A Feast of Fry

My Platy momma gave birth to 20+ fry tonight. I sat there watching for about 2 hours. (This was at the same time as my gouramis were mating). This is the very first time I've ever seen her give birth - she always does it at night so I never see it. She just weaves into the vallisnerias and tilts until her head is upside down and kinda shimmies a bit until live babies swim out of her.

It was sickening but fascinating at the same time. The teeny peach-colored platy fry would pop out of the female platy and be instantly chewed to bits by a guppy or gourami, or even the platy herself! Most of the fry did not survive for longer than 5 seconds (literally!).

The poor things were cornered and devoured with great gusto by my guppies, who only get the chance to eat live prey (fry) once a month. I even saw a teeny ghost shrimp snatch up an unsuspecting fry that was camouflaged into the gravel! It was ridiculous how the ghost shrimp swiped its pincers and shoved the baby into its mouth.

The female platy has been giving birth for the past 2 hours. Every 15-20 minutes, 2-3 babies would slide out of her at once. She's considerably thinner now (earlier she looked like she was about to blow up). You can tell she's about to give birth when her belly "squares up" and looks like a rectagular box.

She eats ferociously when she gives birth because laboring wastes so much energy. Poor her...everyone chases her tail hoping to snatch up freshly born fry. My tank is literally floating with dead bits of fry everywhere and poop. There's quite a few decapitated heads floatin' about...kinda gross. After watching the massacre for about an hour, I decided to salvage what fry I could find left and put it into my betta's tank in hopes of saving them. I know, I know, it's not that much better, but I'm hoping that since my betta moves so slowly, it won't be able to catch the fry. Plus there's a large clump of Java moss in my betta's 10 gallon tank....I managed to salvage 4 frail lives from the wreckage. I don't know if they'll even last til morning though! :|

I mean, I knew what I was getting into by letting the fry be born free, but still, watching them get eaten like that by the other fish made me a little bit, just a little bit teary. Poor things...didn't even know what hit 'em.

I once had a fry survive for a whole month and she was really starting to show her colors when WHAM, she got eaten too when I introduced my first gourami. *Sigh* I really should've saved her - she was a survivor! She survived 2 moves and dodged 10 hungry fish, scrounging off bits of leftover food and algae (I never could feed her because she was always hiding)

Uh oh...I think my betta JUST realized that I put fry in the tank. It's dark, but I think he can still see them.......


By the way - you can sex a platy by looking at its anal fin. Females have a triangle "flag" shaped fin, while males have a long thin gonopodium that looks like a stick.

Some people prefer to plop their pregnant fish into a breeder net, which hooks onto the side of the fish tank. When the babies come out, they slide into a lower compartment and are protected. But I believe this severely stresses out the mother AND the babies because they are so cramped in such a tiny space.

I don't have a separate tank to spare just for fry....my policy is: survival of the fittest. There's plenty of plants in the tank - if the fry is smart and crafty as well as resourceful it'll live. Yeeks!

Gouramis Mating

I've just spent two hours watching one of the most interesting phenomenon I've thus witnessed since I began fishkeeping 4 months ago: Gouramis having sex. It's by far one of the most fascinating and beautiful exchanges I've ever seen.

As far as I can tell, it began 2 hours ago when the male and female honey gouramis were sharing a snack: a newly born Platy fry :(. After that, their colors became amazingly bright - especially the male, whose orange fins and tails grew exceptionally beautiful. The female grew a little bit paler. Then they began chasing each others tails around the tank.

After playing around for a few minutes, they began wagging their tails furiously, approaching each other cautiously, as if to kiss. But instead of touching lips, they started pressing their bodies together, and then "hugging". The female lies flat against the gravel while the male curves his body towards her and almost has a seizure.

I can tell it's exhausting work because both of them are panting and out of breath, and they "take a break" from each other every 10 minutes or so - staying at opposite sides of the tank until they're ready to meet again.

I've heard many people call it a "courtship dance". Dance indeed! The female will swim 2 strokes back, the male one stroke forward and then vice versa like salsa or tango...It looks quite complicated and intricate...almost aggressive - they nip each other...but in a tender, almost playful way - not in a harmful manner. They also nip and chase away any of the other fish that get too close to them.

It's funny; I didn't expect them to start mating so soon. After all, it's only been one full day since I introduced the male. Speaking of him...he's adorable - he has a birthmark running along his chin like a slim beard. I upset me at first but the blemish is becoming endearing now. I've also learned that the female honey gold (dwarf) gourami will only mate with a male THE SAME COLOR...I had a male fire honey (dwarf) gourami and they didn't even get close to one another. They looked the same except the fire honey was a bit redder. But I guess they were different species?!

Pregnant Platy

My pregnant Platy mom looks like she's about to BURST (which is what females are supposed to look like a few days before giving birth). But she's looked this fat for almost 3 weeks now - still no sign of new fry.

I hope it's not because she's stressed due to all the "attention" she's been getting from the male guppies. They occasionally chase her around, but she doesn't seem super bothered by it. Then again, she is the only female fish in the tank. Hmm.

I'm a bit worried that I will have too many fry when she does decide to give birth. I have a ton of cover and plants in my large tank, which equates to high fry survival rates. Right now I'm just excited that I'll have new fry soon...but I'm not sure how I will deal with them. It may sound cruel but I might have to feed the babies to my betta fish (if he'll eat 'em). Or I could give them away I guess...but Platies are too common of a fish to warrant a lot of adoptee's attentions.

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On another note. Buy good quality aquarium plants from a reputable, nice and clean looking tank! I bought a cluster of plants from a slightly shady store with some sick Oto cats. The plants are dying as I type and they've only been in the tank for 2 weeks. And the Oto catfish I bought that came from the same tank died 2 days later. It was terrible, but somehow I expected it to happen..... *sighs*

As opposed to some Ludwigia I bought from a reputable fish store, which has been alive for 1.5 months under extremely low light. Yup.