Guppy gave birth... Please help.. Newbie here

[Sandip]

Hi Everyone
I am in a very difficult situation now and need some emergency advice.


I have a 16 L tank in which I had a female guppy for someways now. 2 days ago she gave birth to 15 babies. They are all active and healthy. During giving birth she wanted to eat them so I stayed there and separated them from the mother one by one. I kept them in a small plastic container as I did not have a breeder box in hand. Now it's already 2 days they are in the container and the mom is in another 80 L aquarium. This 16 L aquarium is new and not cycled yet and it's empty now. I wanted to do a fish in cycle so I bought this guppy (yes I know guppies not so hardy to do fish in cycling but I just wanted to have one). I kept the cup with the babies hanging inside the aquarium so it can stay warm but there is no water entering inside it. I am giving them powdered flakes made specifically for babies. Today morning I saw them swimming on the top of water and I was worried may be there is high ammonia. I did a test and it's around 2 ppm now. Although according to the ph and water temperature till 3.5 ppm it's not toxic for fish but i think fries will be affected. I did around 30% water change immediately. Few fries are still swimming on top.



Now if I put them in the 16 L aquarium will it not be too much water parameter change for them? Will they survive? In that cup there is hardly 200 ml water is there and some leftover food is in the bottom which will create more ammonia. If i add the 200ml water with another 1 L water in the tank still it will be more than 5 time more and it will be huge water parameter difference for them. How to deal with it? I am doing it for first time, I am really lost. Shall i transfer them to another bigger container ? Please help...


Thanks in advance

 

[ColdKoi]

You’ve probably dealt with this long ago now but I’d get them into the 16L asap. Even if it’s not cycled it’s got a better chance of maintaining decent water parameters and of course it’s got circulation (make sure the filter isn’t able to suck up the babies)

Fry are generally sensitive to water parameters, and high ammonia isn’t good. I would suggest doing a drip acclimation if the differences in the water are extreme (essentially take some water out of the small cup and replace it slowly with water from the 16L till you’re at a 50/50 mix at least)

 

[Sandip]

Thanks a lot for the reply. I thought no one is going to reply . As you expected i resolved it already and I did almost the same way as you suggested. The aquarium shop owner advised me to do it. I shifted the mother to main aquarium and put the the babies there, it's a 19 L tank. I did the dripping slowly and continued to remove the water from the pot slowly. Once I was sure about the parameters I took the babies out of the pot and put into the tank. The tank has a heater and a sponge filter. i do water change in every 3 days.

I also started hatching some BBS for the fries, they love to eat them. The fries are growing super nice. It's almost 3 weeks now and I can see some colors coming.