Breeder Net

[BrookeLea]

I'm new to this whole fish breeding thing and I sort of just instantly jumped into it, but I'm having a blast. It's so exciting! Thursday night I bought some mollies, platies and guppies, not really knowing anything about them. I just thought tha they were pretty. When I was leaving, the lady that was catching the fish for me said "Keep an eye out, I gave you a pregnant one." So when I got home I went right into researching the fish and found out how to sex them, how to tell when they're pregnant and that mollies, platies and guppies are almost always pregnant and give birth about every month. My fish live in a 29 gallon tank, but I set up a 10 gallon tank for the babies. Sunday night I came home to find a tiny black molly in my tank and I was excited to see more hiding in the marbles at the bottom of the tank. Not wanting them to get eaten, I spent three hours emptying th 29 gallon tank of adult fish, marbles, plants and other decor and fishing out seventeen black molly fry! They're now about three days old and are thriving happily in the 10 gallon tank. Knowing that I had other pregnant fish and not wanting to fish for babies again, I went out and bought some breeder nets. Last night I put my very pregnant cremecicle molly into one of the breeder nets and when I woke up this morning I was excited to see that she had given birth over night. There are only five fry and one is missing an eye, but looks healthy otherwise. I was a little disappointed to find such a low number of fry. I think that the mother may have eaten them. There are plastic plants in the breeder net, but I don't think that they provided enough coverage for the fry. Also, they were "trapped" in the net and couldn't really escape from the mother. Is there something else that I could do with the breeder nets to provide more protection for the fry? The marbles in the bottom of the tank helped the molly fry a lot, maybe I should put some marbles into the breeder net? I'd appreciate any suggestions that anyone has to offer. Also, should I move the new fry into the 10 gallon tank with the other fry? Or should I keep them seperated? I'm off to spy on my babies, now! Thanks, in advance, for the help!

 

[Annastasia]

Breeder nets are tough. If you put the mother in too soon, she can get really stressed and abort the pregnancy. And (as you may have found out) she can eat the fry. I would personally just leave the pregnant fish in the main tank, then catch the babies as you see them.

As for the fry...yes, it would be good to put them in the 10 gallon. It will give them more room, and having more room will help them grow faster, and not get stunted.

If you do want to keep using them breeder net, I'd add more plants, and you could try adding marbles. But I'm almost sure some would still get eaten.

 

[Tolak]

I left my fry in with the parents in a 55 gallon. Tons of silk plants, & a couple piles of rocks. That gives the fry a place to hide. If you do the rock pile thing, just take a good look at the rocks a couple times a day. Adults tend to get wedged in there going after the fry.

Tolak

 

[colegamby]

i use the net breeder and i havent had any trouble with it yet.

 

[BrookeLea]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I added marbles and extra plants to my breeder net, so there's lots of room for the fry to hide now.

I just found another fry in the tank outside the breeder net. It's much smaller than the other five, but it looks just like them otherwise. Could it have come from the same mother? Could she have had it after she had the others and after I had moved her out of the breeder net? There's no way that it could have escaped the breeder net.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

It will take many hours before she totally finishes giving birth. If you want to have higher survival rates of fry in the net, put a small stone(to help weight the net done so no fry get trapped under the seems) and some fine leaved peices of plants for them to hide in, although i wouldn't advise putting any fish bigger than a guppy in a breeding net so mollys are too big realy for comfort.
I would say let the future fry take their chances in the main tank even if they get eaten as your current fry in your fry tank grow, they will be making it quite overstocked by the time they are half grown and ready to be rehomed; i wouldn't say overstocking fry tanks isn't a problem as long as you can maintain good water quality stats.

 

[BrookeLea]

Just found three more and put them in the fry tank and saw another hiding in the rocks of the 29 gallon...I wonder how many are in there.