What do you do with your fry?

Hi! I was thinking of getting some female guppies to put in with my 1 male, because he getts lonely quite easily, but was just wondering what do you all do when you have fry?

Do you sell them? or take them to the lfs? Just wondering.

thanks

Gwenz ;D

 

I haven't been able to sell any or even get store credit for any yet. lol I call around to LFS and ask who will take them... but most of the time I'm just so excited to find a place for them I don't get discouraged by no store credit. However, in about a month I will be bringing like 35-40 molly fry to a store.. and I'm going to see if I can get some Prime out of it because I'm running low.... or maybe another adult molly.

:'( My tank is going to look so empty when all of these fry leave. I keep them in my 10 gallon with all my other fish... and even though my tank is overstocked withOUT the fry... it'll definitely look empty!

 

;D ok thanks. I was planning on trying to get a few fry into my 5gall tank, and leave some in the 7.5gall with the adults ( hopefully with enough hiding spaces). How old are they when you take them to your lfs usually?

thanks

Gwenz

 

I would call and ask your LFS but I would say about 2 months or 3/4inch... As long as you call ahead, they won't usually send you away. lol I'm keeping them as long as I can keep up with the bioload so I can see how their colors will grow out. I have some really odd mixes. I'm not actually positive who the mom is... I had an orange male (he died 2 weeks ago) and 1 female (white with silvery gray on top) and 1 female (all black)... and I never saw a gravid spot on either. The first batch of fry are either all black or half black half orange... so I assumed it was Sophie (the black one)... then two weeks later I found like 15 more new fry and most of them are light orange or white!! So maybe before my male died... he knocked them both up? lol

I've had 3 batches of molly fry and everyone told me they would get eaten if I left them in the tank (kind of awful but I thought, oh well, that's nature!) The first batch I only found 4 and they were like a week old. 3 weeks later I found 9ish and they weren't hiding very much, and then 2 weeks after that I found 15 or so. So I don't know if my fish at a LOT from the first batch and then just got sick of them?? lol I haven't seen ANY adult fish in my tank even really nip at any of them (I have mollies, guppies, a gouarmi, otos, and a ghost shrimp).

I wouldn't worry too much. ;D It's not all that hard. You just might have to make some phone calls...

 

good luck with your fry Gwenz! I have to warn you, they are very cute little buggers!

 

lol. Hopefully will get some females soon. The one danio I had left in the tank died this morning, and spot is hiding again. he gets very depressed and lonely when there aren't any other fish in the tank, I naeed to get him some company!! ;D

I was just thinking, do you think itl be ok if I just left the fry in the 7.5gall tank and see how many make it? ATM I don't really have time to look after 3 tanks with all the work I'm getting from school.

Gwenz

 

If you put in lots of plants and hiding places and go with a substrata like flat glass marbles, then a small percentage of them might make it to be big enough to not be food.

 

Ok great! thanks.

Gwenz

 

We sold our yellow labs for $3 a piece or 5/$10...to people on different for sale sites in our area, gave some to friends...we gave away the majority of all the Convict fry we had. 100s of babies. :
We also kept some too.

 

cool! ;D

 

I have a pregnant dalmation molly that is due any day now. My question is, what does everyone do with the babies? Do you use them as feeder fish, sell them, give them away, keep them? I think it's really cool to have a pregnant fish (came home from the fish store that way) and am excited to see how many babies she has, but don't know what I would do if I ended up with 10 babies that live since I have no room for them.

 

Some people sell them to their lfs, other use them as feeders, some give them out to their friends if they are strong and healthy and you have a good lfs they will take them and give you store credit for other fish or equipment.

 

And... Welcome to Fishlore

 

We are getting into the fish business in the next few years. So we are trying to breed healthy fish which we have been lucky with so far. We have been trying out different types of fish to breed. Got to have experince if we are opening our own fish store/breedery We have established a connection with our lfs manager who will buy all of our fish or give us a trade in. We just got $200 in store credit for some of our fry and unwanted fish. Some we sell on for sale sites or to friends.

 

Welcome to Fishlore.

We usually sell our fry. You may end up with much more than 10 fry from a molly each batch. They'll need lots of hiding spots in that tank or a tank of their own. Everyone, including mama, sees them as swimming snacks until they're too big to fit in the bigger fish's mouths.

 

What do you guys do with them? Do you keep them? Sell them? Where do you sell them? I'm wondering because I've avoided some fish that I would like to keep because I know that they breed easily and I have no idea what I would do with their babies lol

 

hI kristyn, I don't have too much experience with fish fry but I have had a few batches in my tank. if you don't have a separate tank to put your fry in then most will be eaten, unless you have a breeders net or box but in those the ammonia builds up and might eventually kill your fry that way. you won't have a lot of fry in the end if you keep them in your main tank so you won't have to really worry about overpopulation. if you wanted some of the fry to live you could put some either plastic or real plants floating at the top of your tank for the fry to hide in. but if you don't want to keep them some non-chain neighborhood fish stores will take your fish in and give you store credit. that's what I think is the best idea. I hope that helps

 

usually ends up half are feeders for my angels (as they die of natural selection) and the other half are sold

 

Yeah my mom & pop fish store gives me a $1 credit for every male/female couple I bring in, they turn around and sell them as a couple for 6.99.

