Pregnant?

FishKid91

I have a feeling 3 of my platies are pregnant. They have gotten bigger. I noticed last night how huge they are. I've seen them getting bigger and thought it was just because food, but one of them hasn't gotten any bigger. I set up a 10gal tank and hooked up the filter and put the heater into the water. Right now the temp is at 78F. I used to water hose to fill the tank up. Will it kill the fry if they aren't born into the tank I have up and running? This tank has only been running since last night. But I don't want dead fry in my tank nor do I want them to get eaten. I have a fake coral and about 6-7 plants. I'll post links to see the tank.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f6...mething008.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f6...mething007.jpg

Highland lake13

Can you see dark spots in the belly and/or is the belly red inside (color of the eggs) then the fish are pregnant.

FishKid91

Yes, the stomach is white and I can see dark behind it around the middle of it kind of under the anal fin. I looked to see the difference in the anal fines from males and females and I do in fact have 3 females and 1 male. How long until they have the fry? I'm going to petsmart tonight to get a test kit for the water to check the levels. How long do I have. I want to be sure (I wasn't paying attention to see if they were really pregnant so they could have been like this for a few weeks.) I'd like to put them in tonight.

Highland lake13

They are definitly pregnant if you bought them a few weeks ago. I would go ahead and move them into the 10g. You should try to check the parameters very often and do 10-20% water changes every day.

~Cam

Kim

I'd move a used filter sponge from the old tank into the new ones to help with the cycle. Depending on how far along they are, you could possibly run the new filter for the 10 gallon beside the one on the 29 gal. for a few weeks. If you do this you may be able to bypass the cycle altogether and have a tank with enough bacteria to support the 3 fish. You'd still want to check the water often however. Also, if you want to save all the babies you will need to watch carefully so the other 2 fish don't eat the babies of the fish that dropps first. Putting floating plants and dense bottom plants as well as hiding places for the mothers should help. Post some pictures too ;)

Oldman47

Fishkid, take a look down at the platies from the top. If you can easily see that they are swollen when viewed from above, they are close to delivering fry. If they are not obviously swollen when viewed from above, you still have some time. It would be best if you can get the new tank cycled before putting any fish into it and Kim gave you a key to hurrying that process. A mature filter sponge in the new filter will help a lot in getting the tank cycled quickly. If only one of the females is about to deliver, ypou could probably move just her and things would be stable with that sample of filter sponge helping out. Once she delivers the fry, move her back and leave the fry alone in the tank to grow bigger. They are a bioload so even the fry should be able to keep the new filter cycled with that sample of mature media in it.