My Molly Gave Birth And Died :-( I Havent Got A Clue What To Do Now

[Shantih]

Hiya all,

I stumbled upon this forum after starting a tank wih little knowledge and bad advice, you helped me greatly and my tank has seemed more stable until i came to clean it out yesterday and one of my mollies had died then i stumbled upon my next problem....

I have babies

I was using the vac on the gravel when i seen a baby fish get vac'd up i quickly removed the vac and the baby fish fell back out into the water, upon closer inspection i found 3 little babies swimming round, i had brought them out of hiding it would seem by moving the gravel. Then to my horror one of my tetras attacked one of the babies and killed it I rang my cousin who told me to turn the lights off then they would strugle to find them but now what do i do?

My molly prior to this had been laying on the floor and i was worried she was dying, now it would seem she was giving birth. But she died yesterday and since the male molly is swimming around the tank in what appears to be a search mission for the mum? Any advice would be much appreciated, i have read about the breeding boxes etc but i have no money at the moment and i dont want the babies to die, i have had a bad start to my tank and have lost 4 mollies now and 3 tetras,

My tank is 48 litre
I have 1 molly - 2 tetras - 5 neons - 2 plecs
The only thing i have in the tank is one ornament, i did have a plastic plant in also but i had took it out yesterday to clean the tank out and i darent put it back in incase i squashed any babies

Thankyou in advance for any advice

Nicola

 

[Ben.M]

Sorry to hear about your molly Nicola but congrats on the babies. I'm afraid there isnt much you can do as it sounds like the mum died due to the stress of giving birth(she was probably harassed by the others) and there would have been more fry than that so the other fish have already eaten a load. Fry need somewhere to hide, the best thing is a dense bit of plantation in one part of the tank. If you want to keep the babies get a breeding net(offers better water flow than a box), their not expensive and you should be able to get them at your LFS but to be honest with you I wouldnt bother, those babies have gone through a lot of stress already and the chances of keeping those 2 going is slim. My suggestion would be if you want them to breed then get 2 more female mollies(you should keep them at least 1male to 2females) for your tank, keep an eye on them and read some of the pinned threads at the top of the common livebearer forum,

hope it helps,

Ben.M

P.s I would check your water stats as a dead fish may have affected it

 

[Shantih]

Thankyou for that, it is awfully sad, could you recommend what sort of dense plantation to get? i have never bought live plants before

 

[Ben.M]

I personally would suggest Elodea, its a very common plant but its got to be one of the easiest to look after, google it as you've probably seen it before. I've got 3 bunches of them in my guppy tank quite close together as at the moment i cant get a fry tank so to keep as many alive as possible i've got that at the back as fry will always look for vegetation as a place to hide first as it seems most natural to them. If I can i'll get a pic of my tank and show you what i mean,

Ben.M

 

[Ben.M]