Chief_waterchanger

The parents will usually eat them if they can catch them, but if you heavily plant the tank with things such as java moss, guppy grass, some dense floating plants, etc you should have some survive. The key to survival of livebearers, if you do not want to have a secondary tank for them, is hiding places and plants. Use live plants if you can, the fry can nibble on them for vitamins and snacks between feedings.

CPVFD325

Roger that. How many fry will a single livebearer produce and how often?

Chief_waterchanger

Depends.

Guppies, platies, and mollies can have anywhere from 10-40 on normal spawns, and those are the three I would choose from if needing fry for feeders.

I would not use swordtails for feeders, they tend to have fewer numbers of fry that are larger than the smaller fry in more numbers, but also because swordtails aren't quite as numerous in the hobby as are guppies, platies, and mollies.

Gozer_1

I was dumb founded the first time I saw a guppy spit out 35 babies. Holy baby fish Batman! 35 from one little guppy. She was even a small female. It was her first spawn. Before I knew it I had WAY to many guppies and my GF at the time was dead set against feeding them to my "sharks".
"They're my babies", she'd say.
I'd say, "50 guppies is too many for a 10 gallon tank".
"They're fine"
"Ok, whatever"
"Hey all my baby guppies are dropping like flies"
"I told you there were too many"
"You didn't tell me they would all die"
"You wouldn't have believed me"
"Can we go to the store and buy more guppies?"
"Can I feed babies to my Sharks?"
"If you have to"
"Victory is mine!"

So yes guppies are like rabbits except rabbits don't eat their babies. I don't think they do anyway.

Gozer_1

Thought you might appreciate this photo. It's not a red belly but it's a Pacu at the National Zoo. You can see my thumb for a size reference.

Attached Images

blackPacu.jpg (70.6 KB, 11 views)

CPVFD325

Wow, those a huge. I actually made a trip to our actual professional lfs that deals in just fish. rather than the high school kids working at petsmart. They have a tank which has Oscars, Irr. Sharks, and Pacus that people have given to them because of their size. It was amazing to see a large pacu in person. It is just such a neat fish.....thanks for the picture!

Prejean

The guy who lives in the back of my house has a gigantic Pacu. We want to release it humanely back into the wild- or give it to an aquarium- with the knowledge that it will not be killed to feed other fish.

Does anyone know of a habitat for fish or a place where we could take Artie- so that he'll be safe- but much happier than he is in his tank.

By the way, we live in Dallas, Texas

Thanks

Tom

Butterfly

Aquarium fish should never be let loose in the wild. Most of them don't know how to hunt for food and those that do wind up eating native fish or out reproducing native species. It is also against the law.
Aquariums have so many people trying to give them fish they can't keep most of them won't even talk to you about it. Try and see if a LFS will take Artie.
carol

04_si

These people I know bought a 30g tall and bought a common pleco, a red belly pacu, and some other tetra's

needless to say they knew absolutely NOTHING about this fish, they didnt even know it was a pacu. They were clueless as to why it was eating all the other tetra...

amazing.. Im glad you did the right thing as well (just to add to what everyone else is saying! )