What to do with Fry?

[Fishy Steve]

After months of waiting, our new 20 gal. tank finally cycled, so we celebrated by going to the LFS to get a new fish, and picked out a female Black Molly. She was acting a little funny, but figured we'd wait to see what happened. Two days later, we had three little fry swimming around the tank! My biggest worry is that the male Swordtail we've had from the beginning is going to eat the fry. I don't have the equipment or tank for a fry setup, but I don't want the loose the little guys. Right now I've used our net to separate them from from mom and the Swordtail, but that doesn't seem to be a permanent solution. Would a simple bowl work if I did regular water changes until they were old enough to join the community? Any other advice on fry would be much appreciated!

 

[Pseudomugil]

If you can just keep them in the net sitting in the water that would be ideal. They would have the proper water temp and parameters already, and have constant water flow.

 

[Trainer_Ruby_]

Get some hornwort. It's a good plant for fry because it gives hiding spots and it's hard to kill by accident and it's cheep at $2-$5 for quite a bit of it


Sent from peliper

 

[QuakingAspen]

Get a bigger plastic breeder with divider. They are about 5 bucks at petsmart and work as a hospital, fry holder, or isolation for a problem fish, they just hang right on the inside of the tank.

 

[Fishy Steve]

Get a bigger plastic breeder with divider. They are about 5 bucks at petsmart and work as a hospital, fry holder, or isolation for a problem fish, they just hang right on the inside of the tank.

That's what I ended up doing. I've been wondering about the hospital thing though - would it be any good for fish with a bacteria or fungus? I figured you would need a seperate quarantine tank so there wouldn't be any shared water. Also, would there be any point in using a breeder box like that to quarantine new fish?

 

[jrc0528]

Right, a breeder box is not a substitute for a hospital/quarantine tank. It's just good for isolating fry or temporarily for aggression.