Dora

So now that my tank is cycled and such I've been doing 50% water changes on Sunday nights. I still have diatoms all over the place and now I'm also seeing some green algae. Is that normal? The other night when I did the water change my husband noticed something really small floating around. I said it was probably a piece of food or poop that never got sucked up but upon further inspection we discovered that it appears to be a tiny little fish. We started looking around for more in the tank as well as in the water we had just taken out of it and haven't found any and that one that we saw hid somewhere and I haven't seen it since. It must be a sunburst platy since I know they're livebearers but I never even knew we had a female, let alone that she was pregnant! I can only assume there must have been more babies, they don't just have one or two do they?? Can I just let nature take it's course and if it survives great? Or do I have to try to catch it and put it in a separate box? Darn the Petsmart people.. they told me we had two males, I purposely didn't want a female because I've heard they breed quite easily, now what do I do?

Stephen 31

If you let nature takes it's course i don't think you will need to worry about the baby for long because mom or dad will take care of the problem. Like they did with it's siblings i'm guessing.
if you want to try keep it you could purchase a isolation container or net that sits in your main tank but will keep bigger fish away.

alley

Well, in the wild, big fish eat little fish. I don't see a problem.

Dora

well I've been looking for him periodically all day today and can't find him. He's either really good at hiding which will increase his chances or he's been consumed by one of the bigger fish. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Maybe I'll be surprised someday and see him much bigger and swimming around. There's plenty of stuff for him to hide in so who knows. I agree with Alley, if he's meant to survive, then more power to the little guy.

Stephen 31

LOL...the wild tends to have more room to escape than a 10 Gallon tank :P But if you have no real interest in breeding them well then let nature do it's thing. Although it sounds like it already has.