what do you do with your baby fish?

[Tostada]

I just wondered what the average person does with baby fish. I'm sure most people actually bothering to intentionally breed fish have a plan for what to do with them, but what about all the average people who have livebearers?

I'm just wondering because I have 3 pregnant swordtails. I have a 5.5 gal with just a small betta and a snail that I can move them to, and several would probably survive before the betta ate them all, but then what would I do with them? My other tank is a 30 gal, and it's full. It's not like I can just stick 10 more swords in there.

Maybe the most reasonable thing would be to just leave them in the 30 gal. and let them (and the other fish) eat their own babies. I'm not sure how I feel about that, though.

Maybe I could give them to people (or the LFS) before they got too big... I might just stick them in the 5.5 gal, and then if a bunch of them make it, just pick 4 or 5 to keep. That would be the most practical thing, but it's a little weird doing the whole "playing God" thing with your fish.

well, after having 2 batches of molly fry, i started using them as feeders. I know, shame on me, but it keeps my population under control, and my fish happy. They were getting mostly eaten anyway, and my tiger barbs love them.

For my GBRs, I have only had 1 fry out of 3 batches of eggs survive, and he eventually died too.

What I generally do is try to save 5x the amount I want to keep when I have hatchlings...For instance, if I wanted to raise some of my molly fry, and wanted to keep 5, I would try to get 20-25 from the parents ASAP into a grow out tank.

For egg layers, i keep the whole clutch of eggs, hatch as many as I can, and keep them all for about a week after they start free swimming, then do the same...5x the number I want to raise.

That usually gives me personally the right amount of fry to juvenile.

The remaining fry get fed back to the main tanks.

Yep, I am terrible. allowing my fish to eat babies. I hated doing it at first, but realized in nature, that is kinda how things go too. Granted, I don't have a 1342834738473847389 gallon stream or lake or ocean, but i do what I can. better than flushing them, and most LFS don't want anymore mollies.

[Pleco]

i raise neons, i can usually sell them to LFS. I know i can sell L-18 Golden Nugget pleco's to any fish store i want.

Why wont they take mollies?

-Pleco

all the ones i go to have more mollies than they can sell already =/

[Voodoo Chilli]

My multis go to a couple of different stores when the tank needs to be purged.

[JDogg]

Originally Posted by FishyPeanut

all the ones i go to have more mollies than they can sell already =/

i had the same problem, with my baby convicts, and i could not use them as feeders (not from lack of trying, nobody could/would catch/eat them) after a month they had grown in my community tank and were starting to become a problem, so i moved them to my ACF, she did not eat them, then to the turtle, she did not eat them, finally i gave the away free to my students! After that i gave away the parent too!

[Alshain]

Livebearers in general are difficult to sell back to stores. They breed too rapidly and unless they are something that sells real well, then the stores won't take them. Both of my LFS have said they will take only Pineapple Swordtails, Koi Swordtails and Tequila Sunrise guppies for the more common livebearers because they sell fast. The others they won't take unless they are more rare.

Using them as feeders is nothing to be ashamed of imo. Its better than an overcrowded tank, they would be more miserable there anyway. Survival of the fittest is completely natural. If they can hide well enough, they live and otherwise they don't. By allowing them to be eaten, you aren't doing anything that they wouldn't experience in the wild.

[WaterPond]

I just cant use anything as feeder, i breed FEEDER guppies, and i can't bring myself to feed them to anything! I don't really find it cruel, but i don't really find it fair either, lol. I am kind of undecided on this one. I have alot of livebearers, but I just throw the babies in my pond. My koi never eat anything other than their koi sticks so they all survive, except for maybe a few that get sucked up into my filtration system.

[jibboo]

drop your fry off with your betta and watch how fast your betta will move around the tank.

When i was growing up, we had a betta in with a community tank (livebearers) ... one of the guppies dropped and the betta ate all of the fry before we could get a net and get a single fry out of the tank ... in restrospect it was quite amazing to watch.

[bigmac1878]

i'd leave them in the community tank. survival of the fittest and all that. i'm still undecided whether or not to introduce female guppies into my tank to breed just for the sake of feeder fish. i could do it morally but the problem i have is that i have a planted tank and maybe more would survive than i'd like, giving me an overstocking problem. the lfs where i get my fish for has a warning on the female guppy tank that states the pregnancy/fertilization/gestation period and that they are unwilling to take fry of customers hands.

if you feel you can, leave the fry in the tank and see how you feel. if you feel bad, take whatever measures you need to to stop them breeding ie seperate the males and females.

ultimately, only you can decide what you feel is the right choice to make.