# Urgent Help



## Guest (May 1, 2007)

Hi, I'm new here but I was in need of urgent help and I searched for fish forums and up this came. Alright, it took me awhile to .. register.. HRM. But oh well.

Here's the issue.


I have a 10g tank with: 2 platy(1male1female) 1 swordtail 3 danio.

I was looking inside my tank and I realized I spotted a tiny platy! I screamed in delight but I have no clue what to do? There only seems to be one, which is odd. And Idk about eggs. There's algae on the walls with like weird stuff on it and on one of the fake plants it looks like a snails egg... Do I remove it? It appears to be female, about maybe 1 cm.

Thank you SO much.


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

There is no way to tell the sex of your fry at such a young age. If you can tell the sex then leave him be. If you want to keep the fry, put him/her in a breeding net. Otherwise take your chances. Since you have lots of hiding places and few fish, they should make it but its not guaranteed.


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## bscman (Mar 23, 2007)

I'd say if you have plenty of hiding places, you might be okay.
Otherwise, a spare tank of breeder net wouldn't be a bad idea.

I've had several guppy's pollute my tanks with fry...not wanting as many as I've been given, I always just left 'em in there. Amazingly, even with half-dozen adults in the tanks the majority of the fry would survive...


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## Cichlidsrule (Nov 8, 2006)

Dense plants also work as good hiding spaces for fry. I use javamoss and another plant (I forget what it's calle) that float at the top and the fry love it.
Like Damon said, wait a month or so and you should be able to see the gonopodium-- I think. That's how long it is for guppies anyway


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## Anonymous (Jan 15, 2005)

I used to think the same thing, sexing young fish, until I came across an article several years back. Sounded kind of odd, but tried it with some peppermint swords, the predecessor of the now popular koi.

As it turns out, it is possible to sex fry at any point beyond the time their yolk sacs are absorbed. The basis is that the swim bladder forms differently for each sex. Females have a more rounded swim bladder along the posterior edge, and males have more of a point. To say I was skeptical would be an understatement, but had to try it for myself as separating sexes before copulation is possible makes selective breeding amazingly easier. In order to see the difference, the fish have to be viewed with a magnifying glass. In short, I ran an experiment to see if it could be done. The numbers don't lie. I was not very practiced, and had eye strain before I was done, but managed to get close to 90% accuracy. That was enough to convince me that there was something to the claim.

Larry Vires


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