks.

 

[K8Shores]

No. Black molly and dalmatian lyre tail.

 

[Kittykat364]

Could it be possible they are not gravid anymore and just bloated? You said one is a black Molly and the other is Dalmatian so they might have had their gravid spot go away without you noticing. Just a possibility. They may just be fat. Or, as I said earlier, still bloated from the pregnancy. I can't think of anything else....

TBH, the same thing happened to me before. But with balloon mollies, so it is a bit understandable for them to look fat

 

[pip walters]

Also, is it true that they can self abort the pregnancy?

They can sometimes drop prematurely if they are unduly stressed. Sometimes, putting them into a breeding trap too soon may cause this - it is always best to put them in just before they drop... which is all very well if you know when they last dropped so you can count the weeks!!
If this happens, the babies are often very weak and many may die. I recently had a batch of balloon mollies into stock at work and when I added them to the tank, there were lots of babies. They all looked dead, but I placed them in another tank and there are some survivors

 

[K8Shores]

I think that is what happened. I move them into a hospital tank/maternity ward before they drop, and I guess I jumped the gun a little bit this time.

 

[K8Shores]

The few fry that dropped looked very small and were very weak. Unfortunately they didn't make it. :'( But hopefully the rest will once they drop.

 

[Kittykat364]

I have some ghost mamas in my tank, too! May have been a balloon Molly, but the fry look too small. Not swordtail, she's a juvenile. Either platy or guppy, but I have never seen fry of either before! None of them looked big before and small now. I completely understand your frustration now. I found two fry in the main tank just now! Trying to get them out...

 

[K8Shores]

It doesn't help that Platys and Mollys are the jack rabbits of the fish world either!

 

[Kittykat364]

Nope. Guppies too...

 

[K8Shores]

It kinda works out for me though. Cause instead of having to buy Rosies to feed to my Oscars, I just give them some of the fry instead.

 

[Kittykat364]

I don't have any carnivorous fish besides a betta and the livebearers

 

[K8Shores]

This is the first time I've had Oscars. But I'm glad I got them! They are really fun fish and have awesome personalities. Plus, against all odds, I some how managed to get a breeding pair! I just picked two random ones (a tiger and an albino tiger) and they instantly hit it off. Next thing I knew, they were jaw locking and fin slapping. At first I thought they were fighting. Then I researched it and found out that they were mating. So, pretty soon I'm going to have oscar fry in my main tank. I can't wait!

 

[Kittykat364]

Wow. Lucky! Are you going to feed the fry to the fry?