Time in a breeder box?

[DrNic]

How long can you keep a pregnant female in a floating breeder box?

I have 3 female platties my tank. For 2 months they had no fry. About 5 weeks ago I put 2 males into the tank and sure enough they got pregnant. One of them obviously dropped fry earlier this week but I think they got eaten by one of the adults as I'm not seeing any of them in the tank. The remaining pregnant females look about ready, and I would like to put them breeder boxes but I don't want to stress them out. How long can the females safely be kept in those? I will probably put in some floating plants to make sure she has some privacy.

[MCHRKiller]

Are you talking about one of those larger net/mesh breeders or the clear plastic ones? If its the larger mesh one she would be fine in there for some time probably even up to as long as 2 weeks, as they are large and allow for movement and unrestricted water flow. Those plastic ones are torture chambers, the hard plastic and cramped space will only lead to injury of your fish and not to mention poor water quality as they dont often have great designs for good water circulation.