How do you people

[OrkyBetta]

Ok, all of you guys with mixed gender livebearer tanks, how do you handle all of the fry? I just sit here and think about a new batch of fry every 28 days...you can't possibly keep all of the fry, or find them all homes, or give them all to your lfs? And you also can't just cull them and feed them constantly? What do you guys do and not feel guilty?

 

[Elisabeth83]

When my platies and swordtails give birth the fry are so small that they get eaten unless I net them out and put them in a fry tank. I stopped doing that about 2-3 months ago because I was just over-run with fry. I bought 6 adult platies to begin with and now after raising their fry I've got about 14-16 juveniles.

With my mollies though their fry are born so large that the other mollies don't eat them So every month theres some fry swimming about in the tank. Usually because the batches are small I'll raise them in a separate 14 gallon tank. If I don't feel like raising them I give them to my female bettas. Sad I know but if you've got livebearers it's something you've got to do...unless you want to spend all your time raising fry forver.

edit: yeah I get store credit at my lfs as well. I get about $1.37 US per fry. They have to be pretty big in size though when I take them in.

 

[superjalami30]

I feed most of mine to my clawed frog, give some to friends and just recently started getting "in store credits" at my local fish store in exchange for my guppies and platy's.

 

[Def]

I've given away and sold to LFS hundreds of fry. If you're prepared, it's no big deal.

 

[paige]

all the ones i can save i keep in my 3 fry tanks and then when there old enough i keep a couple sell some to my lfs or give them away to friends at first i was just going to keep 1 batch of fry and let the other fish eat the rest but then i changed my mind and decided to keep all the ones i saved, now i know i made the right decion.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Well my guppys are my biggest fry producers, my platys in the 50gal tank whenever they produce fry they just get eaten automatically by my adult mollys and black khuli loachs and my mollys havn't produced any fry recently mainly due to my old black male molly dying recently at 5yrs old and having not been very active in the bedroom for the last couple of months of his life...
As to the vast amounts of guppy fry(i lost some of my female guppys recently to internal parasites) due to having around 7females to one lucky male in a 30gal tank, i leave the fry in the tank for the first week- the guppys do eat fry from time to time and this helps lower the numbers of any big batchs.
I then net them out and put them in my fry tank, if i have any very inbred ones or simply too many i put the excess ones in the 50gal tank where they are soon gobbled up within a coupleof days.

The only reason why guppys produce so many fry and on such a regular basis is due to the fact that in the wild they are in the top of most predatory fish's food menus and so have to breed alot to keep the species from going extinct, in the wild only 5 or less out of every 30+ batch of fry are likely to make it to adulthood and even then they are still valued by other fish as a prime food source. So basically you are only doing what would happen naturally in the wild.
Fry are very cute, particualy guppy fry, but its just as important to keep good genes and imune systems in them and only take on what you can actually handle- that doesn't mean you should just buy some female guppys and a male and euthanise every batch they produce; i think you should at least be capable of raising the first 10+ batch of fry they produce as some responsability at least should be shown to them over their fry.

If i raised every fry i got, i'd probably be raising 200 of them this very moment, as it stands though i am only raising a couple of platy fry and about 30guppy fry.

 

[paige]

If i raised every fry i got, i'd probably be raising 200 of them this very moment, as it stands though i am only raising a couple of platy fry and about 30guppy fry.

wow thats alot of fry my female guppies only have about 10 max for every batch except rainbow she had 37 fry at the min i am raising 60-65 fry so i havent got that many really.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Well up until a week ago, i had 11female guppys but i lost 3 of them over the last week to internal parasites, which is a real bummer due to their being no cure for it in the UK and the cures in the US are not very effective either, so i have to euthanise any affected fish as soon as they get the parasites...

For a better picture, imagine having 11 female guppys, each producing batchs of fry 10-30 strong every 1-2months- thats a minimum of about 60fry a month for me after the fry have been left to fend for themselves in the main guppy tank for a week . It can be over 200fry a month somtimes !

