Platy fry and the birthing process

[BCWoman64]

Hi everyone!

So I have a pregnant blue platy from the LFS. I bought her on the 27th of March and did not know that she was pregnant at the time. Over the last few weeks I have watched her belly grow, so I set up a 15 G nursery tank and put her in there about a week ago. Yesterday when doing a PWC I noticed a fry in the tank, I then checked the water in the bucket that I had evacuated and sure enough there was a fry in there to, so I scooped it up in a glass and returned it to the tank. Last night I noticed 3 fry in the tank.

The platy is still pretty big, when will she drop the rest? Is this part of the normal brthing process that they don't all come at once?

Are there such things as "good moms" who don't eat their fry?

Parameters:

Temp about 82
Lots of plastic plants for fry to hide in
Air diffuser bar and small HOB power filter (Elite aquarium)
The only fish in the tank is momma and her fry

ammonia 0 - Just got this back down - was quite high (1.75) for a couple of days
nitrate 60
nitrite 0
ph 6.5
kh 100
gh 150

TIA for any answers and advice.

 

[dskidmore]

A stressed fish can drop babies early. The nitrate there is a bit high, and you recently had an ammonia spike. I'd turn up the water changes. You can put some cloth or filter material over the end of the hose to keep from sucking up fry.