Molly fry in my new tank!!!

I just got my fish back into their tank 2 days ago and today I came home to (so far) 6 fry!!! I caught 4 and have them in a net in the tank till the fry tank is set up? Any advice? These are my first fry. I'm so unbelievably excited!

 

hey congrats on ur new babies!!!

 

congrats on ur fry , I had rainbow fry a while back and I fed them a mixture of flake and brime shrimp its 6 weeks later and they are doing fine ..

 

I just got my fish back into their tank 2 days ago and today I came home to (so far) 6 fry!!! I caught 4 and have them in a net in the tank till the fry tank is set up? Any advice? These are my first fry. I'm so unbelievably excited!

Congratulations, dee's got ya covered on the advice end

congrats on ur fry , I had rainbow fry a while back and I fed them a mixture of flake and brime shrimp its 6 weeks later and they are doing fine ..

Rainbow platy or rainbowfish? I'm just curious because I have rainbowfish and I didn't know if they would breed in a home aquarium;D

 

Congrats on your fry. I agree it is sooooo exciting. I have my first batch of guppy fry and they are 1 week old and already getting bigger. I am feeding them algae flakes crushed up really fine. They are still in the main tank hiding in the plants but starting to come out a little bit. They are the cutest.....Enjoy

 

Yay! How fun! Do you have pictures?

 

New fry are always so exciting. I love to try breeding different types of fish just to see if I can do it. Then if they really do have fry I get just like a kid at Christams. Everyone has to come see what I got.

 

Congrats on the new additions!
Ken

 

I agree that the first batch of fry are exciting, and even the second batch.

But, am I the only one for whom the excitement begins to wear thin? For me, I have an over-abundance of mollies now. In the future, I will be very careful when choosing tank mates - and pay attention to livebearer sexes in addition to their appearance.

For me, the trouble with mollies is not in getting them to breed, but in KEEPING them FROM breeding. I have segregated the females, but it's too late...

 

Hello MyFishkies! And congratulations.

I noticed in your profile that you have 3 dalmation mollies (1 m/2 f) and possibly some other fish?

Here's the thing.. lol I had a couple of balloon mollies (1 male and 2 female) in a 10 gallon tank back when I first started. I ended up, no joke, with hundreds of fry. It was so excited the first few times but then it was really hard to get rid of them. A 10 gallon gets smaller and smaller with each batch. It was hard to keep track of them all so I would find some dead babies at various stages while I would clean the tank. Also, because they are "just" mollies, most LFS don't consider them worth buying from you but you might be able to give them to you LFS. I had a really tough time with mine.

I absolutely love mollies... but I will never buy them again. They are worse than bunnies!! Good luck with yours and let me know if you need any help with questions!

 

My mollies never give me babies! Makes me so upset....

The only babies I would ever get were Zebra Danios, and there not that cute LOL

But shockingly a few days ago I noticed Platy fry!!! I was so excited, I love that they come out being little fish. My danio fry starts out as eggs then when they hatch they look like little fleas LOL

We only got to save 5 platy fry, not sure how many she had.

I wissssssssh my mollies would have babies I have several, but they never do

 

I think it's time for someone to come up with a birth control for fish. Put two drops in the tank and you're good for months.

 

My friend had some mollies and they started to multiply, but like others said make sure you have a plan for what to do with all the fry because they are like baby making machines!

 

I agree that the first batch of fry are exciting, and even the second batch.

But, am I the only one for whom the excitement begins to wear thin? For me, I have an over-abundance of mollies now. In the future, I will be very careful when choosing tank mates - and pay attention to livebearer sexes in addition to their appearance.

For me, the trouble with mollies is not in getting them to breed, but in KEEPING them FROM breeding. I have segregated the females, but it's too late...

I don't know if you'd be willing to consider this option, but if you know anyone who has a carnivorous fish, you could give the babies to them as feeders That way the fish would have the live food it needs without the owner having to worry about disease.

 

I think it's time for someone to come up with a birth control for fish. Put two drops in the tank and you're good for months.

HA! I like it...

 

I don't know if you'd be willing to consider this option, but if you know anyone who has a carnivorous fish, you could give the babies to them as feeders.

Well, as "luck" would have it, the babies are in the soon-to-be African cichlid tank. There must be thirty of them in there. The thought had entered my mind . . .

(It sounds cruel, but not entirely). I'll make the decision in a week or so.

 

If you have a well planted tank you may want to take some of the plants out so the other fish will be able to get to them thus eliminating some of the fry. I have a 47gal. community tank and have very few plants in it. I also don't ever have fry in that tank. When I see a pregnant female that I want babies from I take her out and put her in a nursery tank.

 

Hello MyFishkies. I've moved your thread to the "freshwater/live bearers/molly" section of the forum.
Thanks!
Ken

 

Well, as "luck" would have it, the babies are in the soon-to-be African cichlid tank. There must be thirty of them in there. The thought had entered my mind . . .

(It sounds cruel, but not entirely). I'll make the decision in a week or so.

Convenient that What africans are you putting in there? The reason I ask is some africans are herbivors or omnivores and if they get too much protein, it causes health issues for them. So since it's going to be an african tank, you may want to put the species that would be best-suited to resolve your fry problem in first if you choose to go that route.

 

just got 5 molly fry and isolated them. what do I do now? how long will it be before I can put them in the main tank?

