Mickey Mouse Platy in labor?

Question
QUESTION: Dear Chelsey,
I have three mickey mouse platies 2-females(both pregnant) and 1 mischevious male! One female is alot bigger than the other so I am assuming she will deliver first. I got a small mesh net for her but I am not sure when to put her in. She is used to swimming in a 37 gallon tank and this net is only about a gallon size big and I don't want to stress her out. I can't imagine her getting any bigger or she pop. How long from this size until I should expect her to deliver, and will she deliver all at once and (sorry for so many questions I am a newby at having a tank let alone babies on the way)if she does start to deliver should I remove her and put her in the net where all the other fish will leave her alone??? Any advice given will help tremendously.
Thanks,
Holly
ANSWER: Hello Holly,
You should put the larger female into the net now, because she will probably have the babies anytime now.

Once she has them all, take her out of the breeder net. Adult mollies don't take care of their young, but they will eat them so you must separate them once they are born. Mollies have all of their babies at once, and normally the last baby is born within two hours of the first.

You may want to buy a small tank to keep the fry (fry means baby fish, its like calling a baby dog a puppy) in, maybe a five or ten gallon tank. Once the fry are born from your bigger female, you won't be able to put the smaller female in the breeder net to have her babies becuase she will eat the bigger female's babies. So you will either need somewhere else to put the fry, or a second breeder net. Small tanks work better to raise fry in, but if you don't have the time/money to care for a second tank then a breeder net will do.

if you do buy a small tank, you won't need a filter until the fry are 6 weeks old, and keep the temperature at 80 degrees farenheit.

i hope this helps! if i missed a question let me know, and if you have any future questions, feel free to ask.
good luck with the babies!

best wishes, Chelsey

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Sorry to bother you again but my big female mickey mouse platy is in the mess net box now but I noticed something different about her. Her lips are red. I know this sounds crazy or maybe not? But they were not red before and the other platies are orange colored. Is this a sign of something?
Thank you again,
Holly

Answer
Her lips are red?? hmm... that doesnt sound good.

do they look cut at all? it might be an injury or something. But it sounds more like a parasite or something. I've never heard of this before, but it does sound like it is a parasite or bacteria, or something along those lines. Take special note to the texture... is it just discoloration or does it look like something fuzzy is on her? After you remember stuff like that, goto your best pet store that has the most fish stuff (like, if you have a few pet stores and one sells fish but the other one only sells fish products, goto the one that sells fish. you want the one with the most experience). Whe nyou get here, describe with as much detail as possible what it looks like and what medication you should use to get rid of it.
I would do this pretty quickly, anything on the mouth isnt good (only becuase eating could be a problem in the future).

Good luck, i hope this gets fixed.
Best Wishes,
-Chelsey