Too Many Fry.

[SarahMarsh]

HI everyone.
 
I am quite new to fishkeeping but have managed to keep all but one of my first fish alive since January!!
I accepted some free fish from a friend. I had 7 small molly fry. I hadnt read much about them at that point.
A week ago I was able to notice that two of the larger ones are male and female.
Today while doing my water change I noticed my first little fry. 
The problem is I think my tank is full enough and worry about over crowding. It may sound cruel but I dont have any other tanks to put the male in and id rather get one more fish that would possibly help with fry control, they are cute when they are tiny so I would struggle to take them out of the tank myself.
I have Zebra Danios that eat anything and platys. Any that survive I will happily keep. But I saw a friends tank that was bursting with mollies the other week.
Should I also remove the hiding places? The adults seem to like them.
Thankyou

 

[chrisdenyer]

If the danios will eat them that will probably keep it under control - you could temporarily remove hiding spaces I suppose - I used to have a tank of tiger barbs which I fed quite a few molly fry to, but they aren't really any good for a community tank. A pair of killies or a dwarf gourami could do the job, depends what your tank is like and how much space you've got of course - there's not much that really likes the levels of hardness that the livebearers require! However, even if you got rid of the male now, the females can hold on to sperm for up to 6 months so you'll be getting a lot more fry - you could also try giving them away - I don't know of any fish shop that will take livebearers, but I managed to re-home about a hundred molly fry through aquarist-classifieds.co.uk 
 
hope that's of some use!

 

[Akasha72]

do you have a good local fish store? Perhaps a small independent? If so, have you considered approaching them to ask if they will take the fry in? I have a small independent fish store that take in live bearer fry. They don't give anything for them but they will give them a home, bring them on to sell-able size and then put them up for sale. 
It's better than killing healthy fish and it solves the stocking issue