Livebearer gestation

Howzit guys

I have swordtails, platies, mollies and guppies. Can anyone tell me what the gestation period is on average for these fish?

I have a very pregnant swordtail and wondering how much longer she has.

Thanks guys

 

Three weeks to a month. Keep an eye on the so-called "gravid spot", a dark spot towards the rear end of the belly of the fish. Generally a very dark spot means its close.

You'll need to know when the fish got pregnant to more or less accurately say when they'll pop. And this can be difficult to determine, since they're pretty much always mating.

 

They are pretty much mating all the time haha! The problem with the dark spot idea, which is easy to see on my orange swords, is that this female doesn't show any dark spot at all due to her colour.

 

Yeah the darker colour won't help. It's just a waiting game, then, and getting to know your fish - if you have a good idea how the look "normally" you can gauge roughly how pregnant they look.

Although not always the case, some female livebearers start hovering near the substrate or batches of plants to "drop off" the fry. But as often as that happens, you do still get mothers that will release fry in open water.

 

Thanks @SalmonAfrica

Another question... Can a pregnant guppy have her babies get stuck? One of my daughter's guppies is enormously pregnant and it's been way over a month. Still no babies...

 

Hmm.. you wouldn't happen to have a picture, would you?

Complications in birthing can occur, if it were "stuck", you might see something called uterine prolapse. This may be visible towards the rear of the fish, where a bit of the internal structure protrudes out of the fish. This can be a rather serious condition, and the chances are recovery are small without intervention. But I'll wait for the follow-up picture before making that call.

There are other possibilities. These include being overweight (guppies love to eat); a large pregnancy which can just so happen to be a big brood, or being impregnated by multiple males (a possibility in livebearers) which will result in fry being dropped at various periods; or it could be a disease unrelated to breeding altogether, such as a swimbladder disorder or constipation.

Additionally, please let me know if there were any other changes in behaviour of this fish.

Regards,

 

"Just add water" Guppies breed extremely quickly. But yes pregnancy should be about 3 weeks to a month as stated above. If you want to save a fair amount of fry without worrying about when to move the female to one of those breeding enclosures, then getting some nice ground covering plants is a good way to go. You'll probably still lose fry to hungry tank mates but it will be less with the covering.

 

This is my daughter's tank. The female is very active and hasn't shown any strange behavior.

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So, all I needed was a bit of patience. Two fry were eaten in the tank before I caught the mother swordtail and put her in a breeding net. 11 fry down and she is still quite swollen. Could be close to 20

 

In excess of 20 swordtail fry

 

So I have moved the adult guppies from my daughter's tank to my tank and now the swordtail babies will be moved to my daughter's tank to grow with her baby guppies

 

Well done! They should grow pretty quickly. The next question is... what are you going to do with all these fish? Time for a new tank, maybe?

 

Fat chance my wife will let that happen! Haha!

 

A small update of the growth.

 

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Looking good,starting to grow

 

Gorgeous @Lowflyer7

They have grown nicely.. well done!