its taking too much time !!

[shuhu]

I'm seriously considering to not allow the next batch of molly fry to survive. I mean its been 3 months since the first batch of fry was born and I was plannig on selling them to a LFS... but now I'm having second thoughts, mainly because of the work of changing water at least every 3 days, feeding them 3 times a day, and because they are taking too much time to grow big enough to be sold!!!!

All I wanted was to make enough money to support my fishkeeping hobby and buy food and other stuff for my current fish but maybe its not even worth it.

So, its been 3 months already and I will probably have to wait another month (or even more), plus there have been some un-explained deaths and now I have almost half the fry I started with, so maybe its just a waste of my time.


What do you guys think??? what are your experiences with this???

I really need advice on this since everyone at my house is telling me to stop breeding my mollies and to not even take the next fry-to-be out of the tank so that my other fish eats them instead.

 

[darkstar22]

what size tank are these fry being kept in?... also...adding different foods to diet may help check out hikari products or live bine shrimp (spelling correct?) anywayz... also the reason a molly has so many fry is due to the fact that not all will survive... \ but yeah how big or a tank are they being kept in...

 

[darkstar22]

should of read your signature... 15 gallons is plently big... although i prefer biowheel filer or standard compared too sponge... that is heated right? ^ ^

 

[Tolak]

How many of what size tanks are you working with? Buckets get to be a real pain once you get to a certain point. Buying food in bulk online saves money, along with dechlorinator & other supplies.

It takes a while to break even with breeding, initial equipment costs take a good amount of money. There are ways to make water changes go quicker, larger hoses with a filter sponge on the end for draining, a hose directly to the sink for filling.

What are you feeding the fry? My bbs hatchery adds 10 minutes to my day every evening, but only when the fry are smaller. After that they get flake, or frozen brine shrimp. Feeding adds around 15 minutes to the day.

I've found water changes to be the most time consuming task in my fish room. Bigger hoses, bigger buckets, bigger pumps all save time. Smaller fry can be more time consuming, as you have to drain & fill more slowly. I use 10 gallon tanks for the first few weeks with angel fry, and a length of airline to drain.

Take the airline, a small piece of sponge, and a small rock. Put the sponge on the end, rubberband the rock to it so it doesn't float. Put it slightly less than halfway down in the tank & attach it to the edge of the tank so it doesn't slip down. Start the syphon, put the other end into a 5 gallon bucket. It will stop when it gets down to the sponge end, you will have a nearly full 5 gallon bucket to dump. It will take care of itself, go do something else while it drains.

To fill slowly, get a smaller bucket or other good size container, & a board to fit across the top of the tank. Fill the bucket with dechlorinated water of the same temp, put it on the board on top of the tank, & use the airline to syphon it back in. Once again it will take care of itself.

Sudden water turbulance can result in fry deaths, as they get bigger you can use larger hose.

HTH, & don't give up yet. It took close to a year of breeding platys, then angels before I started coming close to breaking even. I'm always upgrading something , so that break even point is sort of a constant.

Tolak

 

[dwarfgourami]

Never tried breeding so my limited experience is from what happens in the main tank.
Are you sure 3 months old mollies still need to be fed 3 times a day? I've only ever done that with the new-borns.
In fact, I worried about my recent platy fry, because I work in the day, but after I saw that the ones born in the tank when I was on holiday, and only fed every other day, had still survived (picking on plants I assume) and were thriving, I gave up worrying and let them live on the same schedule as the grown-ups. Even my 3-weeks-old fry are now competing with the adults for flakes and TetraDelica and peas and as far as I can see getting the better of the exchanges.
A certain number of deaths is probably unavoidable (nature's intention), but varying their diet might help them to grow quicker.

 

[shuhu]

I keep all of the fry at the 15 Gal bucket, it has a bit more surface than a normal tank would, so they have enough oxigen (I'm guessing), and the stats for the water are normal, so that is not a factor in their growth.

I feed them 3 times a day (sometimes just 2 because of school ) ) 'cause they still look like babies to me, not even 2.5cm long, which is what I need them to be in order to sell them). I also feed them crushed Wardleys Basic flakes which aren't that expensive and twice a week I give them TetraMin Tropical Flakes.

