First Pregnant Platy what do I do?

valachase

I am very new to having platies and was hoping someone might be able to answer a few questions....
I currently have at least one very pregnant Platy... the LFS told me to separate it from the rest of the platies I have done this. My questions are:

How do I know when to move the pregnant females?
Will I see the fry once they are born or will they just hide?
Do I move the mother away from the fry once they are born?
What do I feed the fry?
should I be feeding the mother differently while she's pregnant? ( I currently rotate flakes, freeze dried bloodworms and frozen brine shrimp)
Is there anything important I should know about breeding platies?

Thanks in advance for the help.
Vala

Chris07860

I had the same situation years back. I went out and bought a partition for the tank and once the babies were born I put them on that side and put in very small fish flakes. Keep them away from other fish until they are much bigger. Good luck with the platys

BarbH

I am new with platys myself, but hopefully some of my limited and experience and research might be of some help to you. How have you seperated the female from the others? Have you put her into a seperate tank, breeder net, or using a partition? For moving the pregnant female it depends on the type of setup that you have for her. Moving a female that is close to dropping fry can create stress on them and can cause them to drop their fry early. Once the fry are born you will be able to see them depending on the setup that they are in. Watch the female once she has dropped her fry she will go from looking like she is ready to explode to becoming skinny again. Once the fry are born you will want to remove the female, because she will eat the fry. From my research you have about a twelve hour window in which the female will leave the fry alone due to hormones that are produced. For feeding the fry most people take flake food and grind it into a fine powder. There is also foods available specifically for fry such as hikari first bites. Also when they get a little bit bigger you can also feed them something like baby brine shrimp, I have been able to find it with the frozen fish food and going to give it a try once my female that I have in a seperate tank drops her fry. What you are feeding right now should be fine for your females. You will want to keep the fry seperated from the other fish until they get big enough that they will not fit into the mouths of the other fish.