# Babies! What to do?



## Tiggerwoos (Jul 30, 2012)

Hi all!

Am pretty new to fish keeping and started off with my four mollies (one male and three female) about six weeks ago in a 48litre tank. Went to the local fish store yesterday and asked what would be suitable and ended up with two female and two male guppies.

After transmitting them to the tank I noticed a couple of fish fry at the bottom and by today that has risen to about four. Am sure there must have been more overnight that have been eaten and am not sure if they are molly or guppy babies.

Went back to my local aquatic store today as already had a few artificial plants in there that the fry were hiding in and he advised me against buying real plants as the bigger fish were more likely to be interested in the plants and see the fry, so ended up with three more artificial plants for them to hide in.

My question is, what would be best for the survival rate of the fry? Have been reading about feeding them with Interpet Livebearer number 2 food or Hikari First Bites? I can see a couple of the other guppies look ready to drop, and how do I get the food to the babies before the adults munch it?!

Sorry for the long confused post. Just want the best for them


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## cats galore (Jul 17, 2012)

i've always got babies in my tank and i've never added any food especially for them. i crush a bit of the flakes up in my fingers and drop that in. there are always loads of babies so it obviously works for me. i also have java moss in my tank which the babies hide in until they are big enough to explore the tank.


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## NaomiM (Sep 22, 2012)

Hi and welcome to the fishy part of the forum (that sounds really bad!) :eek6:

The first thing to understand about livebearers (guppies, platys, swordtails and mollies) is that they have LOTS of babies! Each female can give birth every 4 weeks, so you'll need to have plans in place for what you're going to do with the fry - and consider separating the males and females before you get overrun (and bear in mind that a female can store sperm, so she still give birth up to 6 times even after being separated!)

With regard to the survival of your existing fry, there's a couple of different routes you can go down:

1) For the very best survival rate, you could isolate the fry in a separate small tank, but unless you can ask someone for a good-sized chunk of mature media for the filter, that's not really viable, so we'll disregard that for now.

2) You can get floating breeding traps or breeding nets to isolate the fry within the main tank. (Some people isolate the mother just before she gives birth to ensure they catch all the fry before any get eaten, but this isn't a good idea as it can stress the mother and cause her to miscarry or even die). But with a large number of fry in a small tank, it might be hard to find enough space for breeding traps without cramping the others.

3) (and this is what I've always done) - you can let nature take its course. Provided you have a decent number of plants and hidey holes, a decent number should survive. It may sound a little brutal, but it's what happens in nature, and is why they have so many babies.

With regards to food, you can get something called liquifry, but this pollutes the water quite badly, and as cats galore says, they should be fine with crumbled flake. I tend to hold it underwater and gently rub it between my fingers. The adult fish are up near my fingers looking for the big pieces, and tend to ignore most of the small crumbs, so enough filters down to let the fry get some.

A couple of considerations for the future - despite what aquatic shops often tell you, guppies and mollies are not great tankmates as they can interbreed. Also, mollies will outgrow a 48l. They can also be bullies, especially in a confined space.


Sorry for the long post and sorry if it sounds like a lecture - just trying to pass on a few of the things I've learned since my own disastrous start at fishkeeping! Aquatic shop staff (with some exceptions) tend to be either inept, unscrupulous or both, and will often sell people unsuitable fish and far too many for the tank, just to make a sale.


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## Tiggerwoos (Jul 30, 2012)

Thankyou both so much. Have had some very "fishy" information from a couple of aquatic stores, so thought better to ask the experts. 

Am going to go for the crumbling the fish flakes option and providing plenty of plants so give them what chance I can. Think I am definitely going to have to set another tank up. Bit cross that all the fish stores insisted on my having boys and girls!

Definitely an addictive hobby and didn't realise how cute baby fish fry could be! Then again I have given all the adult fish names so am a softy at heart!


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## NaomiM (Sep 22, 2012)

Lol, yes it's addictive isn't it? I even give my baby fishies names once they make it to about 2 weeks old, despite the fact that most of them will need to be rehomed eventually! (Though the latest one's just called 'Teeny Tiny Fishy' cos I ran out of inspiration!) :lol:


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## NaomiM (Sep 22, 2012)

Just another quick note as I just noticed you have equal numbers of male and female guppies. Keep an eye on them - with mixed sexes, it's recommended to have at least 2 females for every 1 male as they're sex-mad and can harry them constantly!  If you have a higher ratio of females to males, it spreads it out a bit so that they don't literally harry them to death!


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## Tiggerwoos (Jul 30, 2012)

Love the name Teeny Tiny Fishy! And yes am well and truly addicted!

Will definitely keep an eye and if necessary get a couple more females. Sadly haven't seen any fry today unless they are hiding but disolved some a few flakes in to the plants so am hoping they may be hiding.

Thanks for the advice


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## NaomiM (Sep 22, 2012)

I've never seen my fry at all until they're about 1 week old - they're very good at hiding! I have lots of bogwood which gives them loads of hidey holes, plus live plants (my anubias has a big tangle of roots which they love, and floating plants are good too).

Fingers crossed yours are just hiding too!


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