evonner Posted May 31, 2023 Share Posted May 31, 2023 I need platy help with the following: What are the ways to determine the sex? At what age can you determine the sex? What is the criteria to estimate age? What age (approx size) are they able to reproduce? @theplatymaster 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Folk Posted May 31, 2023 Share Posted May 31, 2023 It’s all about the anal fin. Males are pointy. Females are like a fan… 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sumplkrum Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 On males the anal fin forms a tube called the gonopodium. If they have one, they can reproduce. It can start forming after around 3-4 months of age. Could be longer depending on your strain and some are late-bloomers. For platys, that's about it really. You can guess by body size and how early they start coloring in, but the gonopodium is the only way to be sure. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beardedbillygoat1975 Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 Platys need a reasonable pH and hardness. Crushed coral is your friend. Algae’s help feed the baby Platys and adults who have voracious appetites for food and reproduction. You can have a clean tank but my most successful had a loT of algae’s for them to feed on. Good answers up above from @Fish Folk and @sumplkrum, depending on the type of platy it can be easier or harder to sex. Example: adult wag’s usually have all their black grown in and adolescents/juvies still have it growing in can seem dull. Some of the blue and green species only when their colors come in are they ready. Dwarf Platys it’s just a matter of keeping for awhile and seeing the growth and sizing. Agree with above posters on sexing. Foods should have some veg, spirulina and non-animal source of protein ideally. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evonner Posted June 2, 2023 Author Share Posted June 2, 2023 Well as far as tank conditions, they are very happy campers. All my tanks run a pH of 8.2 and my GH and KH is naturally high. No crushed coral for this girl. They are reproducing like crazy in my community tank. A couple has lead to many. So, I want to separate males from females. I thought I got all the females out of the community tank but someone is reproducing mickey mouse platies in there and I only have one and he is a he. Now my females are giving birth in the other tank without any males. Well then I read they can hold sperm and reproduce with a male, great. I'm not liking these platys so much anymore, should have stuck to guppies but I wanted a complete ecosystem and I do have that. LOL. Got to get a 4th tank to deal with this, jeez. I love the challenge though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Folk Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 On 6/2/2023 at 12:32 AM, evonner said: Well as far as tank conditions, they are very happy campers. All my tanks run a pH of 8.2 and my GH and KH is naturally high. No crushed coral for this girl. They are reproducing like crazy in my community tank. A couple has lead to many. So, I want to separate males from females. I thought I got all the females out of the community tank but someone is reproducing mickey mouse platies in there and I only have one and he is a he. Now my females are giving birth in the other tank without any males. Well then I read they can hold sperm and reproduce with a male, great. I'm not liking these platys so much anymore, should have stuck to guppies but I wanted a complete ecosystem and I do have that. LOL. Got to get a 4th tank to deal with this, jeez. I love the challenge though. Most decent Local Fish Stores have customers who bring in fish that are breeding like rabbits. Sometimes the stores will exchange store credit, or pay cash for them. IT really depends on many factors. You might be able to offload some there. Once females have been with a male, forget about it. They'll multiply world-without-end. We've kept a few varieties over the years. I have a steel blue wag platy line that I loved. We started with a pair, and had 70x before we could shake a stick. Hardy too! If you want to try a challenge, you could do a tank with a semi-aggressive species that would eat off fry. That may sound too cruel to try... but it is what happens in nature. Let me see if I can find an example from a few years ago. My son set up a classroom tank (20-gal long) at a nearby private school. We put Platys and Kribensis in there. Strange, but doable set up. It was surprisingly interesting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beardedbillygoat1975 Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 Temperature can slow down their reproduction so keep them cooler. Yep separating them is a good call but sneaker males and females is a thing in livebearers so you’ll need to be ever vigilant. This may sound callous but having a wet pet you can feed some of the culls to is not a bad idea. The other option is to have a fish like angels or other medium sized cichlids that will prey on the fry and help rebalance the tank. Then when you do want fry you can pull some females. