capper

I checked our 48 gallon tank this afternoon and suddenly noticed 2 very tiny fry! Then a while later we found 2 more. They were swimming at the surface. One looks quite different from the others. It is much smaller than the others (and they are very small too!) and it doens't have any of the orange color the others have. Our platy parents are 100% orange Mickey Mouse variety. Anyway, the only other thing we could think of is that the one smaller one is a product of our African Lampeyes. Not sure yet.

We have put the 4 babies into our mini 2-gallon tank. I was worried about the filter sucking them in but they seem to be holding their own so far. What should we do about feeding them? What and how often etc etc...

By the way, our 2 gallon had been sitting idle for a long time. However, I left the filter insert for it underneath the filter wool of one of our established tank for the past couple of months. In addition, I used some of the water -- in combination with new fresh water -- to make up the water in our 2 gallon tank for the fry.

ANY ADVICE THANKS!

Jason

If they are livebearer fry they should be allright on finely crushed flake food. if the other babies are not livebearer babies (did you see the other fish laying eggs etc) they'll need to be raised on live food or specially made liquid fry food. But they're probably just platy fry which means there's probably more to come.

Feed them 3-4 times a day for the first 1-2 weeks then reduce to 2-3 X a day.
Dont forget to clean the tank often especially for the first week. (when the food & detrius builds up). The filter probably wont suck them in as I have 3 newborn swordies in with a power filter and their allright.

Good Luck