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ok i think this is a first...
my platies will not have babies.
i have one male and five female two of the female i raised myself so i know that they arn't pregnat.
the tank is very well planted and i check everyday to see if there are and babies but my girls haven't even swelled up yet. they have been in there 3 months and the water peramiters are
ph 7.8
nitrites 0
nitrates 0
ammonia 0
hardness "liquid rock!!"
temp 78 degrees
size 10 gallon
i didn't put any salt in cuz i heard the the plants wouldn't like it
i use seachem flourish for the plants about twice a week.

and yes i and sure that my male is a male.

any boby got any ideas?
thanks ahead of time
petstoregirl80

a 10 isn't really enough to be breeding 5-6 platies in, but it is just a time game, their isn't anything u can do to force them, but let nature take its course and let them live there without alot of human interferance,

some animals can sence when they are over populated, try a bigger tank or reduce the number of fish; try 1 male to 2 females

p.s. I have 5 guppies in a 75 gallon tank with chiclids and they have not reproduced in over 5 months, probally due to stress, they were feeders that surivied.

do you all really think that a ten gallon is to small for 5 platies?even going by that 1 inch per gallon rule thats 10 inches. and the tank has two filters on it and i do weekly 25% water changes.plus all the plants to absorb any other nitrites/nitrates kicking around in there that i don't get with the water changes.

is my tank really over stocked to stress level?
petstoregirl80

petstoregirl80,

I don't think the tank is overstock, but it is well stocked. Having babies will make it overstocked though.

Anyway, first I have a question: Why did you intend to add salt to the tank and only did not do so because of the plants? Platies do not need salt in the first place.

Now, with regards to the breeding. I would assume that the females are old enough to breed as you say that nothing is happening for 3 months already. If they have been at least 3 months old at that time then they should be ready. Younger females tend to only have a few babies, so you may not have noticed them and they have been eaten.

More likely though is that your male is infertile, maybe from too much inbreeding.

Hope this helps,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

LITTLE_FISH
i didn't want to put salt in (personally i don't think most livebears need salt, at least not as much as the box states.)i was wondering if i should. i guess i was starting to dout my experiance when my platies didn't seem intreasted in breeding. i've kept fish for a long time but this is my first time breeding. and i know that the 10 will be to small for the baby platies, but i have nine other tanks and three of them perfict for platies and are awaitng babies.

and i have thought that my male might be infertile. i hope not he's really diffrent i have never see another platy that looks like him. he's white with 6 orange vertical stipes on his sides.
thank for you advice everyone
petstoregirl80

petstoregirl80,

Oh - I have seen these platies recently. If I remember that right then they have been names "Zebra Platies". I saw them at my LFS about 2 months ago and I have to say that it was very seductive and I hardly could resist buying them. The store sold them only in groups of 5 (they had 10), 1m and 4f. I checked on them a few times over the next few weeks. Under closer observation I saw that their markings were only perfect in maybe one or two of the whole group, the others showed signs of being "washed out" a little. I can imagine that breeding the strong gene is quite a challenge as it may take a while until the fry develops the characteristics.

Now, on a highly speculative note, it could well be that a very high level of inbreeding led to these extreme markings and that the "breeding stock" for them was rather small to begin with. This would mean that the relationship between the fish is really close, over many generations, and that could be the reason why the male "is not working right", if you know what I mean.

In any case, if you only have a male of this type and your females are more common then it will be quite a challenge and even less of a breeding stock for any follow-up generation of this strand. But keep us posted as I would be very interested in the success (or failure) of your attempt.

Hope this helps a little,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

little_fish
i did noice that my male is smaller than he should be. i know that breeding will be hard but i love the chalange i've been keeping fish for some time now and i've been working in pet stores for about 5 years now so i guessed "oh what the heck i'll try breeding!"

thank you everyone for your help and i will keep you posted

petstoregirl80