new fry! will they be eaten?

[JacopoFishy]

I'm watching my dalmation molly give birth right now!!

its so exciting, the fry are adorable!!

how do I keep them alive and uneaten? tips?

this is awesome, yay!!!

 

[jvis0606]

yeah its fun, right?
i'd get yourself a breeder net that hangs right in your tank, get all of the fry in there and then feed them ground up flakes a couple of times a day. after a couple of weeks release them back in the tank (unless you have some really big aggressive fish, then wait til they are older)...

 

[KittenAndHerFish]

I have heard that Mollies are actually the livebearing fish that is least likely to eat their own young. As for how true that statement is I do not know I have a five gallon tank with a male and several females and they have yet to have babies nor get pregnant (I have only had them for a couple of weeks and these are the first mollies I have ever had to take care of.)

I did see some molly fry at one of the local pet stores and they are indeed as cute as cute can be.

I am interested to know how your mollies do behavior with the fry, I would love to hear an update.

Kitten

 

[pnyklr3]

Apparently, mollies have a hormonal "signal" that stops the hunger impluse for approx. 12 hours. However, I had a female that aborted (?) 7 fry and had 1 live one, and ate only the live one. I would get the female separated from her fry as soon as she is done dropping them.

 

[JacopoFishy]

unfortunately I had to leave for work when only two of the fry had been dropped.

I returned home just now to see at least three alive, and to find at least six dead.

my sweet little fry

It aggravates me so much that I can't go out right now and get a separater thing to hook on the side of my tank to keep my fry safe and alive. My only opportunity to do so is tomorrow after school and swimming. *whew* I just successfully moved two of the fry into a bowl I have, its in the tank and held to the side with a hair clip. yay, improvisation.

hopefully some of my fry will survive at least for a few more days.

the mommy just ate one of the dead fry which I was unable to remove from the tank. I'm not sure if I should have left the dead fish in there, but frankly I don't care. I just couldn't do that.....

 

[SnowyzMom]

I second what jvis said. Molly fry apparently are less clueless than guppy fry. I glanced in my main tank tonight and thought, "That's a pretty guppy fry, I bet they'll colour up real nice. Wait a sec, what is it doing swimming right out in the ope-" GULP. End result? One well fed tetra. They lie in wait to ambush the stupid. So I guess I only have really intelligent mature guppies. Hope your molly fry are less clueless.

 

[JacopoFishy]

poor stupid fry.

 

[yhbae]

You really need to either separate the female and monitor carefully, or raise the asults in a tank full of java moss. I chose the latter, and it's real easy to keep fries alive.

I have a tank with over 30 platies of various size, and some fries always survive as there's so much java moss in that tank...

 

[JacopoFishy]

java moss, eh? tell me more..... B)

-how expensive is it?
-easy care for a newbie?
-think my LFS would have it?

thanx!

 

[yhbae]

java moss, eh? tell me more..... B)

-how expensive is it?
-easy care for a newbie?
-think my LFS would have it?

thanx!

Java moss is a plant. Since they form a sense branch-like structure, most adult fishes cannot go into the mesh, while small fries can. They also provide microscopic food for small fries so they will survive more easily.

Most LFS sells them, and they are one of the easiest plant to keep alive, but you need rather large amount of them to be effective if you want large % of fries to survive. It took me couple of months before it reached the size I needed...

 

[Danno]

personally i think you should get a bredding seperattor. Once the mother gives birth the fry sink to the bettom ont the contrainter and it make all the fry live in one big happy family

 

[yhbae]

If what you are after is the most efficient (i.e. largest % survival), then you should move the female out of the tank - could be a separeate tank, a breeder trap or one of those plastic container designed for live bearers (never tried these).

I did move the female out for the first two spawns, but I didn't like it... The female was getting really stressed out when I was trying to catch her, so I looked for an alternative solution, and ended up with what I have right now. This method does NOT give the highest % of fry survival, but it does allow me to keep the adults in the same tank all the time... (Note: This was when I just got into this hobby. Now I have no issues catching females out of the tank, and indeed, I do this with P Acei to keep fries alive...)

On the other hand, if you manage to keep every one of those fries to live, you will end up with huge amount of fries that won't fit in your tank space very quickly!

I suppose at the end, it all depends on what your goal is...

 

[ajhainey]

My mollies don't seem to eat the fry, as evinced by all 15 surviving a week quite happily with their parents - but the tetras and angels I just added to that tank ate all of them within 12 hours What annoys me is I have a fry tank - but as they seemed to be doing ok I'd left them in the main tank...

I'm trying to think of it as positive genetic selection for smarter mollies - there are still three left who have learnt to get above/behind the filter where the bigger fish cant get

aj xx

 

[pnyklr3]

My lfs does not sell java moss (U.S.) so I guess its availability depends on where you live. My fry do quite well in a breeder net. One of my other mollies had fry and everything from my tetras to my gouramiseat the fry. I've even watched a mollie eat her own fry (the reason why I purchased the breeder net). Good luck with your fry!!

 

[JacopoFishy]

thanx. At first I only had three fry alive that I knew of, now I have seven! hehehhe, I'm thrilled. hope to find more over time, I think a few of them hid wayyy far up inside my conch shell. They have tiny spots just like their mommy.

when they were in the main tank unprotected, the only fish that didn't bother them was my gold molly. she would kind of watch them from a little bit aways, but never try to eat them or scare them. yay.

my siamese fighting fish was hunting them though, I swear. he'd slowly kind of cruise around the bottom of the tank, searching. he knew there were tiny fishies in there somewhere. what a meanie.