BTW, thanks to Tolak for the descriptive water changing process, at this point I'm doing the water changes (10%) with the same water vacuum that I use at the main tank, so it doesn't really take that much time as you do but it still time consuming in a way cause I like to clear all of the bottom surface so I kind of have to be there, hehehe. I do make some water turbulance when filling the bucket with the smaller container thoug But yours its a great idea for the next time ... If I decide to continue breeding that is

My female molly is about to pop btw, and I hope someone would know the average time it takes for the babies to grow enough to be sold cause I'm running out of time in order to decide what to do with the next batch of fry

 

[Jeff M]

All I wanted was to make enough money to support my fishkeeping hobby and buy food and other stuff for my current fish but maybe its not even worth it.

In my experiences, most are raising fish as a hobby and for the enjoyment, not a business which requires keeping tanks on a whole different scale in order to make enough money IMOH. If you can trade young ones in for food etc. bonus, but there is no way I could earn enough money to pay for my obsession from breeding, although it would be nice.

Jeff

 

[shuhu]

All I wanted was to make enough money to support my fishkeeping hobby and buy food and other stuff for my current fish but maybe its not even worth it.

In my experiences, most are raising fish as a hobby and for the enjoyment, not a business which requires keeping tanks on a whole different scale in order to make enough money IMOH. If you can trade young ones in for food etc. bonus, but there is no way I could earn enough money to pay for my obsession from breeding, although it would be nice.

Jeff

[snapback]909426[/snapback]​

Dude you are completely changing the meaning of what I said, buying food for my current fish doesn't mean making "business" out of breeding, and yes I'm into this as a hobby like "most" people here I don't see how wanting a tiny bit of extra money/food (from extra work) makes it bad, but whatever.

Hope someone else has positive/constructive comments

 

[Tolak]

I just noticed, 15 gallon bucket. I like that, way to go on the econimizing part. My "last ditch" tank is a large plastic wading pool. Haven't had to use it yet, but it's there if I need it.

Warmer water makes fish grow faster. Kick up the temp a little, it raises their metabolizim. Consider feeding bbs, a hatchery is cheap to make, bbs get fish growing faster than anything I've ever used.

You are right about it being a hobby, I'm lucky to break even breeding angels. I just dropped $300 in the last few weeks between water change upgrades, food, & some filtration equipment for an upcoming project. I'm in the hole until spring now, But have a 6 month supply of food, & cut my water change time in half.

Tolak

 

[Kopix Nation]

My black yucatan sailfin female (her name is Stella) is at least 5 months old and still is only 1" long. They are slow to grow sometimes. She will be a good breeding female . She was the only one out of the litter I saw any use to keep. The rest were kindly fed to my oscars which injoy the task of chasing them around the tank. Her mother and father were not solid blacks infact they where sunsets. I wounder how she got the fulll black touch.....Probably the grandmother or grandfather....

claire

 

[Kopix Nation]

her is Stella you can't really see her she is so black .


http/img249.imageshack.us/my.php?image=10017837rn.jpg

claire

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Mollys take a year to mature so your fry are by no means slow growers. You are doing pretty much all you can but you can only make them grow so fast and this is somthing you will have to adjust to with all molly fry. My best advice to you is not to save every fry dropped in your tank, if you did you'd need at least a 50gal to raise a years worth of fry and you had 3females dropping 40fry every 2months and thats not a huge amount by any means for mollys.
When you get fry, leave them in the main tank for at least a weak. Mollys will eat their own fry as will other fish and this is just basic natural selection- what you will be left with is the strongest, largest and healthiest fry and not only will you have less to raise but they have better chances of fairing well in life themselves if they have less fry their age to compete with.
You can't rely on your lfs to take your fry off you forever- i don't know what they are paying for your mollys but i do know that lfs's pay pennys for common livebearers like mollys and will ultimatly prefer to buy pure bred breeds for half the price in the end so you need to take this into consideration and discuss this with them, you will probably end up having to give them away for free in the end.

 

[Kopix Nation]

Does anyone think Stella is a good breeding female???I did not know because of her parents being sunsets.

claire

 

[Annastasia]

Um...are you sure her parents were sunsets? Since she is a Molly, and Mollies don't come in the sunset coloration. Is it possible she was born around the same time as the sunset fry, and you just assumed she was one of their kids?

However, she does look like a nice Black Molly, that will have some good fry when she is mature.

 

[Kopix Nation]

I am positive I saw her mother giving birth to her. Maggie is a really big yucatan sunset. here is a picture of her mother Maggie.

http/img399.imageshack.us/my.php?image=10013412zb.jpg

she does not look good because this picture was taken 30 minutes before she gave birth to Stella and her siblings.

claire