So, Our Molly Had Babies.

[DarrinLowe]

Over the past 2 or so months, there was great debate about wether our molly was just fat, or pregnant, as our male molly died about a month ago.

This morning, my girlfriend calls me to tell me that she had babies, and is now alot skinnier.
From what she has seen, there was three swimming around that she could identify.

Yesterday, we added some live plants (fairly small) and we have a large cabin/house inside the tank, that has a wheel on it thats suppose to be for an air pump.

Do you think that the fry would be safe?

Currently, we do not have a breeder net, we do not have anything to prepare for these babies.
I was thinking I should but a net, and try to relocate them into it. Is this necessary, is there any way to safely feed them without having them in a net.

I have no idea how many she had, how many are even still alive. For the time being, that is all they have for living space. Are they safe?

It's kind of at an inconvenient time for this to happen, for the past 2 months, we have had a top fin filter, that pours down and has a blue thing that is suppose to maximize air. After about 2 weeks, it gets too clogged and all the water it pulls in ends up flowing over the left side and leaving unfiltered, also inconveniently spiking our ammonia levels.

Yesterday, we installed a Fluval U3 filter, which we are pretty confident about. We have both filters turned on into the tank, because this new one obviously needs to cycle itself, and build the essential colonies. Will these eat our new fry?

 

[stuuk1]

Its all about luck, you really do need to get something for them to live in though asap! What other fish do you have in your tank?

 

[DarrinLowe]

Its all about luck, you really do need to get something for them to live in though asap! What other fish do you have in your tank?

From what I remember,

We have 2 black female molly's (Zen, and Morgan)
4 Platys (Cheech, Chong, Danger, Rorscach)
6 School fish, I'm not quite sure what they are (My gf bought them while I was away) they are fairly small though (The Brigade)
1 Pleco (3.5") (Vince)
The tank is about 40gallons.

The mollys and the pleco are the oldest fish, and are the biggest.

We also have one happy betta in his own heated bowl.

 

[hensonc4098]

Mollie fry are pretty big when they are born and are normally able to fend for themselves if there's nothing in the tank too threatening that would eat them. The platies and even the mollies themselves would eat them if they got chance though. Adding cover in the tank will help the fry in the form of live plants etc. What do the "school fish" look like? Is it possible to get a picture of them? It'd be helpful if we could ID them to see if they pose much of a threat to the youngsters. Meantime, if you can wedge your fish net into the hood of the tank somehow so that it's secure and will hold them in, you can put the 3(?) fry in there and that will keep them safe until they're a bit bigger. Feeding wise, if they're in the main tank then thy will be able just to scavange food that's been left over from your other fish. If you decide to keep them in the net then just grind up flake as small as you can with your fingers so it's like a powder and give them that

 

[DarrinLowe]

I will take a picture and upload it when I get to my girlfriends house tonight, or better yet. I will ask her if she still has the recipt for them. They are fairly small though.

One other question I did have. We have added 2 live plants to our aquarium, and purchased a comprehensive fertilizer for them. Would this be harmful to the fry to use?

 

[DarrinLowe]

I keep forgetting to take the picture.. But for the most part, these fish have been fairly aggressive.. They basically hunted down the fry's... the day they were born these 6 guys were swimming around our plants, and snatched up anything that tried to swim out. I only managed to see 2.

They look alot like the fish in your signature. Small, and white with black stripes. They're schooling fish, and from a website my guess is some a barb, or something of that sort.

 

[OTIS]

Good thing your male is gone, otherwise you would keep having these about every month, We had about 15-20 fry before we got rid of the male.

-OTIS

 

[DarrinLowe]

Good thing your male is gone, otherwise you would keep having these about every month, We had about 15-20 fry before we got rid of the male.

-OTIS

Yeah,

I mean my girlfriend, and my self are very interested in breeding. But were not big fans of Molly's. They do seem like fairly strong fish though. Where we had fish before, and all but 3 died. The 2 Molly's and our Pleco.

The new filter is working out much better though, our water is clearing up, our ammonia is dropping, our fish are loving the flow.. (Or hating it, I cant tell) haha.

We also added an airstone with the filter, as we have quite a few fish, and on the side I was reading that the beneficial bacteria that breaks ammonia down, is aerobic. I dont know if it makes any difference, but it seems logical.

 

[Harlequins]

Nitrite breaks the ammmonia down then converts to nitrate i haven't heard about the airstone thing...

Your internals may suck your wee fry into them,perhaps you could put a piece of sponge over the intake?

Female livebearers can store sperm for up to 6 months,so you may get drops even though the male isn't present.

Good luck with your new fry

 

[hensonc4098]

Doubt it would be the fish in my sig - it's an angelfish, which is one of these:

although the angle of the photo makes it look a bit different lol

Maybe it is one of these which is a tiger barb?

in which case they are quite aggressive eaters and will actually go after fry, unlike some other small fish who will only eat fry if they pass in front or near them.

 

[DarrinLowe]

Doubt it would be the fish in my sig - it's an angelfish, which is one of these:

although the angle of the photo makes it look a bit different lol

Maybe it is one of these which is a tiger barb?

in which case they are quite aggressive eaters and will actually go after fry, unlike some other small fish who will only eat fry if they pass in front or near them.

Yeah, I talked to my girlfriends mom, who bought the fish and they were barbs. I'm certain its a tiger barb. And well, It's no big deal. We didnt really want new Molly's, it was just unexpected to see these guys out on the hunt.

 

[OldMan47]

Barbs are notorious for being aggressive with other adult fish. They are not good tank mates for fry of any kind. If you want to have survival of molly fry, get a separate tank where the female can drop her fry and you can rear them. A single female molly will not eat many of her fry and the rest will survive and thrive as these ones did in my tank.
When the picture was taken, the fry were 5 weeks old and had lived with mom the whole time.