Molly Babies, what do we feed them?

[colourfulfish]

OMG we bought two female mollies and one male molly today. Just been watching them now and one of the females is giving birth!! Luckily We have a floating hatchery - yes we know they are cruel but we thought we better be prepared. We saw the female giving birth to one under a plant and the a weather loach came and ate it so we thought we better put her in the hatchery. So far there are two babies what do we feed them? It's evening here now and no fish stores are open and we have no fry food. Just concerned they won't make it through the night due to lack of food. We have crushed some flake food into dust and put that in - will that suffice just for now?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

[Robyn]

Congrats! As far as fry go, molly fry are huge. They can eat crushed fish flakes just fine.

[colourfulfish]

Thanks Robyn! Well it's been well over an hour now and have just taken the female out as she was looking quite stressed out being in the hatchery. She did not drop any more so we have two babies, not bad considering we only bought them today At least managed to keep some from the loaches grrrr. That's why we haven't seen any of the platy fry or danio eggs either!

Seen the babies eat some of the food, they are so darn cute :rolleyes%

[guy35]

congragulations! once you have the chance to go to a pet store, you should buy some brine shrimp, dead or alive. liquid fry food is also good. when i had fish fry, i got yolk from a hard boiled egg and crushed it into a paste that i put in the water. molly babies are actually kind of easy to take care of compared with other fishes, so have fun molly raising!

[Broxandval]

Hi Colourfulfish
Mom,Dad have a cigar yeh!!!...
Your very first babies. .
You can buy liquid fry food specially formalated for fry but as has been said Mollies are fry huge , so can eat flake as long as it's crushed up.
Congratulations again
rgrds
broxandval

[colourfulfish]

Thanks guys

Baby no1 and no2 are doing fine, bless them. They are eating the flake food.

Another question - how quick do they grow? Are we ok to leave them in the hatchery for a few days at least. Because if we put them in the main tank now they will get eaten

[Jayesh]

I'd give it a couple of weeks, 3-6, depends how fast yours are growing.
Don't worry there will be a few survivors of zebra danios and platies, the platies spawn something like thrice a week, and the danios are more like once a week. Both are very prolific breeders and the likeliness of at least 1 surviving is high.

Good luck on your fish. Great work so far.

[guy35]

if you have a empty tank, maybe you can use that for the molly babies. wait for a month or two before putting them in with the other fishes. they will be almost mature then.

[colourfulfish]

Cool, so we set up the 13l tank. We placed the filter sponge (inside a stocking) in the large tank a few weeks ago put water out of the big tank in there along with a heater. Will leave the babies in the hatchery for a while longer. They are tiny about 7 or 8mm long. So much fun to watch and soooo cute. They are eating and pooping alright lol

Unfortunately we have not spotted any platy babies or danios for that, think the loaches find them before we do Either way we saved these two little darlings and rear them until they are big enough to go in with the others.

[Robyn]

Platies are live bearers like the mollies so they don't spawn in the egg-laying sense. Zebra danios lay eggs and quite often.

[Jayesh]

Yeah I have noticed my guppies and platies doing that a lot, it looks pretty funny when they release fry, and then eat the fry! Sometimes other fish wait by the pregnant fish waiting for the tasty fry to come out!

It gets pretty entertaining with livebearers.

My Pearl Danios (I'm guessing their spawning is the same as zebras as they are from the same genus) tend to scatter their eggs like tetras and pencilfish, rather than lay them carefully like some catfish and cichlids do.

[guy35]

Jayesh, this is exactly why i think that livebearers are fun to breed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFkBjD2Le3k&feature=related

i just stumbled upon this video and
right with you, man!

[Jayesh]

Great video, I subscribed to the post and favorited it both on YouTube and bookmarked it on Firefox. The gravid spot is really clear on that specimen.

[colourfulfish]

Great video!

Babies are doing fine. They have certainly grown in the last few days and already showing their speckled colouration. One is black with white spots and one is white with black spots. Will transfer the hatchery into the small tank soon and when they are a bit bigger they can go into the small tank.

[guy35]

congragulations on the babies! how many are you planning on to keep?