 

I am not a breeder but I have read many articles about breeding them. feed them powdered flake food. as for moving back in with their parents make sure they can't fit in their parents mouths. hope this helps, more people will come they always do

 

Fishdude summed it up pretty well

I have platy fry at the moment, the third batch should be born any day. I feed mine 3-6 times a day (tiny tiny amounts though). For their first 3 weeks that got fed 6 times, but my older babies (who are now nearly 7 weeks old) get fed about 4 times. So it's up to you what works best. I only give a little tiny pinch at a time. If there is left over food sitting in the net, you can suck it up with a syringe catridge or a turkey baster. They will grow faster if fed properly. Fishdude is right, you can feed them powdered flake. Many people suggest it, and it means you don't have to go out buying special food for them. I spoil mine a bit though, I use Nutrafin baby fish food, and they get a bit of brine shrimp a few days of week, as well as a bit of pea (frozen pea, thawed and shelled) a few days a week. So far mine are growing like little weeds

As fishdude says, you can put them in the tank once they're big enough not to be eaten by other fish. I believe there are benefits to keeping them in the breeders net for as long as possible though. It means you can feed them and that they're actually getting the food, it's not being guzzled down by the adult fish in the tank.

Another thing I have read is that good, clean water helps them grow properly as well. So keep up the weekly water changes

That's all the information I can think of right now, if you have more questions, just ask

 

one died. there in a different tank. I feed them crushed food. ill post pics later.

 

cant wait

 

If you can the best thing for fry is usually baby brine shrimp.
There is heaps of stuff around to help you with hatching them and what not so just have a look

 

the powdered flake seems small

 

Aw, man. I can't wait for my black mollies to give birth. I have 2 females, and 1 male, and both females are pregnant. I got them not too long ago, and have never actually bred my fish before. What I got for the fry to eat was HikarI First Bites, it was highly recommended to me at another forum I go to.

 

it started yesturday I was looking at my female black molly and knew that she was close to giving birth but I did not know when as I brought her pregnent so anyway last night I was looking at her and she was acting very unusal and was very large I was going to put her in a breeding box but I did not think much of it anyway I got up this morning and saw that her stomach was small.

I was like oh no she has given birth so I searched the tank but could not find them the at the corner of my eye I saw something black and my other fish mainly my kribs were trying to get it then I opened my tank lid to feed the other and there all 28 of the fry I a group hiding on top of my amazon sword leaf that had all the floting plants caught on it as the leaf is a few mm away from the top of the water so I got the breeding box and my net and sweeped everyone up and into the breeding box they are

will post pics later

 

haha! wow 28 fry, nice. congrats!

 

Newborns can be very hard to find at first. With my first litter, we found one, then another one kept showing up. I was netting them for a half hour.

 

Newborns can be very hard to find at first. With my first litter, we found one, then another one kept showing up. I was netting them for a half hour.

same here I only had ten tho

 

wow 28 fry you must have just missed the birth by just a few hours
congrats how exciting, I think the most I was able to collect at any given time was around12 or so

 

My Dalmation Molly had some more fry, I found 10 this time. I plan to try and sell them for really cheap, or just give them away if that doesn't work. I just don't know what their minimum age/size should be before I send them off with someone else. They're currently in a breeder net in my 20 gal. High Tank. I know I can't keep them in there. My poor tank would be overrun by mollies, lol. I wish I had a hatchery tank, but can't afford one right now. Hopefully I can get one someday. Anyway, any help with figuring this out is much appreciated I'll post pictures of them soon!

Edit: Another lil' question. I read that fry can cause an ammonia spike or something. If that's so, how do I handle it? I don't want my fish to get sick or suffer. How long will the spike last for?

 

HI DragonNeko. Congrats on the new babies! Your momma molly is a real beauty.

I've found that my molly fry are fairly self-sufficient after the first few days, i.e. once they're comfortable enough in the tank to know not to be eat by my other mollies.

Fry can potentially cause an ammonia spike the same way any increase in the fish population can cause an ammonia spike. More fish = more waste = more ammonia. In a cycled tank, though, the waste produced by tiny fry shouldn't be enough to impact a 20 gallon tank. If you do ever see a spike, then your tank is experiencing a mini-cycle, which means you need to increase pwc until the ammonia & Nitrite are back to 0.


By the time I can sex my live-bearers, I figure it's time to re-home them.

 

I would sell them off after they start to color up, that way people know what they are buying. Otherwise waiting till they are easily sexable is a great option.

 

Thank you both so much! I'll sell them when they're both sexable and start to show color. I wanna keep one if I can, if there's a unique one. Otherwise they're all going away. I just put my 2 older fry into the main tank. They're doing really well. I'm gonna buy more little plants to them to hide in. They're both female...so I'll likely have many many more babies in the future. That is, if I don't give the male a time out in another tank, lol.

 

I have 2 female Molly fish that have both had their fry within a week of each other, am I able to put both groups of fry together? also I have fry from an earlier birth, they are almost 2 months, should I separate the sexes or yet can they be kept together for a certain length of time?

 

I don't see why not. The fry should be fine with each other, they are only a week apart. Just make sure to acclimate them properly into the new environment.

The babies should be sexually mature by the age of 2-3 months old so I would go ahead and separate the sexes if you don't want more babies.

 

Thanks a lot

 

Your welcome.