As far as left overs or deformed fry, I feed them to my crawdad.

 

My LFS gives me a buck and a quarter for the males and a buck for the females. My LFS is great!!

 

Awesome, thank you guys

I wasn't sure if fish stores would take them or not but that's definitely an idea if I should ever encounter that.

@cherrybarbboi- wouldn't the net allow water to circulate and minimize the ammonia being contained in that area?

 

My LFS gives 1$ for fry or krib fry at least

 

I have guppies, my LFS will give me 1/3 of what they sell them for (I don't know off the top of my head how much that is per fish). But I feed the fry to my betta and frogs and I do not use a breeder box or net. If any survive then there is room in my tank for them. If I get over crowded then I take a load to my LFS for store credit.

 

not really, thered still be a good load built up. its worth a try if you can get them big enough to get out into the tank before maybe a month or 2. when I used a net the fry I had survived a good 3 months before it died of ammonia poisoning. I didnt know it was ammonia poisoning then but later learned about that danger from a guy at my lfs. what he told me is the best way for the fry to survive is to get some plants at the top of the tank and hopefully the fry swim there

 

I don't think I could use them as food for my fish with out feeling like a murderer

At what age do you take them to the fish store? As soon as they are born or do you wait a few weeks?

 

I don't think I could use them as food for my fish with out feeling like a murderer

At what age do you take them to the fish store? As soon as they are born or do you wait a few weeks?

You wait till they are juvies. When they start showing color and are atleast half the size of an adult (for guppies).

 

You can just leave them, but they'll probably get eaten. You can give them to petsmart/petco, but they're likely to just be killed if not needed. You can give them to friends or family, that might be a good option. My personal favorite is to find a small, privatly owned pet store (I go to exotics and aquatics pet store in spring lake park MN), see if they'll take fish donations (they do and they actualy take good care of them and won't let you buy and animal if you can't provide proper care for it), raise the fry for a few months, then give them to them, hey, it's free merchendise. If you know the owner/employies you may get money, store credit, or an occasional freebe (I do, usualy live plants). The only downside to that is that you'll have to raise them, but I find it fun to care for fry.

 

I don't think I would mind raising them as long as they had somewhere to go. I personally rather keep them before I would give them to petsmart or petco, that would be a death sentence around here. Unfortunately I don't have any friends or family who are into fish keeping I'm also not well acquainted with the local pet store owners but it is worth asking

 

Theres a few things you can do. just let nature takes it course and let them breed and who survives survives. Or some LFS will take them in for nothing but some offer trade in value. I keep mine and raise them and move them to the right tank for them

 

My (unfortunate) luck is that my guppies don't eat many of the fry, so if you're breeding guppies and don't have local pet stores that will take care of them, it might be worth reconsidering the fry-as-betta-feeders option. I know it might seem cruel, but it is kind of the natural way of things for many larger fish to eat smaller fish... and the parents might not do it in their own breeding tank.

(I am biased by a serious guppy over-population, at the moment, and am very close to taking the betta route.)

 

I feed them to my fish.

 

My (unfortunate) luck is that my guppies don't eat many of the fry, so if you're breeding guppies and don't have local pet stores that will take care of them, it might be worth reconsidering the fry-as-betta-feeders option. I know it might seem cruel, but it is kind of the natural way of things for many larger fish to eat smaller fish... and the parents might not do it in their own breeding tank.

(I am biased by a serious guppy over-population, at the moment, and am very close to taking the betta route.)

I'm sure I would feel similar if I were in the same position lol But I think iI'll do my best to keep that my very last option

 

If you can't handle taking care of fry (one way or another), then it's the right choice to avoid livebearers.

 

Mine become Parrot Snacks. You?

 

If I get a really big drop, I will occationally scoop a few out and give them to my bettas. If I don't get many, I raise them all and give away what I don't want

 

Only thing I had breed was my green terrors.

And at that point it was a struggle to get daddy to stop snacking.

 

Mine become a tasty treat for the adults in the tank. I couldn't net them and feed them to another fish, I'd feel like *I* was killing them since I sent them to their deaths. But I am okay with letting nature takes its course. I haven't had a single fry survive except one of the 8 or 9 I netted in the molly's first drop. Heck, I haven't even seen any fry except once or twice.

-Lisa

 

With cons I usually sold them or they became food for other fish. My friend who breeds danios fed them to his birds.

 

wow what kind of birds does he have? My fry have mostly became snacks for my other fishies but I have managed to net a few this drop and I plan to take them in to my lfs who have already agreed to give me in store credit so I plan to use that to get some guppys and TRY to breed show quality guppys. but if I end up with too many fry I think Ill probably feed them to my betta

 

I'm not totally sure but I think he meant parrot fish.