# 5 baby platties



## anniem584 (Feb 19, 2013)

I have had 2 female mickey mousetail platties for about 2 and a hal weeks. When we went to vac the gavel and do a water change yesterday my husband spotted babies. We ended up finding 5. they are now safe in the breeder net. I had a feeling the platties were pregnant but I thought they have more that 5. Will she have more? I have baby bites for the fry. They don't seem too interested. Is there another food they might like better? This is my first time so I am not sure what to do to keep these 5 alive. Any help would be welcome.
On the otherhand the guppy I swore was pregnant who is in another tank has had no fry. Maybe she is just fat.
Thanks 
Anne


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## yannis2307 (Apr 23, 2012)

look, in my opinion, the babies can be born and can disappear in less than a night. If you have had the mother platies in a community tank and not in a breeder net/box, they are either sucked up in the filter, eaten by other fish or even by their own mother, or just died from lack of food that could fit in their mouths etc. etc. I had a wagtail mother that gave birth 3 times (it was obvious, on one day you could see baby eyes and her belly was like the rest of the body in size and the next day she was perfectly normal, if not skinny) and because i didnt care for the fry, i only found one randomly on a water change in the filter intake, alive, and i still have him. I mean its normal not finding them, but if you wanna keep as many as possible put the mother in the breeder net for a week or so when you start seeing real big tummys...Dont worry about the food, they'll start eating if it's ground up enough, so crush it as much as you can between your fingers too... You may not be seeing them eating, but you can't watch them 24/7.. they'll search for the food and they will find it when they want to, and be sure, they are already eating. Other than that, keep water params stable and diseases out and then it's luck from then on....


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## anniem584 (Feb 19, 2013)

Thank You! The five are eating and they look good. I wish I had known she was pregnant but she didn't get a very big belly or anything. I am happy to have the 5. I will look more closely from now on.


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## yannis2307 (Apr 23, 2012)

even if you dont look closely and isolate them, 5 here, 5 there, in this rate they will have quadrupled in quantity in 4 months...as it's said, the difficult in livebearer breeding is not multiplying them, but keeping their numbers down...


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