Baby Mollies + Water Changing

[nikiwildman]

Hi there
My names Niki, i have been looking and reading and researching on this forum for months now, but this is my fisrt post. So i firstly have to say that this site has been a great help to me with lots of great information on it!

Anyway, I resontly brought my first live bearers - Dalmation mollies, 1 was pregnant when i got her, and the other 2 got pregnant since. (have 3 females and 1 male)
Now, on friday night i had put my First preg molly into the birthing trap which she gave birth within a few hours, she had about 40, 9 died before i saw them and another on monday. But the rest are doing extremely well, all swimming around quite happily in the trap and eating very well, and are steadily getting bigger, i am feeding them a mix of frozen baby brine shimp, dried crushed blood worm and crushed flakes. All seem to keep their little bellies nice and full! They are even starting to get their colours in!

I think seeing as this is my first time and not something i planned i am doing pretty well! Which mostly that is to do with the advice i found on this forum!

Anyway, im wanting to do my partial water change is it ok to do this with fry so young or is it better to wait till they are a week or 2 old? Or is this still to young?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Tarps]

my fry survived when they were 2 weeks old doing a 10% water change

 

[OldMan47]

If your tank needs a partial water change, then it does. Molly fry are not the fragile things that some other fish are. Try to not drain so much water that the trap dries out and things will be fine. You will very soon need another tank to grow out your fry. The 30 surviving fry will quickly become crowded in a trap.

 

[nikiwildman]

Thanks, i had been planning to do maybe a 10/20% water change tomorrow, when they will be 1 week old, so this should be ok?

I have a little 30L tank that is cycling at the moment, i am hoping to move them into in the next week or so. She was pregnant when i got her so i really wasnt quite prepared for it, like i new when i got them that i would inevitable, but i wasnt expecting it this soon!

I really do need to move them into the other tank asap as my other one is looking ready to drop! So god knows what im going to do if this tanks not ready in time! I havent had time to prepare for any of this.
I was really annoyed when i brought them because i am quite particular about the fish i have and like to pick out every single fish i buy, which i didnt get a chance to with these, i only wanted 4 females, but the guy gave me at least 1 preg female, im now thinking 2 because my second is almost due, my third female is now pregnant (but she doesnt look very far along) and 1 male. I dont like taking fish back because i am a little attached to him now and once i make a commitment to a fish then i cant bare to give them up!

However its a great excuse to get another tank, which i have been wanting for a while anyway, now i just have a reason to do it soon.

 

[Spishkey]

take some filter media out of your already up and running tank, put it into the cycling ta,k, this is called cloning and will instantly cycle the tank enough to put the molly fry in

 

[nikiwildman]

take some filter media out of your already up and running tank, put it into the cycling ta,k, this is called cloning and will instantly cycle the tank enough to put the molly fry in

Sorry to sound like a dunce, but when you says 'filter media' what exactly do you mean.

I think i grasp your concept though, would a simular thing work if i were to put the filter from the fry tank into the main tank for a day or 2, and then put it back in the fry tank? Or am i thinking way off here!

ALSO, when would be the best time to transfer them, obviously only when the tank was fully cycled, but for example if it WAS ready now, would it be safe to transfer them at this age, or would it be better like say when they are 2 weeks or 3 weeks old ect?

 

[pippoodle]

Not a dunce hun
take some sponge (filter media) from the filter in your main tank and swap it with some sponge from the fry tanks filter

The fry should be fine to go over into the fry tank right away depending on what sort of filter you have running in there
you might need to put some net , or stocking over the inlet of the filter to stop the dry getting munched by the filter

 

[OldMan47]

You can move the fry at any age Niki. They will be fine if you have the head start on a mature filter as Spishkey and Pippoodle suggested.

 

[nikiwildman]

You can move the fry at any age Niki. They will be fine if you have the head start on a mature filter as Spishkey and Pippoodle suggested.

Cool, thanks alot everyone for the help and advice! You know, i did so much (or as much as i could) research and preparation on this before the babies came, and i read all the pinned threads about this, but untill it happens you realise just how unprepared you really are!

I think what im going to do is leave the fry in the trap for the time being, and move my heavily pregnant molly into the 30L tank to give birth, and then move the older fry into the tank once the other adult molly is removed from the tank. Rather than putting her into the trap, which im not particulary fond of anyway.

Is this a good or bad idea? Or am i just better moving the fry into the fry tank asap.

 

[OldMan47]

I always use a birth tank for my mollies. I feel that they are just too big to be comfortable in a breeder. It also lets me put them in the tank a few days or even a week ahead and not get stressed trying to guess what day to put them in a breeder.

 

[nikiwildman]

Thanks for all the advice everyone!

Using your methods of taking the 'filter media' out from the main tank into the filter of the breeder tank, i have put the heavily pregnant female in there on her own just now. It is heavily plant and i have a stocking over the filter so any little babies dont sucked in and they have plenty of places to hide.

I still have the first lot of babies in the trap, but this is only untill this one gives birth, which by the look of her and by the way she is acting could be any day now, then i'll let the older ones go into this tank once the female is back into the main tank (which i really dont think will be too long), so im fairly set as far as all this goes!

Also on a slightly different subject - i have a 3rd female which i mentioned in my first post i believe, now she started showing signs of pregnancy (she is black so cant see a gravid spot) she was getting fairly big and squaring off nicely and she was especially big compared with the molly that just dropped, but she wasnt as big as the molly thats about to drop. She was probably about half way between the 2....if that makes sence! Anway she was steadily getting bigger and progressing nicely, i would have said she was about 2 weeks off, going by the progression of this molly thats about to give birth. But then i came home from work one day and she looked just like my molly that had just dropped! What could have happened to her? There was no signs of any babies anywhere, unless they had been eaten which is quite possible, but she just didnt seem ready to be giving birth, she wasnt constipated as i watched for that carefully, i just dont understand what happened to her - she seems absolutly fine and not stressed or anything. Any ideas what happened or what caused it?

 

[OldMan47]

She may well have dropped her fry while you were gone. Do you have anything in your tank except the mollies that might have eaten the fry? I seldom see my mollies being very efficient at removing fry but anything is possible.

 

[nikiwildman]

Yes, i have black skirt tetras which would gobble them down in a shot, thing is non of them looked fat like they had stuffed themselves, and i have seen what they look like overfed, and they looked perfectly normal. I suspose it is the most logical explaination for it, but the story just doesnt seem to fit if you know what i mean.