silver molly fry keep dying

[phil]

Hi All

My silver mollies gave birth about 4 weeks ago - I put them in breeding nets in my main tank and everything seemed to be okay (lost the odd one or two).

At About 1/4" I moved them to my 18" tank (Approx 40) I did a water check and found the Nitrites had shot up to 2.0ppm so did a 50% water change. Repeated check the day after Nitrites still 2.0ppm. Also started to find some more dead fry (usually up to 2) so I decided to move them back to my main tank where all my readings are fine (Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 20)

I am now concerned as I am still losing fry (between 1 - 2 every couple of days) I have checked the water in my main tank - okay (as above) the fry are in two nets (approx 15 in each).

I feed a mixture of flake and live foods (Bloodworms, Daphnia etc)

The fry that are dying are a mixture of sizes (some small ones about 1/4" and some that are nearly 3/4") All the fry seem healthy until I find them dead (no signs of abdominal swelling, illnesses.

There is no sign of illness in the parents (or the other fish in the main tank)

I`m totally confused about what might be causing this - can anyone throw any light on whats happening?

p.s. on a good note my big tank has now cycled and has got the silver sharks in it along with the guppy - great fun trying to catch the sharks to move them.

Thanks

Phil

 

[memnon]

hiya

well firstly fry are very vounarable to any chemistry changes in the water when they are young, but fry dieng for unknown reasons is common and is annoying if you plan to keep them. once i had my very first fry and they where blue goramis and i had about seventy and they died within a week.


but i wouldn't move them again as this will probably stress them. you might have a few survivours as i had the same thing happen to me three weeks ago and i have about five platie fry and five mollie fry which are pirahna in the making.


but i hope they get on ok and live good luck

memnon

 

[phil]

Hi Memnon

Thanks for that info - it is disconcerting as I bought the parents when they were pregnant and it`s my first batch of fry and albeit I accept that only a certain amount would survive in the wild I expected to at least have 50 - 75% of the fry survive - maybe I expected too much.

Phil