Letting fry fend for themselves

[weswest]

I have just started to keep fish, and already one of my mollies is pregnant. I have read the postings on breeding nets, however I don't really want to fool around with one right now.

This is my only aquarium, so my plan was to just let the fry fend for themselves. There are plenty of fake plants and large gravel for the fry to hide in, so my thinking was that the strong will survive, just like in nature. The tank has mollies, gupies and endlers in it, so the largest fish are the mollies.

My question is if this is seen as a cruel practice in the fishkeeping community.

Please leave your opinion on this matter, even if it is a one line response.

Thanks

 

[Tolak]

That's all I did when I was breeding platys. Plenty of plants, a pile of larger rocks that the fry can fit in, but the adults can't. Just had to keep an eye on the rock pile, sometimes adults would get wedged in there trying to get at the fry.

Tolak

 

[weswest]

What do you mean by a rock pile?

 

[Mr Miagi]

Create a hill of pebbles so your fry can swim in the gaps is what he means. I would add things like java moss and alot of fake plants like you already have. Or some live bushy plants.

I dont think the fish community looks at this as cruelty at all. It also depends on what fish you breed. You can be quickly over run by baby mollies, guppies etc, but if your breeding something more substantial or harder to breed, youll want too obviously keep alive as many as possible.

Goodluck.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I personally don't have anything against breeding nets although there is alot you have to do in order to maintain a stress-free enviroment in them.
Anyways...
I don't think its cruel to let the fry fend for themselves in the main tank setup, it happens in the wild anyway. I have done this on occasions when i havn't had a fry tank or breeding nets, and i usually release the fry into the main tank once they are stronger enough to fend for themselves and not fit into other fish's mouths of course or just let them fend for themselves from the beginning.
On the other hand though things can go wrong; you fish may be intelligent enough to catch the fry(or be hungrier enough) and eat practically all of them, the adult fish may also become trapped in fry hiding places you have set up for them like rock piles and you don't realy want to be losing fry and adult fish.
Also if you have too many fry and want your adult fish to eat them you cannot rely on that either as it depends on the individual fish and as one molly for example may love eating the odd fry, another molly may not be interested at all etc.
What you may want to do is if you get some realy interestingly colored/patterned fry and want to raise them without the posibilty of them get eaten, you may want to insure in a breeding net to raise them in until they are bigger enough to fend for themselves or even better, start up a second fry tank.
Either way though, the chose is yours.

 

[Polardbear]

It's not a cruel practice. If they survive, they survive. If you don't want to put the time and effort into raising fry than just leave them be in the tank. A few may survive. A lot of first timers don't realize the large amount of work involved in raising fry. Even if you don't bother with a seperate tank for them, using a breeder trap still involves regular cleaning and they are a pain to deal with.

Personally I like raising fry, I enjoy daily water changes and feeding fish 5 times a day. I must be warped.

 

[paige]

i think u should put them in a breeder net if u want any to survive because if one of ur fish spotts one they'll no thetre are more around and aventually they'll all be gone

 

[elephantsrock]

That is what I plan on doing with my mollies.
I have a tanks with just mollies.
And one is preggy.
I was just going to let the babies alone.

 

[tank212]

It's not a cruel practice at all if anything using a breeding net is . I always have fry popping up out of nowhere and once they're big and there is about 4 or 5 of em they will swim around with the adults like mine do.

 

[shadow]

I did use a breeding net 3x's for fry and the last time I had a prego fish I let the fry stay and fend for themselves. Would't you know I still had the 6 platys! I had to since I was over run with the little buggers!

 

[tank212]

Well I mean putting the female in the breeding net while she's pregnant.

 

[weswest]

Thanks for you input everyone. I definantly want to raise fry at some point, I just really don't have the time right now, and when I do I want to make sure I am properly taking care of them.

I am going to setup my tank with a few extra hiding spots and see if any fry survive on their own. I'll keep this posted on the survival rate.

Cheers.

PS - Has anyone heard of any problems with using liquid fry food in a main tank. (Will it get too dispersed and then create ammonia)

 

[GuppyDude]

not cruel in any way at all, infact i prefer it over culling, and if they arnt eaten then u just give them to teh fish store, for mollies, if the adults are large enogh the fry in turn will be born larger, esspecially if theyare fed well while pregnant, so they alredy may be big enogh to fend for themselves. if ur tank is well planted, with out a dought u will have survivers but if u dont want the fry then throgh a in a tro of tiger barbs and there wont be any not cruel, its completely natural

 

[abstract]

what i do is let my fry grow to a couple weeks old in my 10 gallon and then drop the excess in my 46 gallon - between the golden wonder panchex (top), tiger bars/scissortails/paradise fish (middle), and blue rams (bottom) they rarely survive more than two minutes....

when i have several generations of fry in the 10 gallon I tend to take about 3/4 of the smallest ones and drop them in both my 46 gallon and 20 gallon planted - a few survive once in awhile

 

[paige]

u put them in ur 46 gallon tank just because there weak its just like ur feeding them to ur fish