Baby platies

[treshay]

I woke up this morning and while pouring my coffee I saw a baby platy just swimming around! We've been staring at the aquarium all morning now they hide so good! We've only seen two at a time but the way they hide we can't tell if we are seeing the same two or if there are more hiding. Not sure how old they are - they already look just like platies all gold with black tails and black eyes and mouth. I thought they weren't that color when they were born.

Is it possible that these babies have been hiding for a month and we're just now seeing them? And if that's possible than I guess we could potentially have TONS of babies and just not seeing them.

Couple of questions:
Are the baby platies gold and black when they come out, or clear? How long before they start to show color? Is it usual for babies to hide so well that you don't know they are there until they are a few weeks to a month old?

We got a female guppy about a week ago and she was HUGE. Then one day she wasn't huge, completey normal sized. I thought that she must have aborted or absorbed the babies (from what I've read) because of the stress of moving her here. So now I"m wondering, could there be lots of little baby guppies in my tank?

Guess it's time to get my second tank set up and make room for all the new babies!!

 

[MissFishy]

Babies will generally come out of the mom with no color, but if they will have black on them, sometimes that will show up. Color usually begins to show around 1 month, give or take. It's common to not even know if there are babies in your tank, they blend in well and a lot can get eaten right away if your fish are hungry. They could be guppy babies, they can look similar to platy fry when born. Take a peek at the link in my signature if you want to raise them, I did an entry about "Raising Fry". Just watch out, I know it seems way too distant, but if you have both males and females in there, they can quickly overpopulate.

 

[treshay]

Thanks! You have a nice website. I'll give you a little background on why we have the fish to begin with. We started with two fire belly toads. They are my babies. They eat live food, mostly crickets but also meal worms and after researching I found that fish are a nice little treat for them. So we went out and bought some guppy fish, just to see if the toads would eat them. We quickly realized that the fish are far too big for the toads to eat, but after more research learned that the fry are perfect size and great for the toads because they are harder to hunt (I know it sounds cruel but it is the cycle of life and for the sake of our toads, having to forage and hunt for their food is healthier than just having it dropped in front of them for them to eat).

Well - in the meantime we fell in love with the fish and decided that for the best care for both creatures, they needed their own tanks. We got a new tank for the toads and rearranged the old tank and made it suitable for our fish. Unfortunately none of that batch made it but we suspected they wouldn't because the conditions were never right for fish and the tank hadn't been cycled. After the fish died, we treated the tank with a parasite/antifungus treatment that the local aquarium store gave us. We did this and gave it a few weeks before we added our platies which is what we have now.

So if we end up with an overpopulation we just plan to feed our toads with them. But if there are only a couple fry in the tank then I will just let nature take it's course - they will either get eaten or they will survive and be a part of my fishy family.

 

[treshay]

I was able to get a few decent pictures of the baby. Can anyone give an idea of old this might be? Like I said there is at least one other one but it is hiding very well so I can't see it very often.

Isn't is just adorable!!!

 

[MissFishy]

Very cute, it looks to be a week + to me.