The possible consequences of moving very pregnant females have been addressed a lot of times before on Guppylog. That and the fact that I was in the middle of preparing for a fish show that weekend, were among the reasons why I didn't elaborate.

Interestingly enough, a lot of the possible consequences of moving very pregnant females seem to have happened to your female guppy. The fact that she went on hold for 11 or 12 days and then delivered fry, is new to me. It is possible, perhaps, that the delayed delivery of more fry enabled her to heal from internal injuries when she was moved and placed in that plastic breeder box.

Methemom just presented us with her experiences with a Siamese twin guppy. It has been speculated that the fry are held too long within the mother or that owing to the better feeding often in captivity that there are more and even bigger fry and that causes them to be usually crowded. Certainly the first and possibly the second happened with your female. Also, she could have been injured, certainly was severely stressed. You mentioned that when moved to the "little box o' death," that she stopped dropping.

If you Googled Guppylog for moving female mollie or moving female guppy one of the discussions you would encounter is:

http://www.guppylog.com/story/2005/12/12/191450/93

In there I "fess up" to moving a very pregnant mollie when I should have known better. Her experience was not exactly the same as your guppy's, but she was so injured by the incident that she never again bore fry. She did live a reasonably long life after that.

I really fear that the "yellow sac of something that looked like jelly or Jello" were guppy eggs. Were they the same size as the fry?

When my mollie prematurely dropped there was at least one dead little black fry, a black egg (2-3mm across - for an egg layer such as a killifish that would be huge), darkish eggs. clear eggs. The succession showed pretty graphically that the female's drop was premature. I wasn't surprised that she never dropped young again (but 20 years later still regret it.)

Time will tell how extensive the internal injuries were to your female. If unspawned for too long, female egg laying fish will sometimes expel their eggs and will be able to produce viable eggs later.

That your female was able to drop some normal fry is encouraging. Hopefully she will heal.

You have mentioned that your other fry co-exist well with the other fish in your tank. Did the tank mates also leave the healthy fry alone? Are the companion fish all guppies?

It is interesting that while the other fish left the fry alone (indicating that you have been feeding them well) that they attacked the Siamese twins. It is almost a recognition that those fish aren't going to make it anyway and they might as well eat them.

I had a similar experience with a pair of Ameca splendens (the butterfly goodied). That fish is known for their huge fry (about 5/8th of an inch/ 1.6 cm). Decidedly vegetarian, they are also known for their toleration of fry. The first batch from that female numbered only three fry. Two had spinal deformities and I was shocked to watch both the female and male splendens attacked the malformed fry. I pulled them and gave each of them their own battery jar. Several months later, within a week of each other, they both died. In the meantime the adult splendens left the whole fry alone and also ignored the female's next fry, which were all normal in all respects.

http://home.clara.net/brachydibble/Ameca-Sp.htm

A couple of years ago I began losing female Ameca after they gave birth to very sizable batches of fry. They were in a 20-gallon colony and never moved. I began feeding them just vegetable flakes and the crushed insides of cooked peas - good sources of vegetable protein, but with more roughage. The deaths of female splendens (perhaps from internal bleeding over holding so many large fry?) stopped. I don't see so many fry, but all seem to be healthy.

I guess that there are several ways we can get greedy for more and more fry. Sometimes we have to just be more careful of the fish and go with what nature seems to have intended. :)