 

[Elisabeth83]

I've raised quite a few batches of guppy, molly, swordtails and platy fry. The last month or so has been the first time I've ever fed any to my bettas. It kind of makes me feel guilty but I mean theres no way I can be raising so many fry all the time. I actually bought 3 extra tanks in the last 6 months because I was raising so many fry that I was running out of room. Then having to feed 70+ fry at all different sizes gets expensive. I just sold 28 swordtail juveniles to my lfs the other day. Before I sold them I was feeding them, 15 molly fry and about 18 platy fry at least a package of bloodworm a week Then I was feeding quite a bit of flake and frozen brine shrimp. I also was feeding live baby brine shrimp...which takes a bit of work to hatch out.

Think about all the water changes too. I was doing 50-75% water changes on 3 tanks everyday. That lasted for about 3 months. That's 270 water changes on fry tanks alone!!! At least near the end I set up a water system like how the python works but before I was hand syphoning the tanks out in buckets and carrying them to the bathroom. I tell ya it makes your back ache

To do it for awhile is very rewarding and I enjoye it very much. I love watching my fry grow up and I love seeing what kinds of patterns/colors they are going to be. At the moment though I am pretty worn out and I plan to only raise some of my molly fry.

edit: Just wanted to say the platy in my avatar is a nice Hi-fin platy I raised. She and 2 others were a complete surprise as I don't own any Hi-fins. I guess her mother and father must have some Hi-fin in them

 

[dwarfgourami]

They all get eaten... Next time I think I will make an effort to save a couple, not that one wants to get overrun, but it would be nice for someone to survive long enough to look at. My black female guppy gave birth in the night, by this morning they all seem gone. Some very smug looking faces around that tank this morning.

 

[Kiarra]

Sometimes they get eaten. But I will invariably pull the fry out if I actually see them before they do get eaten (it doesn't happen all that often). Whatever fry I do catch, get separated into their own tank, raised to a good size, and are released into the adult tanks, or given away to friends. I have yet to take any to the LFS, though I've been thinking about it. I'd just rather they stay with me, or go to friends.

 

[bluefire]

simple answer, bettas and cichlids love guppy fry

 

[daudy_dojo]

well when my molly was pregnant i got 75 fry out her every month and managed to save them all and i traded them into my LFS and got endlers, bettas, food, and credits

 

[Bloo]

Easy ! I never even see fry - they get chowed the minute they are born (but all the other bigger fish in the tank!)

 

[fatguppy]

Oh - I know!

We had similar problems - felt mean allowing them to be eaten but to be honest, we have not the facilities to deal with copious fry (we have swordtails - 1 male, 2 females). The second lot (first got eaten cos we didn't even realise she was pregnant ) we managed to capture in a small spare tank after the swordtail was put in the breeding trap. Fascinating to watch. She produced about 50 fry - excellent! As the small tank is about 32 litres - what the **** were we supposed to do with 50 fry???

Actually, although they were kept separately only 2 survived - so much for keeping them separate - they must have had a similar chance in the main tank avoiding the big guys

Our lfs doesn't want them. We haven't any friends well none that keep fish anyway! So what to do? Dunno!

We have now made the decision (sadly) to "let nature take its course" and just leave them to produce in the tank and allow the others to feed on them. just as an added point, I did try on one occasion to catch one of the pregnant females because she was so obviously going to give birth any minute, so I could put her in the breeding trap. I spent 45 minutes and never even got near her (we have a 180 litre/40 UK gallon tank). In the end I decided that if she was so bloody healthy that she could avoid capture for 45 minutes, then she sure as hell could manage to give birth in the main tank and continue her life as normal. There are times when we know they are pregnant, see them get slimmer and haven't seen any fry at all. Seems mean I know, but honestly, its the only solution unless you are breeding for a hobby (the fish I mean )