# unprepared for babies



## wherbjr35 (Feb 12, 2011)

As it turns out, one of the three black mollies i recently picked up from LFS is female, and she has just dropped 5-7 little guys off. Unfortunately, I do not yet have a breeder tank setup, nor any in sort of in-tank partition, and was completely taken off guard. i actually stumbled upon this situation as I was going in my son's room to turn the lights out. I looked in the tank, and noticed a "black rock" in the rim of my floating salt dispenser. As I started to take it out, I realized what I had on my hands. The other fish (3 dalmation molly, 2 silver tipped cats) were acting very usual, and then i realized, they were hunting down the babies. I just wasnt prepared for this...i realize its nature, but I am waayy to mellow to take that on...i saw a few smart survivors hunkered down in the rocks, so with any hope, I can get something setup in the morning. Baby fish carcases aren't cool!


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Add some sort of moss or anykind of floating plant and most should survive.


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## danilykins (Dec 22, 2010)

You can keep the babies in there, it shouldn't be an issue if you keep mama fed. Crush up the flake food really small. I just grind it up between two fingers. you have to feed the babies twice a day (at least). Babies really aren't that hard to take care of. Good luck 

Oh PS FYI, the mollies are livebearers that can store sperm. So in about a month you will probably have more babies. So get yourself a little 10gallon with a filter and you should be good to go. Look on Craigs list for some cheap tanks


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

The problem is it's not a matter of being hungry always with a fish. It is instinct for a fish to act and they will feed on fry whether or not they are hungry.

I'd say that in 3-4 months of saving babies and not letting nature thin them out a little you'll have bigger problems. If you're prepared to get another tank and another tank, or a much larger one, then ok. If not, it is easier to let some attrition take place now to give you more time to plan and enjoy them later. Just a suggestion. I estimate that most of my babies in my livebearers tanks live and if they make it through the first 1-3 weeks, they'll survive just fine. You can get some artificial breeding grass from Petco/Petsmart to help out a little.


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## webgeek (Feb 15, 2011)

My Silver Molly got 60+ babies yesterday and i have moved them to a bucket away from the main tank. The reason is that their feeding patterns and the size of the crushed flake are different from the adult mollies. Too much food or too large flakes and the babies might die.

Mama also needs to be fed more than usual in order for it to compensate the lost sack failing which it can go into a depression and die. Most mammas die and hence it is a challenging task.


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## chris oe (Feb 27, 2009)

The plastic knit pot scrubbers can be unraveled and used as a floating baby hideout (or you can weight it down and it can be one for the bottom). Just make sure you don't use one that has been used (soap residue will kill the fish). 2 gallon pickle jars make great emergency tanks. It all comes down to how much of a project you want to make out of this. Watching babies grow into adults is lots of fun & can be educational. Fish dying can be fairly sad, there will need to be little graves and little gravestones (we used permanent markers) and so on, but this is a very low stress introduction to the world as it is ("fishy, we hardly knew ye") My son buried three siamese fighting fish over his elementary years, and it was fairly traumatic, but when his grandmother got breast cancer I was grateful that we had already had many of those conversations in smaller form.


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Duckweed is also a good hide and food source for babies.As is moss and most any small fluffy plant the little ones can crawl into and keep bigger noses out of.


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## bruceaction (Dec 24, 2010)

yes yes yes its all so excitting, but yes you need to have balance,. life is a wonderfull thing, so is death..to have developed like skills and mastered them,,then to move on.
God created all things. He leaves messages in the natural things to reveal the supernatural.


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## bruceaction (Dec 24, 2010)

friends lets not take things so black and white,,,life is good and the lessons we learn frim life including facing loss,,and trying to avoid loss,,yet handling loss is important.
I have both gupies and platy,both have babies,,the tanks have live plants and rock hiding places,,they are in fresh water,,some babies are surviving, I

wait with expectating. to see the survivinng babies colour up.in the same tank they were born,they get water changes and food soutables for such small fry..like life for us its a learning process,,some will live some will die,,,just like people


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## bruceaction (Dec 24, 2010)

Nowe that these fry are a little older,I have put the gupie and palaty fry together in a seperate tank,,yes I used some water from the parent tank,and have live plant also..things seem to be working out for now,,water changers every other day. what a joy


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## holly12 (Apr 21, 2011)

chris oe said:


> The plastic knit pot scrubbers can be unraveled and used as a floating baby hideout (or you can weight it down and it can be one for the bottom).


That is a GREAT quick fix idea! I've never thought of that! Does it have to be severely unraveled or just a little? (I'd think the babies would get stuck if you put it in as is...) And how do you unravel those? I always just thought they were permanently together.... I guess just cut a piece and pull.....


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## chris oe (Feb 27, 2009)

Yeah, the pot scrubbers, even if you completely unravel them the shape is pretty permanent in the fibers, and they come back together in a clump which is what you want. They're nice - you can run them under the hot water to clean them if they ever need it


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