Pregnant Guppy

[JinXgirl]

My female guppy is pregnant for the first time and she looks like she is going to BURST

How long do they normally carry them before giving birth to fry? she seems to have been getting bigger for a few weeks, and for at least one week i've been expecting it to happen! if she gets any bigger she's going to explode!

 

[mzimmy]

Well if she has been getting bigger for a few weeks, then she is probably ready to give birth any time now. Just keep an eye on her, sometimes they act different when they are ready to give birth. I have had people say that the wont eat as much, or they stay away from other fish. My guppies didn't stop eating before birth, infact one of my guppies who gave birth to about 65 fry had a very long labor, over 24 hours, and I fed her a little in her tank, and she ate durning labor. She also looked like she was going to "burst" for about a week before she gave birth. You just need to watch her behavior....is she in a tank with other fish? If she is, and you want to keep them, I would suggest getting a breeders net, or tank. I have a breeders trap that I have for my mothers to be. You just put them in there when you think they are ready to give birth, and it saves almost all the fry, some DO find there way back up, but losing a few and still having over 50 is pretty well i think. If you don't want to keep the fry, the other fish will eat them in the tank, and the mother will too! You can also try breeding grass. Or have lots of places for the fry to hide. Good luck!

 

[Luca]

Isolate her straight away, guppies give birth every 3 weeks i've heard (but i think it's more like a month or slightmore more)

I agree get a v-trap baby catcher thingee ma-jig-ee, they're great, been using one for years.

mzimmy, 65 fry??!?! wow, mine only ever have 10-20. How big are your guppies in terms of length?? (in cm if possible)

jinxgirl: buy a big clump of java moss if you can't afford the v-trap and she'll drop them in that and you'll lose a few but some will survive, it's jubious but better than nothing. I'm about to do that with a fat platy cuz i hear they hate being confined to a v-trap.

goodluck, keep me posted with what happens,
Luca.

 

[JinXgirl]

thanks!
i had been planning to get a breeding net etc today anyway as i realised she must be about to pop! she won't stop eating but then thats not really anything new for her.. if i have 65 fry she might just get filled up!

 

[JinXgirl]

she POPPED!

Well at 1:30pm today I became the proud surrogate mother to 4 guppies. I went into town and got the v trap and just as I took the lid of the tank I saw a little dark shadow dart into my pants. quickly scooped up mamma guppy and put her in breeder tank much to her disgust! suddenly 3 more fishies appeared! i've had baby spotted mollies before but never seen them beingborn so this was a source of big excitement for me and b/friend! managed to capture the 1st one and put it into breeder tank. sadly baby 5 & 6 didn;t sink, tried to swim and got eaten

what i am now asking about it this... while she was having the babies she was also droping what looked like eggs. were they unfertalized eggs or ones that hadn't developed enough yet? most of them got eaten quickly too...

So now i'm all excited and can't wait for her and my mollies to get pregnant again!!

 

[Luca]

hehe @ surrogate mother, awesome to hear your (partial) success

At first tropical fish is about fish, then it's about breeding i reckon, it's a whole new dimension and is fun and you can get good benefits from it such as free fish that you could possibly sell one day.

I've got a fat platy isolated with a huge clump of java moss in a 1.5 foot tank at the moment, hoping that moving her home will induce the drop, i'll keep ya posted,
seeya,
Luca.

 

[red belly pacus]

A lot of times what look like eggs are the fry sometime they just come out like that and they just pop open into a fry its neat to watch them open up I have a lot of guppies they are one of the most active fish I have and they breed every thirty day the males are constantly harrassing the females.

 

[tetra girl]

they sound like they are unfertilised eggs or ones that she aborted for some reason. There is usually a couple of them when a guppy gives birth.

 

[Luca]

Yeah i've seen those eggs you've described before, they are yummy morsoles to your tankmates. Well the isolated platy in the mass of java moss paid off.....looked in this morning and there were exactly 60 babies! I've never had that much fry, it's awesome, i guess your mollies will have something similar to that because they are bigger than guppies also

how's the 4 kids going?
Luca.

 

[JinXgirl]

Mother and child(ren) doing well....

i'm amazed they are all still alive... my poor betta is going bonkers tho.. he swims round and round and round the v trap trying to figure out how to get in there and swallow them whole! they were all swimming about really quickly the other day like little pinballs and he nearly knocked himself stupid trying to catch them through the plastic!

How long should i leave them in there before its safe to let them fend for themselves?

As for my mollies..well its really quire hard to tell when she's pregnant as she spotted I can't look for the dark spot and she's always pretty fat so I've nevre managed to get her isolated... last time she had babes I missed it and the lot got eaten...time before that I found 3 and 2 of them survived... don't know how many she had initially tho!

 

[Luca]

The other platy i had i found 3 babies that were quite large in the java moss, god knows how long they'd been there but then this next drop is 60 fry so i'm guessing i lost a lot then!

A better idea is to buy a little cubular net structure that has 2 metal clips that hang over the edge of the tank, keeping the unit up high and to the side. This will keep the babies more at ease as they will have more room than in the v-trap and the betta won't be scaring them.

They need to be a lot older before you release them...I'd say wait till they start developing some colour in their tale, that's my rule, so i guess about 3 weeks minimum.

Don't worry about missing the molly dropping, i've missed many a guppy in my time!

Luca.

 

[tetra girl]

i agree with luca - i used to use a net structure but now i have a 15 gallon tank to house all the babies cause even though theres like 100 of them since they are tiny that tanks not really overstocked. I would wait until the babies are big enough to not be eaten in two bites by your biggest fish before you release them.