live barers and predators?

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Elle2

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Feb 24, 2006
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I am hoping to stock mollies and platies. A while back a read that you should have a ratio of 2 females per male- since I am hoping not to have too many fry (or none at all) is there anything wrong with trying to keep all males or all females?

Failing that, I also read that you can get certain fish to act as predators for your fry. I was under the assumption that most fish would do this (I remember when I was very young having special compartments to put my pregnant fish in that would keep them away from the fry when they dropped). Is this incorrect?

I really like the little guys but I don't want my tank to get over run, and even if I set up another tank- what do you do once that tank gets over-populated?

Just wondering how to solve this problem.
 
If you want no fry go with all males as most females come from the lfs pregnant. There may be aggression issues but then again maybe not. You will have to judge based on the fish's personalities. I've had males only with no aggression at all.

Fish will eat fry that is part of life.

Once a tank is over populated you have to get rid of fish or get another tank. :)
 
Zagz said:
Fish will eat fry that is part of life.

So If I just leave everyone alone the problem will probably take care of itself- I don't have to get specific predators?
 
Mollies will eat their own fry. Keep in mind that is no guarantee some of the fry won't survive. The only way to have no fry is all males. Guppies don't seem to eat their fry as much. What size tank do you currently have?
 
Nearly all my platy fry survived, and I had them in the tank with cherry barbs, harlequin rasboras, a big (5") opaline gourami, and a Rio Jari pleco. I wouldn't count on anything eating your fry for you except....maybe...angelfish or something like it. If you don't want tons of babies, IMO, get all one sex. If you do get all females you will get some fry (they're usually pregnant from the store as Zags said), but at least it would stop eventually. HTH
 
Zagz said:
Mollies will eat their own fry. Keep in mind that is no guarantee some of the fry won't survive. The only way to have no fry is all males. Guppies don't seem to eat their fry as much. What size tank do you currently have?

Its a 20 G. I got my first two platies yesterday. I asked for two males but when I got home I found that I definitely have one male and one female. :? This is frustrating because now if I get more I can't get all males because this female will be tormented.

I see that people keep bettas in community tanks, are they good predators? I also suppose that I can probably find people to take free fish on a local aquarium classified site.
 
Bettas are probably too slow to effectively catch a lot of baby fish. In a 20 gal you are limited to how many fish you can put in. My guppies will not eat their own fry, but my rainbows and penguin tetras eat anything they can catch in seconds, and loooove baby guppies. If you have a reasonably big filter without a prefilter that will probably be a fairly effective "predator" too.

Do you have any friends with larger fish?? If it's not a problem for you (some people aren't fond of feeding little fish to big fish), that would be one way to deal with the extra fish.
 
You could always return the female molly and get more males. My first 2 female mollies came from the lfs, and suprise were pregnant! I find the more mollies in the tank.the less likely the fry survive. Guppies and platies don't eat their own fry near as much as mollies do. My guppy tank is overloaded with fry, the molly tank not so much.
 
Hm, I have 7 platies (2 male, 5 female) and every baby seems to be eaten. I'm not sure who does though. I actually want to have the babies live. :?
 
Angels and spiny eels love live food (ie: fry)
Beyond that, if you do not feed the fry baby brine shrimp, will many of them grow to adult size on just flakes? I would have thought that the fry would not get enough to eat with typical adult livebearer food, would slow down, then get eaten by the other livebearers. But I don't know this for sure, since my Angels take care of the fry. It is fascinating behavior to watch, when the Angels go into predator mode.
 
RoK said:
Hm, I have 7 platies (2 male, 5 female) and every baby seems to be eaten. I'm not sure who does though. I actually want to have the babies live. :?

What else do you have in there besides the platies?

Maybe you can put your fry in one of those small holding nets on the side of the tank? I used to do that years ago and raised many platy, guppy and molly babies. Also, I am not sure if they still sell them (just getting back into this) but you used to be able to get a little floating compartment that you could put the female in just before she was about to drop the fry, and they would all drop through a grid into a separate compartment where she could not eat them. But perhaps this is stressful for her?
 
Elle2 said:
What else do you have in there besides the platies?

Maybe you can put your fry in one of those small holding nets on the side of the tank? I used to do that years ago and raised many platy, guppy and molly babies. Also, I am not sure if they still sell them (just getting back into this) but you used to be able to get a little floating compartment that you could put the female in just before she was about to drop the fry, and they would all drop through a grid into a separate compartment where she could not eat them. But perhaps this is stressful for her?
Check my sig, the 20g planted tank is the one they're in. I'm worried about the stress of catching the pregnant female(s) and keeping her in the net/breeder trap for too long. Especially one of the females who has gotten quite large now and I think the trap would be too small for her.
I figured with all the plants and the sponge filter that some fry would survive.
 
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