[piranha45]

I just bought 3 female platys and 1 male platy and stuck em in a 10 gallon tank. I want them to breed, so that I can use the babies as occasional feeder fish. Does this sound pretty effective and feasible to you?

How often do they breed, and whats the gestation time for the female? Can the babies be fed easily, like with crushed flakes?

 

[Innes]

the gestation period is a few days, they can breed up to every couple of weeks, 3 females and 1 male - I reccon that only 1 female will get pregnant

you will not be able to use the babys from 3 females to feed any fish without needing other foods

I usually gather all of my dry fish foods and crust them into powder when I want to feed baby fish

 

[piranha45]

curses, so ill have to get 2 more males tomorrow then, i figured they were opportunistic maters instead of nuclear pairers. And yeah i mentioned that ill only use them as "occasional" feeder food.

How long does it take for the babies to go from birth to 1 cm? to 1 inch? Should i have gravel on the bottom or not? Do the parents eat the babies, thereby requiring separation?

 

[SnowCichlid]

Livebarrears tend to be relativly easy to breed so you should be ok :

:

 

[Innes]

gravel is a good idea - and you should seperate the babys from the parents if possible, but otherwise you should provide loads of bushy plant cover.

as for growth rates - it all depends on tank size and how much food they get

 

[piranha45]

mm... how do you tell when the female is about to give birth? Do platies get as fat as guppies when this is about to happen?

 

[Innes]

yeah, plattys get fat also, and usually the area around their anus turns darker - as these are the babys

 

[piranha45]

bleh, to hell with that platy crap, having to baby-sit those things so that they don't eat their babies (not to mention monitoring such minuscule babies in the first place) isn't worth the effort

I took em all back, and got a convict pair