Care of Pregnant Livebearers

[fishbguy]

Okay...I have seen waaaaay to many threads about pregnent live bearers on this forum. There must be 5 threads a day, asking the same thing, over, and over, and over, and over. So, I wrote this for another site, who doesn't have that problem, and decided to post it here as well. Maybe it'll help with our litlt problem.

Sexing Livebearers

Most livebearers are easy to breed, with a few exceptions. What I will be describing in these next few paragraph are mainly about Mollies, Platies, Swordtails, and Guppies, the most common species. there are many other livebearers but i don't have any experience with them.

Livebearers are generally very easy to sex. Males often are more colorful, have longer fins, and the best way to tell the difference, gonopodiums. Gonopodiums are modified anal fins that are used to transfer sperm from the male into the female. Females have a more rounded anal fin, less color, shorter fins, etc.


Is My Livebearer Pregnant?

As long as you keep a male and female live bearer together, chances are you female will always be gravid. you can tell easily when a female is pregnant on most species by looking at the base of they're anal fin. There is often a dark spot there clled the gravid spot. This "spot" is the baby's eyes. this will get very large and the female will look almost like a box when she is getting ready to drop. this happens about every month. Female live bearers also have the ability to retain sperm. Even when you remove the male, the female can continue to have fry for up to 3 months before she runs out of sperm.

What to do With a Pregnant Livebearer

There ar many things that you can do with a pregnant livebearer. Many people like to put them in breeder nets or traps, I am not a fan of these. They are more stressful for the fry and moms as well. The fry just don't sink, they automaticly swim to the surface, easy pickings for the moms, which do eat they're fry. the best thing to do is to put the female into a 10 gallon tank, bare bottom, about 2 weeks before she's due. Make sure you get her in early enough and the tank is cycled or she might abort the fry. Inorder to protect the fry, put lots of plants in the tank, live or fake. This will offer the fry a place to hide so they don't get eaten. I find that floating plants work best because the fry naturally go to the surace. It is also easier for them to find food.

What Should I Feed my Fry?

you can feed a variety of things. I feed mine finely crushed flakes. More good foods include baby brine shrimp, micro worms, commercial fry foods, etc. basically everything small.

I think I covered everything. If i missed something, feel free to let me know and i'll fix it. I would appreciate it if someone could sticky this for me so people would see it as soon as they come in. It would be stupid to let this get lost in the forums, because, obviously, nobody goes and looks at past threads anyway. I'll update as nesecary.

Andrew

[Ice Prince]

very informative. nice job. i think there should be a section of the forums devoted just to caring for fry.

[tikotaz]

They do not always swim to the top I have spoken to petstores that employees use a hatchery they do fall through to the bottom. Not going to the top, they are by nature ones to hide, so going to the bottom would be the right thing for them. Though molly will not eat them until she is finished the birthing.

[livebearer_love]

I agree there should be a section devoted to fry.
I have one other question...
What temperature should the fry be kept at? Should the temperature rise or drop as the fry get older?
and also if anybody could tell my what bbs means. I see it used alot when referring to baby fry feeding but what exactly is it? sorry im kinda new to this.
thanks for your help and very informative fishbguy.

[fishbguy]

what evr temp you keep your parents at is fine.

bbs=baby brine shrimp

And thank you,

[livebearer_love]

wow that was a really fast reply!
thanks again

[fishdude32]

Though molly will not eat them until she is finished the birthing.[/quote]
thats not true i've seen a video on youtube where the molly ate the fry while it was still having it's babies but I guess it is unusual for them to eat the the fry before she's done

[livebearer_love]

thats not true i've seen a video on youtube where the molly ate the fry while it was still having it's babies but I guess it is unusual for them to eat the the fry before she's done

ya i just saw the same video pretty strange as soon as the fry was born it was eatedn in 5 seconds. but maybe that was the molly's last fry so maybe she really was done giving birth when she ate the fry. Who knows?

[tikotaz]

Well I was told by one petstore employee that breeds mollies she said that the mother does't eat them until she is done, so when she is make sure to feed her alot so she doesn't go after the fry, but who knows really. She could just have a particular molly that doesn't though another of her co workers said the same thing.