Proud 1st time pappa!

[spittinfly]

Well we got home last night and low and behold I had a very thin Dalmatian Molly. My wife and I could only find 2-4 fry left, not sure when she gave birth. Eventually I found @18 fry, they didn't go for the hanging plant and I found a lot of bodies down in the substrate and on a couple of the rocks. What I did was cut the bottom and some of the sides off of a large plastic cup and covered it with cheese cloth (two layers makes perfect mesh. I managed to scoop out 17 into the cup and at least one is still in the tank. I tested the water and had 0 nitrites and about 10 nitrates, did a 30% pwc and added the floating cup back in the tank. I need to fish out my CAE's tonight to return them and I am not sure if I am going to get a Pleco. All they have are reg. Plecos and I don't want it to get to big for my tank.... we'll see. I crushed up some flake food and have fed the fry once and they ate. I have to read back in other posts to see how often to feed them and if it helps to change the water temp up or down to help them grow. I still haven't decided how many I will keep but I want to find out if any lfs's will take them or find private people before I release them back into general population to fend for themselves.

Very happy, very excited!

[Zagz]

Congratulations on the new mollies. Glad you saved as many as you did. Keep an eye out for ammonia as well as nitrite and nitrates. Feed the babies finely crushed flakes 2 or 3 times a day but only a bit at a time.

[chase33]

Congrats. That's a good sign.