Newbie Here, New To Tropical Fish And Already Have Babies...help.

[ldavidson84]

Hi, new here. Im Leanne 24 n need some advice/help. I have had 3 guppies for over a year and on friday decided to add to our tank. Went to aquatic shop n they gave me advice on what to put in. We left with another 2 guppies, 2 red tetras, 2 black mollies 1 silver shark n 2 diff species of cat fish. Just enough for our tank. I woke this morning to see around 3 little baby black mollies hiding in the plants, each time i count i see more. What do i do, i would like to keep them but once they bigger i think my tank would be too crowed (just counted around 10) not sure what i should be doin as new to this. Any help/advice would greatly be appreciated. Thanks Lea x

 

[kizno1]

how big is your tank?
what are the other catfish?
have you cycled the tank?
do you have a breeding trap you can put the fry in until they get bigger or do you have a spair tank you can put them in

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Leanne. What you do depends on what you can do. It sounds easy doesn't it. The essence of it is that if you can provide room for the fish when they get bigger, go ahead and put them into a breeding net to gain some size. If you can't give them room enough as they grow, you leave them where they are and the other fish will take care of any population growth. In my case, I always have at least one empty tank that I can raise fry in, right now I have two of them. That means I just need to choose which fry to bother with and which to let go.

 

[ldavidson84]

thanks for your advice. I spoke to the aquatic shop from where i got my mollies and they said they will be happy to take the babies bck once they are an inch long. I did get a breeding trap to put them in, as i was catching them im sure they were multiplying...lol. I originall only thought was 6 but as i counted 18 and could see more i sought another tank and set it up, in the end i caught 32 and there were 2 that didnt make it that i could see. The shop gave me sum liquifry to feed them. Any thing else i need to do?

 

[OldMan47]

It is likely to take 2 months or a little longer to get the fry to a full inch in length if they have enough room to grow well. I grew out my mollies in a 10 gallon aquarium that they don't share with anyone but mom. At 41 days they looked like this.

To actually get good growth on them, they get moved on to a much larger tank and now they are about 1 1/4 inches long at about 3 months. The survivors are sharing a 55 gallon tank with some juvenile angels and some young bristlenose plecs. To get good growth of mollies, I emphasize giving them lots of vegetable matter in their diet by regularly feeding spirulina flake that I just crush between my finger tips. The liquifry, along with many similar fry diets, can be a bit high in animal protein compared to what a molly really needs. It will give fast initial growth but you will have healthier fish to offer the LFS if you mix in lots of vegetable protein. In the long run, that is the best way to have them really want to take your fish.

 

[ldavidson84]

Thanks for your advice oldman, i have them in a 5.7gallon tank at the moment which i borrowed from my sis. i think i will have to get a larger tank. I added some plants in there today. I will take your advice and put into practice and hopefully will have some healthy mollies