A small fry

[scalesojustice]

After much waiting and anticipation (not to mention a dash of doubt), one of our female mollies finally gave birth to four fry (that we know of). my girlfriend and i were sitting around watching t.v. and saw the fish dart after something, it looked to me like a fry. we rushed over to the tank and sure enough. after temporarily removing the other fish, we gather all the fry we could find hiding in the rocks and put them in the breeder.

now, being new to fish keeping in general, i'm not quite sure how to properly care for these exciting, new fish. my big question is, how many times a day do i feed them? i currently only feed the fish maybe once a day, but i've read that the fry require 2 to 3 times a day. i plan on crushing up flakes and feeding via toothpick.

TIA

[Toirtis]

Four is awfully few....mollies usually spit out 30-120...sure that there are not more amongst the gravel?

Feeding twice daily is good....and keep up with the water-changes...poor water quality kills fry fast.

[scalesojustice]

i was expecting more as well, but i also read a couple places that the first time she does it could be as few as 5 and then there will be more in subsequent releases.

i have no idea when she released them, so she might have done it early yestreday and only four survived. but we are keeping an eye out.

[scalesojustice]

first off, the fry are eating, although the first feeding i don't think they knew what to do with it.

the new development is that the mother (yellow molly) hangs around the breeder that the fry are in and is very agressive toward the male dalmation molly and the other female molly. this looks as if she is protecting her fry, but is this common for mollys? i haven't read anything about them as far as being parents. does she know that her fry are in the breeder and does she care? or is she just insane?

[Voodoo Chilli]

I feed fry several times a day. Just be sure to stay on top of your water changes.

[scalesojustice]

will do. thanks. just found another fish! five total.

[WaterPond]

Congrats! Hopefully you find some more. If not, i hope that your fry that you do have grow up to be happy and healthy mollies. I don't think that the mother will protect her fry, i thought all livebeares are their fry if given the chance.

[scalesojustice]

i noticed last night that one of the fry would rest on its side. at first i thought it was dead, but when i moved the breeder, it was up and swimming around. later, it went back to laying on its side. could it be that one of its fins was nipped at by the other fry and now it is having trouble staying up? when it is on its side, the verticle fin was moving very fast, as if it was trying to right itself.

also, if i go away for the weekend, say i leave saturday morning and come back sunday night, would the fry be ok with only being fed once? this won't be for another week, so they'll at least be two weeks old.