Fry- first time.. moved baby, but need advice

Hey everyone,

2 of my platy's have been pregnant for a while (at least a few weeks). I've been closely watching them for any signs of change, etc. I changed 80% of the water yesterday (without knowing about the fry), BUT I ALWAYS check the clear gallon bucket I use to see if I have anything other than just water in there BEFORE I pour it out.. I check it methodically, so no chance of any fry being gone because of the water change I did.

Anyways, this morning, I woke up, and turned my fish tank light on and checked all my fish (made sure they were ok and fed them). So on the back wall I see this small small thing swim by really fast. I thought that's crazy, are my eyes playing tricks on me, or something. So I closed my eyes and opened them again and then I saw the baby again. I unplugged my filter (it's a Aquaclear, I bought that one because the Pingiun 150 filter I was garbage/already went out). and went and got my sister. We have a smaller tank (it's a 1/2 gallon betta viewing tank from Walmart). So we got that, cleaned it out, put water in that from the tank then took the ormanments out very very carefully checking to make sure the baby/babies weren't under/in there. we super carefully caught the small fish in the net (I was so scared) and moved it to the 1/2 gallon tank.. It's so small and the smaller tank has gravel and 1 small fake plant it in. The fish is def. in there, it's light yellow/clear and has 2 big black eyes (It's so dang cute) I currently have the filter off because she looks to be still pregnant and the other one is def. still pregnant. So the filter is off and I only put 2 plants back in and 1 decoration in there. I took the other decoration out so I can see the tank better.

What else should I do? The baby is safely moved seperated from all my other fish, so I'm going to keep him/her in there for a long long time, till it gets bigger, it's maybe a half inch long with HUGE black eyes, so darn cute!!!! I'm so excited! It feels like when my birds hatched chicks and that's how I feel now, hehe!

 

You're going to need that filter running again, first of all. You can't let it sit for too long without running or your beneficial bacteria will die off. Covering the filter intake with filter floss or clean, never-worn pantyhose should help keep the fry out.

Cheap fry food: take normal flake food and put it in a ziploc bag, then work that bag between your fingers over and over until the flakes have been pulverized into as fine a powder as you can get. Sprinkle that in a few times a day to feed your fry.

I hope you've got a filter running on the fry tank, too. If not, you'll need to add filtration to it. Perhaps a sponge filter?

 

Thanks, since I've posted this, I got this breeder thing for my fry.. I've moved the baby and the fry can't get through the slits at all, but my Gourami is trying to get the baby from the outside.. how can I stop that? Move the Gourami? The baby seems to be doing ok, but keeps getting stressed because of the Gourami and other platy's trying to get him. I also bought some "first bite" food. yes I turned the filter back on..

 

Ah, the gourami will never get the babies from the outside so don't worry.
Add some fake plants into the breeder net for more coverage or a decoration.

 

I put a fake plant in there floating on the top and he's currently hiding in it now

 

Good. Make sure that you have enough flow hitting the breeder box so that no water will be sitting in there and not moving around.

Good Luck with your bab(y - ies).

 

I did, so far so good, the baby looks to be a female and has gotten bigger, she's soo cute, hehe! I got some food for them called "First bites" it's specifically designed food for fry, and she's been eating a lot of that.

 

That's good!

Good luck with your baby and keep us posted!

Pics are welcome hoto:

 

thank you! I will be sure to keep you guys posted! I'll take a pic soon! I'm not even sure if my camera will focus on something that small, LOL!

 

Congrats on your fry! Usually all livebearer fry look like females until they are a month or two old, so there's a chance you might have a little boy.

 

oh, ok, thanks, I didn't know that... lol! I'd rather have another boy so they don't breed again, If it is a girl it'll be ok but I'd prefer it to be male so I don't have to deal with more babies (cause I'm not flushing them under any circumstances)