I'm a daddy to a shoal of Mollies :D

[William]

I bought a Lyretail Molly yesterday for my moms tank [ she loves them, despite the fact that they can't seem to be kept alive.. ]


Anyways, Woke up this morning to 10 fry hovering over the top of the tank. It surprized the heck out of me, I thought she was pregnant for sure.. but there was still a lingering thought in the back of my head [ She's probably a balloon/lyretail crossbreed ] and I didn't think she'd give birth so soon or have a live birth with the stress of being brought home yesterday.

I don't have any money so I told her that if she wanted them to live she would have to buy some things.

Right now on the list is

10gal tank kit [ 30 bucks at wal-mart ]
1bag of gravel substrate



We plan to take some fake plants from the tank the mothers in [ since their covered in the good bacteria ] and place them in the fry tank.

Also, would the HOB filter that comes with hte kit be to much? Could I just run it on ultra low flow or should I stay away from it completly?

 

[TankGirl]

Usually molly fry are large enough to handle the flow, esp. with the filter that would come with that tank. I might wrap some kind of netting or even rubber band some filter floss onto the intake, just to be sure. I had the exact same thing happen to me this weekend, and even with my super heavy duty filtration the fry had no problem avoiding the intake. Congrats!

 

[William]

The count is up to 9 and rising


But okay, I'll make sure I wrap some nylon or something around the intake to reduce the size of the slots so they don't accidentally get sucked up


Thanks

 

[TankGirl]

I find that mine really adore algae wafers, since the tank they are in is relatively new and has no algae for them to graze on. My tank has a lot of rockwork and crevices so I keep finding new babies, too! I just love it - no matter how many times you get fry, it is always exciting!

 

[TankGirl]

Oh also, I have found that though mollies are often used to cycle tanks and are generally a tough fish, often they are quite sensitive to water conditions and can be difficult to keep, kinda like cardinals. That is one reason many people keep them in a slightly brackish tank, since it helps them tolerate nitrite poisoning (the other reason being that some species are found in brackish waters). If your mom increases water changes and stays on top of nitrite and nitrate that might help. You did not ask about that, but I can't help myself, especially since I just learned this fact!

 

[William]

The tank is fully cycled and been that way for quite a long time.

They just come down with diases or are just found dead, the lost one died from colomnaris.

 

[William]

*twitch*


as I said before, I don't have the money to do this so I'm telling my mom what she needs to get.


and shes dead set on leaving the mollies in the half-gallon betta bowl that I had laying around instead of buying a tank for them.


I filled the bowl with tankwater just so I could scoop the mollies out so I wouldn't have to worry abut them being eaten.

 

[angelstiger]

A 1/2 gal. tank is not going to work for long. Why not use a net breeder in the other tank. You mentioned a 10 gal tank kit for $30. At Wal-mart you can get a bare 10 gal. tank for $9 all you need besides that is an air pump and a sponge filter. Gravel , lights, etc. are for your viewing pleasure not the health of the fish.

 

[William]

Note:

The 10gal tank,a fter the fry mature and are sold/moved to other tanks/given away, would be used for quarenteen/hospital.

I know gravels not needed in those, but I was going to need something to anchor the fake plants to.

The fake plants would come from a mature tank soley for the nitrifying bacteria on them.

 

[angelstiger]

The ammonia load produced by a few fry is not much in a 10 gal tank. I keep a small albino cory in my fry tank, to clean up uneaten food. As the fish grow the cycle will grow as they do. A sponge filter can hold alot more nitrifying bacteria than plastic plants.