Molly Fry

[GentleHeart]

I'm new at fish keeping period
but i have two question
i did finally get a breeding net.....how big should the fry be before it comes out of there for one...... the other molly's in the tank are stilll small only about 1 - 1.5 inches long...
also
How often should the little one be fed.... i read about 4 times a day.... is this true cuz mine has only been getting fed twice..

 

[longhorn13]

yes, they should be fed 3-4 times a day

i wouldn't release them back into the tank until they're a couple months old, but thats just me. mine are just over a month and i'd still worry about them getting eaten if i put them in now.

how many do you have in the breeding net? i think the best thing you could do is give them a growout tank of their own. i know there's no way i could expect my 31 fry to grow up in a breeding net

 

[GentleHeart]

i only have one at the moment
she was pregnant..... i came home looked and there was one baby
i supposed the others got eaten
i imagine she didn't have many though cuz she is only about 1 inch long herself and as big as that baby was she couldn't have fit that many in her
i read that they have anywhere from 10- 150 fry
i'd think she had more like 10 lol
anyway i was able to catch that one and keep in the net
mom still has a big belly so she isn't done i'm sure...it's been 5 days...so i imagine in 20something days she'll have some more
i've been considering getting another tank
if i did so..... would neon tetras eat the fry too? they are small themselves just wondering if they'd be safe with them

 

[longhorn13]

what i found was the easiest was to have a secondary tank set up for a maternity tank, when the female starts getting really big, i transfer her from the community tank to the other so there's no one to eat the babies. she'll eventually eat them, so i'd move her out after she drops. of course give her some time to recuperate before moving her back to the main tank

 

[Schnurrbs]

We bought 3 mollies and 3 clown loach yesterday.

Just looked in the tank and saw a small black shape being chased by one of the clown loach. On closer inspection we saw it was a molly fry.

Do we need to separate the fry from the other fish? We don't have any nets or any other tanks as we are new to this game and the 6 fish we bought yesterday were the first we introduced to the tank.

At the moment the fry is resting on a leaf.

 

[longhorn13]

what size tank do you have and how heavily planted is it? i wouldn't suggest moving one fry to a new tank, so i'd get a net if i were you- if you want to try to raise the fry. otherwise, there's not much you can do, if you've got lots of plants it might be able to hide out til it's big enough

 

[Bigjula]

I bought 3 black mollies and 3 days later there were two little fry swimming around. I've got a few plants in there and they hid there for a couple of days. The older (1-1.5 inch) fish tried to eat them but they got away. Now, 1 week later, the fry swim around no problems. The older ones totally leave them alone. Dunno if I want them though. Can I stop them breeding. Should I trim the leaves of my plants to give the big guys a better go at them when they're small?

 

[EX-AmP]

this worked for me and im sure not if it will work for you. i bought feeder guppies and set them loose in my tank. the gouramis ate some and the mollies chased them, after a week i had about 15 left and ever since that day they were more resistant to fry.

 

[Schnurrbs]

We've only got a 60 litre tank - no others available. 6 plants but only freshly planted so not particularly big.

Had to separate as many as possible as the male molly was eating them. The fry were resting on leaves but as soon as they moved into open water they were getting attacked and often eaten.

Managed to put 5 in a sieve - only thing to hand. Going to get a net breeder at the weekend. Hopefully this will do for the time being as it keeps the fry safe.

For future reference, when people have got the required number of fish in their tanks do they tend to just let the fry get eaten?

 

[longhorn13]

it depends, i'm still fairly new to this, so i'm enjoying raising my first batch of fry. but it looks like i have 3 maybe 4 pregnant females, so i'm sure i won't be able to keep all those. i still have to figure out what to do with the 31 i have right now...