# Basic Fish Breeding Questions



## puppylove.sn (Feb 15, 2010)

I just wanted to know some basic stuff about breeding fish. Some questions are:
How do you tell which fish are females and which ones are males?
When will the female give birth to the fry?
How do you tell when the female is pregnant?
How do you tell which two fish, the male and female, are expecting the babies?- like how do you tell when the fish have had sex?

The fish I have are: dalmatian mollies, mickey mouse platys, golden platys, balloon belly mollies, a fancy finned tropical fish (not a guppy, but don't know what kind), and an algae eater. I am new to the fresh water fish world.
:fish: Thanks!


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## br00tal_dude (Dec 26, 2009)

for the most part with your live bearers (Mollies, platies, guppies) the Famile will have a rounded anal fin and the male will have a little pointed fin at the base of his tail. the female will strat to look really fat and kindof boxy when she is pregnant, and you can tell when they are getting close to giving birth by looking for a dark spot at the base of the tail (called a gravid spot). Google will be a good firend in finding good pictures and articles that explain these things much better than i can.


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## puppylove.sn (Feb 15, 2010)

thank you.


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## hXcChic22 (Dec 26, 2009)

Oh, and you won't be able to tell much about which parents are which until the fry are upwards of three months old, when they should have most of their grown color, hopefully start showing their gender, and have grown significantly. 
We had molly fry whose parents were supposedly both Dalmatian Lyretails, and it took them forever to start spotting and they have yet to develop lyres, even though they were born in mid-December. We sold them to our local fish store and they are growing nicely but still developing spots. So unless you keep them all until they are grown you probably will never know. 
On the other hand, we rescued a pregnant Gold Dust Molly from Wal-Mart who had babies a couple days after we brought her home and they already are showing some tint and lots of them have sigificant spots already, even though they were born the end of January. So I guess it just depends.


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## lohachata (Jan 27, 2006)

livebearers are built a little like mammals..males have a "gonopodium".like a mammal penis.it is like a little piece that will stick straight out by his anal fin..the female will not have this.as the incubation period progresses ; the female will get fatter and fatter..you will see a dark area forming within the back part of her belly.that is the gravid spot..it would be best to have a separate tank with a lot of floating plants set up to put the female in just before she drops the fry.


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