update on my fry

[gale]

The molly fry I found are now 9 days old. They have all been doing great, eating, growing, etc. I have them in a 2.5 gallon minibow with a whisper micro filter which I turned all the way down so it wasn't so strong. I put a sock of gravel from my cycled tank in this tank so that they would have some good bacteria.

Today I saw all three acting normal. Tonight I could only find 2. I looked and looked and finally found the 3rd in the filter. I thought the slots on the filter were too small but I guess comparing the size of a filter outside the water and fish inside the water doesn't really give a good idea. I don't know if he was weak or dead and then got sucked in or just got too close and got sucked in and then died. I've seen them all swim near the intake and never even got pulled in much less pulled through. Needless to say I'm very upset and feeling very much like I didn't do enough for them. Right after I found it I put a stocking on the bottom of the intake (not easy-if you've seen these filters you'll know what I mean) and hopefully no on else will get sucked in.

I'm hoping the other 2 do better. RIP curly.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

What are the water stats in the tank i.e ammonia/nitrates/nitrite?
What are you feeding them and how much?

Sorry for your loss, how many fry do you have in total that are known to be alive?

 

[gale]

ammonia zero, nitrite zero, nitrate about 20 (just below).

I now have 2 fry (only found 3 in my 20g tank so I guess the other fish had a snack. Dang mollie had them overnight) and I'm feeding them Hikari first bites 4-5 times a day (tiny amount since there are so few fry-about 1mm on the end of a plastic spoon-maybe less). I'm suctioning junk out of the tank every day or sometimes I skip a day. I have a snail in there that has been keeping all the extra food cleaned up but he's pooping up a storm.

edited for spelling

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Hmm, it could have been the filter or the shock from the move from the main tank to the fry tank as fry can't handle these things very well; never had your type of filter but in my 10gal fry tank i use the smallest filter out of the fluval range and i find that my fry never ever have any problems with it.
It may be worth putting a peice of netting over(from a net for catching fish would be best) your filters vents where it sucks in the water just so this reduces the chances of the fry getting sucked in.
Fry can die for kinds of reasons- somtimes you just get a bad batch where the fry were already weakened from a difficult birth or any nutrition they were denied enough of during growth in their mothers tummy or things like stress on the mother fish for various reasons can also affect growth. Also if they were too inbred you do get alot of fry deaths from inbred fish in comparison to ones that are not; any of these reasons can cause deaths in fry even if there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with them on the outside.

 

[gale]

I can't imagine it being shock from being moved-I moved them over a week ago. I used 75% tank water from the big tank and 25% new treated water. I did put a stocking over the filter intake last night so hopefully no one else will get sucked in. I am having trouble now with the new heater I got-I keep having to adjust it.

 

[gale]

ARGH!! The little sh**s are trying my patience. This type of filter doesn't have the typical intake tube and when I rubberband a stocking around the bottom, there's no way to avoid a couple of tiny gaps between the rubberband and the filter body. Well one of the little buggers found his way through that gap and was swimming around in there. Thank GOD he didn't get sucked up. You know how these fish are-if they go in there once they'll do it again, so I took off the stocking and now just have to hope they don't get sucked in. I will post in the hardware forum asking if another filter will work in this tank. But I'll have to order it online which will take at least a week or so. DANGIT.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Try the smallest filter available in the fluval series, i use it all the time and have never had one fry sucked up it.