1 Gallon Tank Molly Fry questions

HI Everyone,

I work at Petco as the aquatics specialist. I saw this super cute fry in a tank and had to save it. I believe it is a balloon molly of some kind and it is colored like a gold dust molly (the only 3 type of fish in that tank was swordtails, upside down catfish and balloon mollies, so I'm almost positive it is a balloon molly fry).

So this is my first time caring for fry and I took the molly fry home and put it in a small 1 gallon tank. I leave the light on all the time since the tank has no heater. Leaving the light on keeps it at a constant 78 degrees. The tank came with and underground filter system and and air pump with tubing and air stone. You place the air stone and tubing in a plastic column, connecting to the underground filter. Just to make sure the little guy didn't go down the column, I cut up a fish net and rubber banded the netting around the opening of the column. I put a small amount of new gravel and placed a plant and a piece of lava rock from one of my established tanks. I also conditioned the water with nutrafin and used a little of the micro-lift bacteria. I also just added 2 ghost shrimp to help eat the food that the fry doesn't gobble up, which sinks to the bottom.

Anyways I have 2 main questions, 1 about feeding and 1 about his/her behavior.

1. I have been feeding him/her crushed up tropical fish flakes twice a day.
-Is there anything I can feed him/her to help him grow more/faster so he/she will grow big enough to go in my 10 gallon community tank? He/she is fairly good size already so I know that it was not newly born when I saved it.
- Can you feed a fry the frozen brine shrimp cubes that you would feed to adult fish? I don't have anyways to get newly hatched baby brine shrimp I seen recommended it other posts.
- How fast should it be growing? Doesn't seem to have grown any in size in the week that I have had it. How long does it usually take for it to get about an inch in size?

2. His/her behavior. A few days after rescuing him/her I found a couple of Silver sailfin molly fry and saved one. I put it in the tank with the balloon molly fry and the balloon molly fry seems a little aggressive towards the newly introduced fry. When the balloon molly fry sees the other fry, it immediately swims over to it and tries to back into it (tail first). Its like its trying to slap the new fry with its tail. I have not seen the balloon molly try to bite or nip at the new fry in anyway. Is this normal behavior? Is the new fry safe? Will the balloon molly fry eventually get use to the new fry and simmer down?

Thank you in advance for all the help such a newbie with fry!

 

3-4 weeks should do before you can keep it in the ct. I feed my fries hard boiled egg. and they do fine.
about the aggressive I don't really know. never had that prob before

 

Nice job on saving the fry

I've been feeding all my fry the same food as I do the adult fish, I simply crush it up a little finer. The frozen bloodworms is a nice treat and they will eat that also. The egg yolk is a good idea also. All my fish go nuts for it.

I've not had Mollies, but my guess would be that at 5 to 6 weeks old they should be plenty big enough to be put in with the adults (based on my experience with guppies).

I would recommend finding a way to turn off the light, fish need to sleep.

 

Cygnus,

the tank has a light that I can shut on and off but the worry I had with that is at night (without the light on), the temperature drops a few degrees, then goes back up when I turn the light on during the day. I thought that constant up and down with the temp (even though its just a few degrees) would do more harm than good. I was always told that tropical fish need a steady, constant temperature. I don't want the babies to get ick because the temperature keeps fluctuating.

Timz,

I am nervous about giving them eggs in such a small tank. I'm afraid it will muck up the tank too bad and I don't want to have to completely drain the tank, killing off all the bacteria that I've been trying to build up.

 

I think that temp swings are probably worse than steady light. Is there anything that you can throw into the tank (clay pot as an example) that they can get out of the light?

You are doing a great thing, so please don't think that I'm knocking what you're doing. When my lights go out all the fry swim underneath my log and when the lights are on, they stay near the top of the tank. I'm assuming that when they go under the log that is when they are sleeping or resting. Maybe someone who has much more experience will throw in their thoughts on how to help more.

 

Water changes..... Also they make a fry food that is sold at petco lol I had Dalmatian molly fry and that food is like a fine powder and it only take a very small pinch. I recommend doing a water change twice a week of about 25%