Fry

[laurasmithuk]

Hi all, I have a tank set up with platties and mollies and they're like water rabbits.
Here's the debate.....Is it best to seperate fry or leave them in the big tank?
There are plenty of places to hide!

I do not have the capacity for a seperate breeding tank so the options are breeding tent within the main tank or let then run free?
Cheers all

 

[bball4life]

I have always kept the fry in a breeders net in the tank they were born in. But if you have good hiding spots then they could grow up there. I have a story about that, one morning I woke up and saw all these fry on the gravel I went to scoop them up, but the time I caught one of them they were all eatin, so I thought. About a month later I this one platy baby swimming in the tank, and he was pretty good size too. So some how he managed to eat and hide from me and all of the fish I had in the tank. So I am not really sure which I would choose.

 

[Teelie]

To answer the question, leave them in there as you have nowhere else to put them. They'll either be eaten by the other fish or grow up and then you can sell them to an LFS.

 

[afireinside]

Hi all, I have a tank set up with platties and mollies and they're like water rabbits.
Here's the debate.....Is it best to seperate fry or leave them in the big tank?
There are plenty of places to hide!

I do not have the capacity for a seperate breeding tank so the options are breeding tent within the main tank or let then run free?
Cheers all

[snapback]845520[/snapback]​

Well, if you want alot of your fry to live, i'd suggest a 20 gallon fry tank. but if you don't care, and want to keep some of the fry, i'd go with leaving them in the tank.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

How many gallons do your platy and molly tanks hold or are they all in the same tank and how many fish do you have in them? If you are having problems raising the fry, its much better to let the fry fend for themselves in the main tank/s as its better than taking on more than you can handle and ending up with overstocked tanks.

 

[shuhu]

If you want as much of the fry to live I suggest moving them as soon as possible or have the mom moved to an extra tank to have the babies, In my little experience of 2 molly pregnancies:

- the fisrt time, when I noticed the fry I move them to another tank as soon as they were coming out of the mother and managed to save 52 fry, if I had gotten in earlier, more would have been saved.

- The second time, I didn't noticed until she was already over and only 7 fry survived, so I moved them to another container.

 

[woodie]

i leave my fry in and i have about 30 fry at about 10mm and then about 15 at about 20mm i have hundreds of places for them to hide, theres bog wood, and its heavily planted, it just depends on how many babies you want.

will say i have set up a fry tanks, for some guppies as i want to try and set up a 6ft tank in my new fish house (start of next year) full of guppies and other live bearers

 

[debiasir]

I always leave my fry in the tank and will allways do so.

They would have to survive in the wild and wouldn't have a spare tank to go thats how i see it. If your tank is well planted a few should survive and these are more than likely the fittest fry from the batch

 

[Nauplii]

in my experience as long as there are plenty of hiding places, the fry that are left to roam the tank survive and grow up stronger than those kept in a small bredding net... thats jsut from my experience

 

[fatguppy]

I always leave my fry in the tank and will allways do so.

They would have to survive in the wild and wouldn't have a spare tank to go thats how i see it. If your tank is well planted a few should survive and these are more than likely the fittest fry from the batch

[snapback]846020[/snapback]​

I agree with this wholeheartedly. We have done both, leave them in and take them out. From the brood we removed (they had a completely separate tank with no other fish) from a batch of about 40/50 only 3 survived anyway. The others just died one by one. We have left fry in the tank and they have survived.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Not nesarsarily, half the time like 70% of the fish you put in your tanks do not live with each other in the wild and will have a taste for fry- ever since i have had black khuli loachs in my main tank, i have only had 11 platy fry and 4molly fry in the last couple of months while as in my non khuli 30gal guppy tank i have had over 70 fry in the last couple of months- as you might have guess, khuli loachs eat fry.
If you have somthing tetras as well they will also gobble up any fry that come into sight too. So most of the fry's chances of surival are based on what type of fish you have in your tank and not just how well planted it is.