Platy Fry

[Jaxy_89]

Hi there,
I hope there is someone here that might have the answer I am looking for.
I have two 29gal tanks set up one for my males and one for my females.
I have 6 female platys that became pregnant before I separated the males out into the new tank. I have noticed that there will be 3-5 fry show up every week or so and they are all still visibly pregnant.
There are definitely no males in the tank

 

[Delapool]

Generally the females can bear several batches of fry and for quite some months without males around. Someone might have exact figures. I assume it’s a survival thing.

 

[Barliman]

Females can store sperm for, if I recall right, up to 8 weeks. Eventually you'll stop getting new little ones.

 

[Jaxy_89]

Ohh really!
That’s actually pretty cool.
Thank you for the info.

 

[emeraldking]

Females can store sperm for, if I recall right, up to 8 weeks. Eventually you'll stop getting new little ones.

Most females of ovoviviparous livebearers such as these can store sperm packets for over a year even. But the quality of those sperm packets when stored for over a year will become less. A lot of people think they are only able to store such packets for a few months but it's really over a year.

 

[Delapool]

Handy info - I wonder why. I assume this all for survival but would of thought males would be more common in nature.

 

[emeraldking]

Handy info - I wonder why. I assume this all for survival but would of thought males would be more common in nature.

Well, the ability of storing sperm packets is a survival strategy in free nature. In case there are no males anymore or a lack of males within the colony, this ensures to get the population going on. For a certain number of ovoviviparous livebearer species occur in preditory waters and therefore a number of these livebearers will be eaten. And as long as there are surviving females that are storing sperm packets, they can still reproduce themselves and the colony will survive.