Pregnant Live Birth Fish

Question
Hey Chelsey,

I own a variety of live birth fish (Mollies, Guppies, Swordtails, and Platies). I was wondering...How can you tell if the female fish is pregnant? Could you please explain for each type also?  

Answer
Hey Paul,

Pretty much all of these fish have the same way to tell if they are pregnant.

An easy indicator is a fat belly. If they have a buldging belly, they are pregnant. Most females are actually pregnant if there is a male of the same species in the tank, it just depends to what degree they are pregnant.

another way to tell is black or white spotting around the back of their belly, where they give birth from. This means they are close to birth. Whether the spots will be white or black depends on the color of the fish, and ezactly what the spotting will look like depends on how many babies she will have. If she is only going to have a few babies but is a large fish, she might not even have any spotting occur.

Another way to tell is if they start to do this little "shaking" thing, often called the shimmies. Mollies almost always do this before giving birth, but I have seen the other three breeds do this as well. They start doing this about a week before they give birth.

you will get better at telling when they will give birth the more you see them pregnant. After a few litters for each fish, it will become very obvious to you. You will be able to walk into a pet store and say, "that one is pregnant, that one's not, and that one is." =]

Good luck with all of you fish!
best wishes, chelsey