Fry!

jcabs100 · Feb 5, 2012

What do I do I just saw fry in my tank infested with gourami and Bolivian rams and other Molly neons and corys they are definitely Molly fry

Akasha72 · Feb 5, 2012

what do you want to do with them? Do you want to breed them or do you want nature to take over?

To me you have a few options. If your tank it well planted you could just leave things be and see if they survive. The other option would be to get a breeding net, try and catch as many as you can (some recommend using a turkey baster - not tried it myself) and get them into there until they are too big to be eaten. Another option would be to move them to a spare tank if you have one.
It really depends on whether you want them all to survive. The chances are in the 30 mins it's taken to reply a lot have been eaten already

jcabs100 · Feb 5, 2012

Actually only 2 have been eaten I dont have a breeding nest so I used a net and I caught about 20 of them

sadguppy · Feb 5, 2012

After some advice but didn't want to start a new thread...

I have a small tank with 2 guppies and 2 platies - all are female and were separated from the men at the LFS where I bought them so you can imagine my surprise yesterday on seeing one plucky little guy popping his head up! No idea who was preggo and none of them look noticeably thinner today!

Tried to catch him but couldn't so stuck some extra fake plants in to help him hide, but didn't fancy his chances. This morning he was still there so i've whipped him out into a breeding net (with a fake plant) in my bigger tank. Is there anything I can do to help his chances of survival? Will crushed up flake food be enough for him? How long will it be before he's too big to be considered food??? And how old will he (or possibly she!) be before I can sex him and find out whether it's a guppy or a platy?

Thank goodness I just got hold of an extra tank!

jcabs100 · Feb 5, 2012

Well they all unfortunately died so I let them go and my fish had an early snack I will be getting a breeding net for the foreseeable future

Akasha72 · Feb 5, 2012

jcabs100 said:
Well they all unfortunately died so I let them go and my fish had an early snack I will be getting a breeding net for the foreseeable future

Oh no, that's a shame

The last time I caught my female platy about to drop I got her into my breeding tank and put the breeding net around the tank (one of them small plastic things that floats) The fry are supposed to drop into the bottom where Mum can't eat them herself but from experiences before I also knew they were small enough to swim out of the side slots straight into the waiting jaws of another fish. By putting the net around the plastic tank thing any that swam out still couldn't get into the main tank. I managed to save 15. One died later but I now have 14 a week short of 2 months old and they've been in the main tank for about 2 weeks. You can buy special fry food - tetramin baby or liqufry or such like. Once they're about 3 weeks old I found they'd eat normal flake so long as I crushed it really small. In the first 4-6 weeks I fed 3-4 times a day.

I hope that answers both of your queries.

You should able to tell if he/she is a guppy or platy in about a week or maybe 2. It could be as long as 5 or 6 months before you can sex it

sadguppy · Feb 5, 2012

Thanks for the advice, I can't get hold of any special food for him as the shops are all closed so he'll have to make do - he's survived at least 24hours and is the only one, so he's a tough little so and so!