What Are These Fry?

[thedragonslayer]

I adopted a 10 gallon aquarium a week ago. I saw an ad on cl for a tank with baby fish, the mother fish died after giving live birth and the fish described sounded to me like a guppy, I had had guppies from 1967 when I was in kindergarten to 1979 when I moved away from home. I counted the fry as I returned them to their clean tank and there were 176 live fry and a few dead ones ones. They are now between 3/16th of an inch to 3/8th of an inch long and in all ways resemble both guppy and gambusia fry, but they all have forked tails, not rounded.  I can only assume for now that they are guppy fry or gambusia fry and in a month I should start seeing signs of if they are guppies.

 

[Brilly91]

Im not sure what fry they would be, most look the same to me while small but i applaud you for your patience in counting the fry!!

 

[bluesword23516]

Post a photo and I might be able to tell you

 

[thedragonslayer]

I tried to post a photo and it failed twice, but will try again when it is allowed.

I tried at the start and had an error, tried again and thought it worked but do not see anything yet.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

I don't think they are guppies.

 

[Brilly91]

I tried to post a photo and it failed twice, but will try again when it is allowed.

I tried at the start and had an error, tried again and thought it worked but do not see anything yet.

 
They dont look like guppys to me either and ive had a million of them lol
 
Almost look like a type of tetra although im likely to be wrong!

 

[thedragonslayer]

But tetra's are not live bearers, these 176 fry came from one fish that looked like a guppy. 
fish Crazy, I googled Tetra's and most have the small fin just before the tail fins, adipose fin I think.  It also says the eggs hatch in 24 hours after being deposited.  Do tetra's lay tremendous quantities of eggs at one time?  I joined a guppy forum too and no one has responded as promptly as you have on this forum. Thanks all, hope to figure out what these are before I dedicate too much time on them. The owner did not know what the mother was, got it as a birthday gift in a small fish bowl. She bought the 10 gallon tank and the mother had the babies and died.

 

[thedragonslayer]

I took a few more pictures, being sure to get some of the smallest and the largest, the smallest being about 1/4 of an inch and the largest being 1/2 an inch long.  The only images of fry that resemble these are goldfish fry and that is impossible, this was a single fish and goldfish need two, one to lay the eggs and the male to spew his sperm over them. I have googled molly fry, platy fry, guppy fry and tetra's.  They most resemble goldfish. 

 

[Zikofski]

wow nice pictures, but i never had guppies or tetras before but from the pictures and a quick comparison between guppy fry and tetra fry and so far i they look more tetra than guppy, biggest difference was the rear caudal fin which is rounded in guppies and in tetras is forked or indented, the pictures u show in my eyes are defiantly predominately indented to forked fins, again molly's have a more rounded tail too so i would presume the fry would also my money is that these are tetras

 

 
try to ignore the markings but looking at this picture of a tetra fry it looks similar in my eyes

 
EDIT also to note, tetras do lay TONES of eggs but maybe there was more than one female egg carrier, are all the fry of same size or are some larger than others say from a different batch, someone will correct me if i am wrong but a singe mother could lay a batch of eggs one day and then a few days later lay another batch so 176 fry sounds normal to me fish do go crazy on numbers but they haft to as in the wild probably only 10% if that would actually survive through to adult

 

[thedragonslayer]

What kind of tetra could they be. The prior owner of the mother said it was about 2 inches long and greenish silver. She had the tank on her kitchen counter, under the cabinets with no light or hood and a small power filter and plastic plants. She said the fish gave birth, then died a few days later. She changed to a sponge filter because she was afraid the fry would get sucked into it.

 

[Zikofski]

may have been a green neon tetra but it is hard to say from the description we will just haft to wait and see what they turn out like over the next few months be interesting to see what the mystery fish is pls keep posting pics up on here

 

[thedragonslayer]

None of the fry have an adipose fin, most tetra's have an adipose fin, the silver tips do not have an adipose fin. I have looked online and have seen no other tetra fry that lack an adipose fin other than silver tips, Hasemania nana. 

 

[thedragonslayer]

I am wondering if these fry could be Barbs, someone suggested that they look like goldfish fry and they do in some ways. But the mother was less than 2 inches long, the back fin does not fit tetras, but it does fit the Barbs. Any Barb breeders here who can through in their thoughts on it?

 

[thedragonslayer]

So far, every one that has seen the pictures of the fry say they are goldfish, I have had no luck in contacting the original owner that led me to think they were live bearers, she had no idea what the fish was that she got for her birthday and was feeding them tropical fish food. But now that the largest is almost an inch long after just 15 days, I too believe they are gold fish, not barbs. I transfered all the small fry, but for four larger ones that went in the 30 gallon tank, to a 22 gallon tank that I had partially filled with aged water in preparation for them. I counted  137 fry going into the 22 gallon tank and the 30 has 20 fry in it, only 3 are small that got caught with the larger fry. So the loss was 19 fry over the past 15 days, but considering their move from across town in a bucket in the trunk of my truck, spending over night in that bucket and transfered back to their tank, that is not too bad.  I do expect some more loss, since there are still some that are quite tiny and may become food for the larger ones before they catch up. But I set my my 100 gallon stock tank in our patio as a water feature and will add some to it as they grow and may even put some in my 90 gallon preformed pond.  I think it would be interesting to get one of those sturdy 900 gallon plastic stock tanks and see how big they can get.