Platy population explosion

[Needingsomeadvice]

I have a 140 litre tank containing 10 neons, a bristle nose plec, 4 rummynose, a betta, quite a few snails...and a couple of months ago I bought 5 platys. I thought maybe 1 or 2 babies would survive (all femsle but i know females can keep on giving birth for a while) but I have 7 babies swimming about at around neon size, and a couple more babies that are still tiny have been spotted today.

Any suggestions on the best course of action here? I like them and all, but....

[EauRouge]

I don't think you'll get too many more if you've had them for a couple of months, IIRC females can only store sperm for about 3 months.

If you're on Facebook then you could try rehoming them or selling them on a local aquarium buy and sell group, a lot of people do that. Assuming that you will have some male babies, you need to rehome them before they get too big so that you don't end up with even more babies!

[Needingsomeadvice]

The local fish store will take some and exchange for a couple of new fish (she said when we came by looking for filter sponges) but would it make more sense to re home some of the adults too? At what point can the young platys breed? They are neon sized at the moment (apart from.the new brood, which I couldn't catch if I wanted to but there are at least 2 of!).

[Needingsomeadvice]

PS. Thanks for responding EauRouge

[EauRouge]

If you've only got female adults then they will stop having babies soon and you won't need to worry about rehoming any.

If the babies are big enough to tell if they are male or female then the shop might take them now. You just have to catch them first Using two nets is much easier than using one.