LiveBearer Pregnancy

[Bubbles0oO]

If you are the owner of a livebearer such as Mollies, Platies, Swordtails, and Guppies, then you most likely have a female. You know what a female means! FRY!!! if you have a preggo female you may notice a gravid spot or a darkening on her lower abdomen, which means she is preggo.

Many people get exited when they see the gravid spot on thier female and buy a breeders box/net to catch the fry in. Good for you for noticing and taking action, but don't just get home, rinse it out and put your female into it.By doing this you will stress her out. You should know when to put a female into a breeders trap, not just because she has a gravid spot, when she squares out she is ready. Putting a female into a breeders trap too early can result in loss of pregnancy, and worse case scenario loss of your beloved female.

Below are some links,

• Prego Sunburst Platy :
  

Notice how she is square, and she has a gravid spot. All livebearers are usually bought prego, and will usually have a small gravid spot most of her life.

• Prego Mollie

• When you have a colored fish that you cannot see a gravid spot directly, you will have to watch her shape. Pictured above is a Marble Mollie that is close to delivering.

• This is specificly desined for livebearing fish, it has a V were the Fry fall through to the bottom.

So i hope this post helps you Identify when your female will give, if it needs improvment, let me know!
If you still can't tell when you female is about to give, post a pic! ill help you!




FRY!!!!

If you have a livebearer, then you have fry!
Fry can be both a blessing and a curse.
You can raise them and sell them,or
Your tank could be over run by fish and you wont know what to do

One way to controll fry is to not trap female that are about to give and let fry that hide survive, this will make the process more natural. Often you may see the fry come out and be eaten immidetly, don't worry if you have the females you WILL have the fry

If you don't have enough fry survival rate, add some plants! I keep java moss and lots of other native plants in my livebearer tank for the fry to hide in.

Java Moss:

When housing fry it dosen't matter what kind of fry you keep together, just the size.

Notice how some are long and thing, some are short and fat, and some are inbetween.

Growing Fry

When you raise fry you will see that they all start off as female. All fry start off as female and then a percentage mutate into males as needed.

Male livebearers have a Gonopodium (Male Swordtails will have a sword aswell) :

Females have an anal fin:

If you are breeding a specific gene in a livebeaer, seperate the to bee parents into a tank. The first few gravid spots won't be the male you haves fry, it will be another males (migght be his but small chance) let them breed and then use a breeders box/net to grow out the fry ( if you can't splurdge on a fry grow out tank)




Thanks for reading-

Bubbles0oO!!!

 

[phoenixkiller]

Great post. Ahh, how livebearers can breed. And breed. Then breed some more. my cousin is overrun by fry...

 

[Chronos313]

Right now my twin bar has little black dots in her abdomen and she's really bulged out. Also her abdomen is really reddish/pinkish. Am I right to expect her to drop soon? She's very jumpy if you walk by the tank and swims away even if you walk by. I have a breeder net already so I'm prepared to nurse them and I bought micro pellets as food. I only have one other female in the tank with her and I believe she's carrying also so I'm thinking a good 25-40 fry may arrive. I can't get pics cuz she hides until I leave. Even if I don't move she won't move until I'm gone. She's like a T-Rex but her eyesight isn't bothered by movement

 

[phoenixkiller]

Right now my twin bar has little black dots in her abdomen and she's really bulged out. Also her abdomen is really reddish/pinkish. Am I right to expect her to drop soon? She's very jumpy if you walk by the tank and swims away even if you walk by. I have a breeder net already so I'm prepared to nurse them and I bought micro pellets as food. I only have one other female in the tank with her and I believe she's carrying also so I'm thinking a good 25-40 fry may arrive. I can't get pics cuz she hides until I leave. Even if I don't move she won't move until I'm gone. She's like a T-Rex but her eyesight isn't bothered by movement

I would appreciate pictures, but from your description I think I would expect some fry soon. Make sure not to stress her out, or she could die. I hope you are prepared to care for a considerable amount of fry!

 

[Chronos313]

Oh once the fry are born I'll have them in the breeder net, I have micro pellets and crushed up spiraluna and krill flakes for food. I also intend on moving the females back to the 30 gallon and repeating the natural process in there until the current fry are big enough to sell or trade. But I definitely will keep some and keep them apart from their mother to avoid inbreeding if any are male.

 

[Bubbles0oO]

Yeah, the only purpose for my breeders box is to raise fry, i rarely ever put a female into it. You can probibly prepare for a good fat amount of fry too!

