Babies...... How To Catch Them?

[pingu1997]

OK, we got 4 mollies from our LFS on Friday, 2 male and 2 female. The silver female definitely looks pregnant, has a bloated square tummy, but the black female was just quiet and not really up to much for the first 24 hours in our tank

Anyway this morning, we got up and there are at least 4 molly fry darting around the tank. They definitely look more black than white so presumed it was the black female that dropped them which is why she was a bit quiet yesterday?

So I have read about catching them and isolating them to avoid them being eaten... we have one of those clip on net things, looking to set up a new small tank very soon

But we can't catch them! They are so tiny and just dart around all over the place.

Anyone got any advice.....

Thank you
Corinne

 

[GhettoFish]

ive had the same situation recently and have a clip on net thing in the tank with 4 mollie fry in it ,i kinda used two nets to try and get them in to the net if you know what i mean? i have black mollie and a silver one so at start the fry looked all black but as they are growing i see that they will be marble/dalmation ones ,they are growing quite fast.Now im just deciding when to release them into the tank but i have some tiger barbs in there so not sure yet

good luck with catching them

 

[the biffster]

i am sure you used to be able
to get a net with small enough
mesh i know i used to have a few
if not just try and use a food container of some
sort like a Tupperware tub just to move them to a breeding trap
or fry trap

 

[pingu1997]

got them, patience, patience and more patience (and a net), we now have a nursery (well a small thing on the side of the tank LOL) with 6 molly fry in...... they are so cute and the kids are delighted!

 

[lilfishie]

if the mollies are the only fish in the tank i would leave them out, as i have never seen a molly eats any fry let alone there own, and have kept and bred a few now

but either way, congrats on the babies and keep looking cause theres probably more hiding somewhere

 

[OldMan47]

I have also never observed a molly eating its own fry Lilfishie, but I know full well that a mature female molly will drop more fry than I ever find in my tanks. What that means to me is that I have simply not seen the fry eating take place. I had a female drop over 30 fry that survived initial predation by the parent and her next drop only had about 15 to 20 fry survive. The 6 week old fry were clearly not big enough to have eaten the fry from the next drop, so I can only assume the adult female who dropped them ate some of the new fry. A typical trapped female the size of mine would deliver well over 40 fry so I can only assume she ate some of the first drop and was able to find even more from the second drop, due to the sheer numbers of fry involved. I object to using breeding traps for my own females but a simple 6 fry found reflects a large loss of fry to predation in the first few hours of their existence. Even the 30 to 40 fry I often find are assumed to have seen some losses to predation. If I had more than the gravid female present, I would expect even higher losses to predation. Finding myself with only 6 survivors sounds like heavy predation by the other fish present, whether or not they were only other mollies.

 

[pingu1997]

thanks for replies

I have rescued 13 little mollies so far and they are happily swimming around in their nursery thing!

There are 4 platys in the tank with the 6 mollies

We still keep finding the odd one but then it disappears again. I wish I knew which molly had dropped because we only got them on Friday and neither looked particularly heavily pregnant...

this morning the kids witnessed some fairly obvious mating going on but they just laughed and said the fishies were playing "it"

sweet!

 

[chilli-spice]

aw congrats on your new fry
i can't wait for the first drop from my guppies

 

[PaBucsFan]

It may sound crude but I usually use my gravel vacuum to suck up the babies into a white 5 gallon bucket. I think it is much easier to catch them in there!

 

[fluvial]

Same here !
By accident I found that the easiest way to catch fry when still smaller than a tadpole is to
suck them up with a gravel cleaner, then net them out of the bucket.
At that age / size it really doesn't seem to hurt them at all.

 

[pingu1997]

Well I've caught 15 now with a net and a lot of patience and the kids spotting them first.....

And apart from one which seems to have a deformed tail, all are well

My platy on the other hand is sick, not sure it's going to survive the night. It is hiding in the plants upside down and has been a bit off colour for days, swimming around aimlessly and periods of lying on the bottom. Not sure I can save it really, RIP sunset platy, I'm going to set up a second tank for sick fish or babies....

 

[OldMan47]

A siphon is actually a very common way of removing cichlid fry because the parents do a lot of guarding and that makes them even harder to catch with a net, the parents are always in the way. I often decide how many cichlid fry I have room to raise and simply siphon that many from the cloud of fry that cichlids tend to gather.

 

[chilli-spice]

how are all your little fry doing now?
got any pictures? :
one of my guppies dropped today woohoo lol

 

[pingu1997]

all doing fine, we got some orange mollies last Sat and in the night she dropped too, so now we have orange and black babies, maybe about 20-25 in the nursery tank, it's so fascinating watching them grow!



Sorry I can't seem to take pics of the big fish or the mollies, they move way too fast for me to get them in focus!

 

[OldMan47]

Try backing away and zooming in to get decent pictures. By backing away, the focus is not as critical and when you zoom back in the picture still is big enough to see the fish clearly. Taking fish pictures is a whole new adventure for most photographers.