My green swordtail had some fry! I was not planing this I only have one tank a 20 gal tank were all my fish are including my swordtail I put some floating plants so the fry would be safe, But I don't have fry food. I only have some flake food and sinking shrimp pellets. What can I do?
There's a powdery food for fry made by Hikari called 'First Bites'.. it's not expensive and has worked great for all the fry I've ever raised to maturity.. once my fry get to be about a half inch in size, I add some freeze-dried Brine Shrimp powder (you'll find it at the bottom of any container of freeze-dried Brine Shrimp cubes you buy) to the First Bites, and before you know it, you've got young Swordtails that can hold their own with the adults.. unless your tank has lots of plants and ornaments though, your fry will be at the mercy of the bigger fish, so you may want to run a second air-hose to some kind of container with treated water, and transfer them.
I personally quickly lost patience with crushing the normal sized flakes with very limited success (turned into either a powder or stayed too chunky). My fry that stayed in the adult tank survived well by browsing for remains of adult food. The plants were a life saver to hide in. I actually had a broad leaf plant and the hid around the stalk, where the leaves close into the stalk.
I pulverize flake food in a baggie and dip a the end of a wooden toothpick in the tank water and then into the powdered flakes...Then dip it back into the breeding net...A few large crumbs are OK because you want to have the fry get used to slashing and cutting for food....They need to be able to tear it apart....
they are fine I manage to save five of the fry, I kept them in a breeding net, when they were about .75 in long I released
them into the tank and the grew. When i could tell them apart i had 3 females and 2 males, 1 of the females jump out of the tank, i found her dead on the floor the next day, the rest of the fish are fine they are about 2.5 inches long.
Oh!* and now the females are growing long tail fins like the males. How is this possible??
jrod...I believe several people have answered your questions several times...but I will try again....See if you can find a breeding net....They hang over the side of the tank....Scoop the fry with a net and put them in the breeder net...Crush the flake food in a baggie and try what I do....Dip the end of a wooden toothpick in the water to dampen. Then dip into the powdered flake food and then into the breeder net.
As for how the females now have long sword tails The males don't begin growing swords until they are 3-4 months old...So what you thought were females were immature males.....
I was not planing this I only have one tank a 20 gal tank were all my fish are including my swordtail I put some floating plants so the fry would be safe, But I don't have fry food. I only have some flake food and sinking shrimp pellets. What can I do? 
