Growing Up: Livebearer Fry

[ally86ozzy]

So you just had your first fry. You're probably wondering "Well, what now?". The key to successfully raising fry is to watch them carefully, to know if they're sick, hungry, or injured.


You fry and their tank

Your livebearer will have between 10-150 fry in one batch. If you want to keep them all, you'll need another tank. A good fry tank would be about 20? US gallons. Fry, depending on what kind of livebearer they are, will generally be about this size: __.


Feeding Times

When first born, fry will be hungry. You can use fry food you already have on hand, or you can feed them crushed up flakes. You should feed them 4-6 times daily. They will eat things like crushed flakes, baby brine shrimp, and daphinia. You can also buy special liquid fry food to feed your fry.


Rearing and sexing your fry

Your fry will take 3-6 months to fully grow into their adult size. It generally takes 3 months for them to become sexually mature. You can tell their gender by their anal fin. Males will have a long, pointed anal fin, called the gondopodium, used to deposit sperm. The females have a larger, rounded fin, used to aid in sperm reception. You should seperate the fry when you can tell their gender, to ensure inbreeding doesn't occur. Inbreeding will weaken the future generations of fry.


What to do with your fry

As your fry get older, you'll need to find homes for them. Some LFS will take them free or give you store credit for them. You could also give them away to friends, or sell some on Aquabid. If you want to continue breeding, you can keep the best fish and breed them with other generations of fry to get better fry with brighter colors and stronger immune systems.

BTW all of u that hav repleyed hav put my self esteem REALLY low

 

[OldMan47]

Nice try Ally. Actually a livebearer may have anywhere from about 10 to 150 fry. The swordtails are more at the 150 end of things while goodeids tend to be more at the 10 end of things. A 10 gallon tank will not let you grow out even 20 fry to a decent size. It is the reason they make 40 gallon breeders. They are big enough to grow out a decent sized fry drop to a size where you can dispose of them. It is not big enough to grow them to adult size. Guppy and endler fry may grow to full size in 6 months although even endlers are still maturing at 4 to 6 months. Mollies often take over a year to reach full growth although they are quite often sexually mature when much younger. If you have a desirable group of fry, the easiest way to dispose of them is at a fish club auction. The fish club will take a percentage of the proceeds but if you have truly good fish, the people at the auction will recognize that and bid up the price until somebody wins them. I intend to do that very thing next weekend with some endlers that are wild type and are very attractive fish in their own right. I am also one who will bid up the price of good fish because I will want to bring them home with me.

 

[omega59]

Your fry will take 3-6 months to fully grow into their adult size

i have had my platy fry for almost 5 months and they are still very tiny. i feed them flakes and bloodworm now and then. i recently added some pease.

 

[fish48]

Actually a livebearer may have anywhere from about 10 to 150 fry. The swordtails are more at the 150 end of things while goodeids tend to be more at the 10 end of things.

Most goodeids have between 10 to 20 fry there are some species which can have larger broods. the largest number of fry for a goodeid is 100

 

[ally86ozzy]

god talk about givin me low self esteem, lol. i tried, thats wut counts right and dont judge me 4 wanting to hav something pinned god