Fry while cycling! Help!

[slasher]

I just set up my tank less than a week ago and one of the platies had about 13 live fry, that I could find. I already had a fry net that clips on the side of the tank so I put them in that. I have a ton of questions, though, mostly because I am still cycling the tank:

1) Should I keep them in the net, or get some hornwort for them to hide in?
2) What should I be feeding them?
3) Should this increase my frequency of water changes?
4) I noticed as I was stirring up the tank trying to find them, there is a lot of debris along the bottom of the tank - Normally with my water changes, in the past, I would vacuum up the bottom (with a siphon). Should I not do this so as to not suck up the fry (or for any other reason)?

 

[cmw9787]

1) I recommend hornwort, my fry always died when i kept them in the net.

2) feed them freshly hatched brine shrimp. Or, grind up flake food into as fine of a powder as possible and use a turkey baster or something similar to release the powder near the fry.

3) Fry are sensitive to water conditions. If you want to keep the fry, more frequent water changes would help.

4) I think that depends on how careful you are.

 

[slasher]

Thanks for that, very helpful!

I will try the baster idea... it is very difficult to find the little guys, though. Do they eat food from the bottom?

 

[BBradbury]

Fish In Tank Cycling & Fry

I just set up my tank less than a week ago and one of the platies had about 13 live fry, that I could find. I already had a fry net that clips on the side of the tank so I put them in that. I have a ton of questions, though, mostly because I am still cycling the tank:

1) Should I keep them in the net, or get some hornwort for them to hide in?
2) What should I be feeding them?
3) Should this increase my frequency of water changes?
4) I noticed as I was stirring up the tank trying to find them, there is a lot of debris along the bottom of the tank - Normally with my water changes, in the past, I would vacuum up the bottom (with a siphon). Should I not do this so as to not suck up the fry (or for any other reason)?

Hello slash...

No worries. This can happen when you cycle a tank with hardy livebearing fish. This happened to me years ago when I cycled my first 30 G with female Guppies.

You add some good floating plants to the tank. Anacharis, Pennywort and Hornwort are all good. Just drop as many individual stems of these as you can into the tank. The plants use the nitrogens from the cycling process and create hiding places for the fry.

Feeding isn't a problem. You feed a little bit of Cobalt flaked food every day or two and test the water for traces of ammonia and nitrite. When you have a positive test, you remove 25 percent of the tank water and replace it with pure, treated tap water. Test daily and remove and replace the water when needed. When you have several daily tests that show no traces of either of the above toxins, the tank is cycled. From then on, you'll need to change half the tank water every week or two.

Add a teaspoon of standard aquarium salt to every 5 gallons of replacement water. It will detoxify the ammonia and nitrite and helps calm the fish by helping them breath a little easier.

B