"Far Thunder" wrote in message
. ..

"Frank" wrote in message
ups.com...
FarThunder wrote,
as of yet have no manage to keep any fry......

Agree with Nikki, your doing something to stress the female. *Don't*
put her into one of those breeding nets/traps. A 5 or 10 gal. tank with
quite a bit of java moss, would be great.

heavily planted 20G last time, I'll try smaller this time. Several of the
fry showed trauma, most were untouched.
Wasn't there when she gave birth, so don't know if she chased/killed them
or what.

I've found reference to a 60 day gestation, but how long does it take a
livebearer in general........

Ameca Splendens are one of the few fish that will eat BGA and hair
algae, and hardly ever found in pet stores, which makes their offspring
very easy to sell. I would check back and see if you could pick up
another male and another half dozen females...

That's just it, haven't seen them again, so can't establish a harem.
should have gotten more at
the time, but they were a last ditch effort at controlling the very algae
you mention. As time went by
their other qualities won me over, and now I would really like a species
tank of them.

It's been over 30 years
sence I was breeding them, and I sure don't remember a 60 day
gestation! Like any other platty, their gustation time is 28 days. The
fry are slightly larger than common platties, droping 6 to 8 fry each
batch................. Frank

My female is dropping average 15 fry. Perhaps that is the problem. Last
batch, I counted 17 as I was
netting out the corpses. First batch was 11 . this seems consistent with
references on net. And I believe
they are in a different family than platies? Splitting hairs perhaps.

regarding gestation, these all reference 60 days
http://www.gsas.org/Articles/1997/Ameca-sanford.html
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/...vebearers.html
http://www.ibrox.freeserve.co.uk/article_ameca.htm

thanks for the info, as always.
lila pilamaya



yes its 60 days, maybe that is why their babies are bigger then normal
fry... I understand what you are asking, and again I only know with guppies
its right after birth they get pregnant, but yours are different, guppies
hold sperm from several other males, splendens don't, each time its
separate, ill see if I can find out what the in-between time is.
Nik
I have never had any fry live from using a breeding net either, I have a all
fancy guppy tank, I spent some time trying to interfere with her having
babies and lost a lot of them, even lost my favorite female, then I just got
hornwort and let her have them in her own tank, I will net babies after if I
see them (being hunted but they are usually the slow ones who are not going
to live anyway), but a lot of time I will notice babies who are a little
older who managed to get food and live, which is pretty neat, the funny
thing is they usually look better then the ones I net and take care of.