 

[bettababy29]

hey bubbles, email me at thekillingblow23@yahoo.com please because I can't send any more messages on here.

 

[Bubbles0oO]

sent and you know you can delete old mesages....

 

[bettababy29]

I didn't know that I'm new to this site

 

[Bubbles0oO]

its ok we all learn something new on this site every day!

 

[bettababy29]

I'm glad to be a part of it then ^_^

 

[Bubbles0oO]

still here for advice! nobody seems to be asking questions.....

edit: sorry for bumping....

 

[Alyxx]

Oh once the fry are born I'll have them in the breeder net, I have micro pellets and crushed up spiraluna and krill flakes for food. I also intend on moving the females back to the 30 gallon and repeating the natural process in there until the current fry are big enough to sell or trade. But I definitely will keep some and keep them apart from their mother to avoid inbreeding if any are male.

Inbreeding isn't a bad thing when breeding fish, in fact it is one of the main ways to breed for a specific strain. There aren't many ill effects from inbreeding fish for quite a few generations, so no worries.

 

[Bubbles0oO]

i think chronos313 is trying to get as many babies as pausible from that father(s)

 

[Bubbles0oO]

havent posted anythign in awhile so i thought i would update with a nursery section!

Nurserys
the ideal size of a nursery os 10 gallons. 109 gallons is for the average breeder. more than 10 gallons is dedicated.

your nursery will need to be cycled just like any other tank you have. you can speed this up by adding used filter media ( seeded) to your tank or in the filter

Filters

your nursery will need filtration. duh lol if your going to use a stan=dard filter cover upo the intake with either a sponge or a washed pair of pantyhose. this will prevent the filter from sucking up fry. personaly i use a sponge filter, it dosent throw the fry arond the tank like any other filter would.

Feeding

your nursery will need to be fed several times a day. weather its 2-3 or 3-4 they need to be fed. feeding your fry crunched up flakes is perfect. you may also treat them to a few brine shrimp . wenever cleaning out the nursery make sure to suck up left over food.

Cleaning

Your nursery tank will need to be cleaned along with your other tanks. Large water changes may shock the fry, so only do 30% 2x a week ( not what you have to do thats just what i do) if you have substrate in your nursery tank make sure to remove fry from it before cleanting the substrate. gravel is not ideal for a nursery tank because the fry tend to hide in it and get stuck/ crushed. sand is better, but bare bottom is best.

Decorations/plants

if your nursery tank isent already beautiful enough, you can add plants ( any kind would work). i would reccomend java moss, horn wort, and christmass moss because they all grow tiny stuff thet fry can snack on. as for the decorations, small terracotta pots are a great contrast for the fry. make sure to rinse well and remove any and all stickers before use. i find that the pots make my water cloudy for the first day, but the cloudyness goes away after a waterchange. you will have to worry about the holes in the bottom of the pots. if your fry are too big to fit through the holes , plug them up, same or if they are too small youi wouldnt want to lose a fry that way

Tankmates

fry have a limited number of tankmates. some shrimp may eat them, along with nome snails and small fish. plecos arent ideal, but what i find works great for me is Mystery/apple snails. yeah yeah i know they breed alot but were i live they sell quick. the mystery snails get a slice of cucumber every week , wich they love. the fry also munch on the cucumber. for tank mates try to go with somthing that wont eat yoru fry and that your fry wont eat

( will do edit and add pics of my nursery tank)

 

[Liz_H]

Great info here, thanks! I have a question. I set up a nursery tank a few days ago, before reading this, and put gravel in it. I put my soon-to-be mama in there last night, and now I'm wondering if I should leave it how it is, or take the gravel out..? Would she be ok in the bare bottom tank? I'm not sure how far along she is. I got her about two and a half weeks ago, and she already had the gravid spot, so I'm thinking it will be soon-ish...

 

[Bubbles0oO]

Gravel isn't bad, it's just not he best. If to already have it in its a pain to get out. If you can get a picture of your momma I can help with how Far along she is. I actually just put sand in my nursery tank, they love it! So do my snails.

 

[Liz_H]

I have switched to sand in my other tanks, but I didn't have any left for this tank. I'll try to get a good pic of her, she's very skittish.

 

[Liz_H]

Alright I got a couple I'll attach, but they're pretty grainy because she's moving around so much.

 

[Bubbles0oO]

Looks to me like she is in the early stages, since she is a solid color you'll need to watch her shape a lot.

I have to admit I was confused with the first pic because there were two mommas! Then I realized it was her reflection.....