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Call me crazy but my Platy just laid eggs??!?


MorJayy
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I have a 20 gallon tank with 3 juvenile Mollies and a Platy. Ph is around 7, Kh and Gh both sit around 120, 0 nitrite and about 20pmm nitrate. My Platy has been hiding by the heater for the past few days, but the other fish have acting normal. Yesterday she finally swam to the from to the tank and she looked, honestly disgusting. She was so swollen in her belly that she was seriously the shape of the boot chicken nugget at Mcdonalds. I watched her horrified as she pooped out these little yellowish transparent balls that were defiantly eggs! They didn't look fertilized, but it happened at the worst time because I had to take my sister to get her wisdom teeth out! (the universe really likes to play you like that sometimes).

By the time I got back she had sadly passed away. She was a good fish had had over 40 babies for me when I first got her. (Her name way Molly because I thought she was a Molly when I first got her which is another story entirely but in my defense she was over 3 1/2in long.) 

I have one male lyre tail Molly, but i've heard they're infertile. I haven't had babies in the tank since I got him, but the other two female (common) Mollies have been looking rather big, so I assume they're pregnant. It's possible maybe he mated with her and the babies weren't viable so they all died, but 1. I feel like that would have happened slowly over time and she went from normal to grotesque overnight. And 2. I feel like there would have been something in the eggs if that was the case.

Another option entirely is that she was filled with internal parasites and they were erupting from her body and now my whole tank is at risk. There might be some validity to this because my ladies seem to be bigger some days than others. Like I'll wake up and be like "man, she's GOTTA have those babies today" and by the end of the day I'm like "Yeah she may have another week." (but I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in the slightest. I'm kinda winging all of this and I've had my fair share of troubles.) All the fish have really solid poops and sometimes they're pale looking. I've had some Mollies pass away in the past, but it was shortly after I got them and seemed to be an issue with their slime coats. I've treated the tank with 'Rapid Cure' somewhat recently which is Triethylene Glycol, Polyvinylpyrrolidone K-29, and Malachite green. I have some Prazipro on the way to treat the tank just in case. 

Does anyone have any suggestions about keeping my other fish happy and healthy? I've had such a hard time with my Mollies and I have a second tank full of babies that I'm terrified of hurting. 

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1 hour ago, MorJayy said:

 I watched her horrified as she pooped out these little yellowish transparent balls that were defiantly eggs!

One of my guppies did that. She dropped several eggs before proceeding with normal babies. No negative consequences though, she is still fine.

For the fry I would add something like crushed coral for pH and hardness, make sure they are warm enough, have lights on for 12 hours or so, and have plenty of (preferably live) foods to eat. 

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The dropping of eggs from livebearers can also be from stress, btw (my Panda Platy I had a year or so ago, started dropping fry - so I moved her to my XL breeder - which I then put a hunk of moss in, and covered with a dark cloth, and dimmed the tank lights, too --- only to check back an hour late to find only 2 fry and 10 eggs..... Same case with a bumblebee platy once.)

Since then, I've just let "survival of the fittest" be the tank motto 😊

 

 

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