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evonner Posted June 2, 2023 Author Share Posted June 2, 2023 Is it possible that my fry are all females? Because with the older ones, they are all females. The mickey mouse is the only male and he being moved out of the community tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torrey Posted June 3, 2023 Share Posted June 3, 2023 On 6/2/2023 at 4:27 PM, evonner said: Is it possible that my fry are all females? Because with the older ones, they are all females. The mickey mouse is the only male and he being moved out of the community tank. It's possible. And then one of the females will probably sex change on you if they go long enough without a male (it's a normal thing in nature, to ensure survival). I haven't had any males turn in my bachelor tanks, but I have had females go male, and had to do a lot of research to make sure I wasn't crazy (turns out hens do this too). I agree with above recommendations: I talked with my LFS, and was their supplier for a few species until a management change I sell/trade with my local fish club members I occasionally ship fish I intentionally get some plants from a local pond supplier to introduce damselfly nymphs into my tanks to remove weak genetics. I keep a turtle pond with excellent filtration and lots of plants, and I cull/separate fish 2× a year. Endler culls go in the turtle pond, everything else gets relocated out of my house. I'm currently working on a 4' ecosystem that will (hopefully) be balanced with predators maintaining population control... Eventually. My endlers now have 2 bachelor tanks, 5 breeding tanks, and a cull pond (that periodically gives me beautiful males to strengthen genetics), as well as a breeding colony in the porch pond Guppies have 2 breeding tanks and a bachelor's tank WCMM are in QT, with a porch tub waiting for them. I quit breeding danios, and use them for a modicum of population control in endler tanks. The endlers love the danio eggs. A friend keeps a harem of Bettas in her guppy tank for population moderation. It's a matter of finding the balance that works for you, or trading out what you are no longer interested in breeding for something else... which is completely worth a long drive to a fish club meeting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evonner Posted June 3, 2023 Author Share Posted June 3, 2023 The only local groups in my area are on Facebook and you cant sell or anything like it according to Facebook rules. The only LFS I have are PetSmart and Petco and I don't think they will trade. I have read about platies changing their sex but I haven't found anything to actually prove that but maybe I will see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torrey Posted June 3, 2023 Share Posted June 3, 2023 On 6/3/2023 at 12:09 AM, evonner said: The only local groups in my area are on Facebook and you cant sell or anything like it according to Facebook rules. The only LFS I have are PetSmart and Petco and I don't think they will trade. I have read about platies changing their sex but I haven't found anything to actually prove that but maybe I will see. Facebook doesn't allow for the sale of animals. Our local (covers the entire state) group has the same rules. We meet once a month, and at the end of each meeting we hold a mini auction if more than one person wants to buy what is brought, people use Messenger to get each other's email and set up arrangements to trade at the monthly meetings, or exchange phone numbers at the meetings themselves. I have driven 3 hours to meet up with members to swap plants, fish, and shrimp. We have members who drive 4 hours to make the 4 big meetings each year (elect president and board, the big auction that raises funds for the club, and the 2 holiday meets) Local (meaning statewide, or sometimes tristate area) fish clubs are the best way to safely find new homes for fish and swap out for different kinds of fish, that I have found Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishRBeautiful Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 (edited) I had a Platy who kept having babies. I never had males with her but there were males in the tank I bought her from. If you catch them when they’re I don’t know, maybe 2 or so weeks old (I never kept track), you can move them to a tank with a betta. My betta ate a pretty decent size one I didn’t notice was born for a while. Gulped it in one bite. I also took a bunch to Petco. They take fish you don’t want. Also, my daughter had a tank of 3 or 4 female Platys. After a few months, one of them turned into a male. I don’t know if it just hadn’t developed yet and was still young or if it actually changed. All may baby Platys always look like females. I think they must get a gonopodium when they get older. Hope that’s helpful. Edited June 7, 2023 by LoveMyPlatys 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huckleberry Posted June 9, 2023 Share Posted June 9, 2023 One thing I noticed about my different live bearers is that there are late bloomer males. There fin will look very close to a females. Then for one reason or another they will mature and the gonopodium will start showing. In my opinion, females don't sex change, its just a late bloomer male. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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