Feeding Platy Fry

[crago1990]

hello my platy gave birth 2 days ago and she did it in my main tank. most of the fry got eaten naturally and thats fine didnt want to keep any of them anyway. but i noticed two babys hiding together doing well survied the hole day in the tank. guessing the strongest ones out of the batch so i thought id help these 2 little ones. main reason is i have 2 males and 2 females and i really want another female so its not too much stress for my other 2 females. if there male there go to the shop when they develop. anyway ive got them in my main tank inside a breeding trap and i havent seen them eat! been in there for two days i have little fry food for when i used to have guppys and have 100s of fry all the time. i dont want to keep putting food in there little box dont want to start ruining the water condiction. but any ideas why they dont seem to be eating? when i had guppys as soon as food was in there the fry wud naturally go straight for it, but not whats happening with the platys.

 

[FrogGirl]

Is it a plastic breeding trap with the fall through bottom? I bought one early on before I read net breeders were best for water flow, stress etc. I am on my 3rd batch of platy fry & have had no feeding problems. I kept the 1st three I found hiding in my tank with half of my guppy batch from the day before. My nets came with some fake plants for cover & I usually add another small plant. I kept the 3rd batch in the net for 3 wks til I had a cycled tank ready for them. I fed them Nutrafin Max baby fish food & did my best to crush it a bit more as I dropped a pinch or 2 into each net. I've never had a problem getting them to eat & in fact those 1st three are bigger than my largest guppy fry. I also like the net because if they don't eat all the food right away it falls to where they can munch it up later.

I started feeding the older fry in the fry tank frozen baby brine shrimp & once I saw how small it was I decided to try it on my 2 day old platy fry tonight. They had no problem & appeared to gobble it up.

So depending on the type of trap they're in they could be kind of freaked out. Try to make sure they're comfortable & see what happens. I can tell you that when I moved my 28 guppies & 3 platys into my fry tank the guppies seemed to be comfortable & have no problems. They swim around in the open all the time. My platys mostly hid for a few days even though they are the biggest. Yesterday evening they started to swim in the open more. I'm wondering if they are just a bit more skiddish than guppies

 

[crago1990]

cheers for the reply ... i dont think its the trap tho because i have had guppy fry in there before and they were fine. it might be platys maybe different and my scared. if they dont eat soon ill have to set up a fry tank.

 

[FrogGirl]

Welcome. I'm supposed to be sleeping lol but I've recently become addicted to this forum & end up reading posts on my phone while I lie in bed lol.

I was very surprised in the behavior difference between the guppies & platys when I moved them to the fry tank. When they were in the net the platys seemed to be perfectly happy & content.

The trap & behavior difference is all I have to offer but I'm new to this. My oldest fry will be 4wks old today & now I have 3 day old & newborn fry