# are these platy's or mollies?



## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

My neighbor had an issue with her 30 gallon tank or filter. She is not sure since there was a few gallons missing in the tank and the carpet was wet. She broke her tank down and had the three fish and asked if I wanted them.

I am in the process of getting everything together for a planted 10 community tank with a betta. so my old 4 gallon was sitting alone with just the plants and assassin snails. so they were acclimated last night and pictures were taken. Sorry for the quality, i had to zoom in since they were scared of being in a new place.

I think they are platy's and I have two males and one female.


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## BettaBoy51 (Nov 13, 2013)

they are all female platys if i still remember for when i bred them male platys have a sword tail females dont have that its something like that or maybe its female sword tails dont have sword tails?


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## SplashyBetta (Jul 28, 2014)

Looks like two female and one male platies  Although you could be right about the sexes. A little hard to tell with the pics but livebearers are easy to sex! Cuties!


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

sorry for the crappy quality. They were introduced that evening and were being very shy for the camera. so I had to zoom in on my phone and stand back to even get those pics.

Here is what I found and used to sex them with. I have seen two of the fish have the point and one has the normal rounded fin. Now the bigger questions.. How can I tell when the female is pregnant and if so do I need to separate her from the group? I have no idea how to take care of the fry....


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## ellekay (Nov 11, 2014)

^is the correct sexing of platy. There is a version of livebearers called Swordtail. Those pictured are all platy. Better pictures would help determine sexes. Looks like a few sunset Mickey mouse (hence the silhouette on the tail) and a few red wag tail. Pretty fish though!


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## ellekay (Nov 11, 2014)

If you have both male and female, the female are/will be pregnant. You do not need to separate pregnant females. They go about their normal day and will pop out fry when ready without stopping. Pregnancy lasts average of 28 days. They can carry sperm around without 'using' it and start a pregnancy at any time as well as carry multiple pregnancies at the same time. If you want to make sure the fry survive, you can separate them out but if you have a planned tank they will be fine. The fry will hide out under plans and such. As with other live bearers, they can and will eat their fry, but only if they aren't fed well. I've had two females give birth, and the last only pops one out every few weeks...it's getting old I'll tell ya...


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## myexplodingcat (Apr 9, 2014)

InfiniteGlory said:


> sorry for the crappy quality. They were introduced that evening and were being very shy for the camera. so I had to zoom in on my phone and stand back to even get those pics.
> 
> Here is what I found and used to sex them with. I have seen two of the fish have the point and one has the normal rounded fin. Now the bigger questions.. How can I tell when the female is pregnant and if so do I need to separate her from the group? I have no idea how to take care of the fry....


Yeah, that's right. Provide your fry with hiding spots where the adults can't reach (water wisteria would be good cover also). Apart from that, don't worry about the fry.

Your males will probably fight over the female and stress her/each other out. It's better to have closer to a 2F:1M ratio so no one female is being chased all the time.

I would buy two more females if you're planning on keeping these guys in the 10g tank--you should be able to fit them and a betta, but don't add any more fish after that because 5 platies + fry + a betta in a 10g is definitely fully stocked. In fact, keeping the three platies in the 4g is kind of pushing it, let alone if you're expecting fry :/

Another option is to keep one of the males in the 4g, move the other male and female to the 10g to be part of your community, and buy only one other female platy. Then you should be able to fit a small school of tetras or something in the 10g community tank.

Platies can be awesome tankmates for bettas, though  I really like them. Yours have a nice sunburst wag coloration that's really pretty. Plus that one Mickey Mouse boy, too


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

I got a mind full last night from google about pregnant platy's and think that the plant cover should be enough. I didn't plan on taking care of fry so if I can avoid this in the future can I leave the two males in the 4 and have three females in the 10? My daughter has been asking for a tank in her room and I may give her the 4 with the two males if possible.

I will attempt to get better pictures of the fish and tank tonight pending they stand still long enough. The fish were donated by my neighbor and I was lucky enough to have a planted tank already setup. So this is a temp setup until the 10 is ready in a few weeks.


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

I have done some cleaning since the last pics and pulled the plants more across the tank. There is wisteria, anacharis, and I believe guppy grass floating in the group. I have an anubias, christmas moss and subwassertang attached to the pieces of cholla wood.

Using the original picture I found that both platy's in the bottom pic are males.


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