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today my female guppy gave birth. the problem is.. like half of them are weird. most of the fry have bellies that are bigger than their whole head. theyre still swimming around fine though. what happened? maybe my female guppy bred with the male swordtail instead of another guppy?

I'm sorry, but swordtails and guppies don't crossed, they do not belong to the same genus. However, platies and swordtails can, and mollies and guppies can.

Swordtails (xiphophorus helleri)
Platies (xiphophorus maculatus)

Guppies (poecilia reticulata)
Mollies (poecilia latipinna)

hm.. ic .

but do u have any clue whats going on with these "mutated" fry?

only about 3-5 outta 20+ have huge bellies.

genetic disorder....u cant have all healthy fry..some will tend to be "deformed" one way or another..probably...this batch so happened to be that case..hope ur next batch will do better.

they seem perfectly healthy though.. just tha ttheir bellies are huge, they swim fine.

but today, i look at em and their bellies seem to have gotten.. smaller.. O_o

Maybe they were born premature or something, and they didn't use up their yolk sacs before birth? I don't know a whole lot about the intricacies of guppy birth, but that sounds plausible to me.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Yes, Nick what you said does sound possible...it could be that they were a bit premature...do you know how long the mom carried this batch of fry? normal gestation is 28-32 days, and anything sooner might be too soon...

I wouldn't do too much worrying yet, just keep an eye on them, as you normally do, and feed them...More than likely they will be fine, and normal within the week...they may just need the time to finish with the absorption of the egg sac...

Don't worry, love them as though they were normal, cause chances are they will be normal before you know it

heidi




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"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

Hello! I have observed I can't even count how many drops and pregnancies and I can tell you from experience that sometimes the fry do appear to be born prematurely sometimes. These usually get eaten up pretty quick too because they don't swim real well when they are born like this either. I have built a special trap for my guppy mama's and fry that let's the fry fall to safety away from all other fish and the mama and let them stay in there a couple of days feeding them baby fry food before I introduce them to the rest of the fry in the grow out tanks or else the other fry that might be a little larger pick on them and such. I notice this also when it is a very large batch of fry with a small mama also.

I have come across one or two females out of my line that were e to give birth to "mutated babies" by having fry that are conjoined. I noticed it was always the same two mama guppies and unfortunately they quickly became food for the three spined toad fish. I do let a few of the fry live to watch their developement. My point is, "it happens" usually it is genetic most of the time because of inbreeding. No worries. Good luck~

thanks every one.

seems like they were born prematurely, all of the fishes look normal now. i am kinda dissapointed tho, i was wondering how the babies would look if they grew up with a huge tummy O_O

I had a guppy who had a fry with two heads. It never lived.

did all of the fry's live? I am glad they are getting to a normal size. . . although, i agree... a huge tummy and tiny little head would have looked interesting!

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"it's the neck, it creaks under the weight of too much heavy thinking."