What to do with fry?

[nibor]

My other molly gave birth to about 6 fry (what I found so far.)

Anyway, I was wondering what do you do with your fishie babies.....the ones that don't get raptured, that is.

[gabysapha]

Do you want to save them?

[LyndaB]

I keep all my fry in the tanks with the adults. They are community tanks. Those fry that are smart enough find places to hide out in the java moss until they grow enough to not be eaten by the other fish. Those that aren't smart enough become a food source.

[gabysapha]

Originally Posted by LyndaB

I keep all my fry in the tanks with the adults. They are community tanks. Those fry that are smart enough find places to hide out in the java moss until they grow enough to not be eaten by the other fish. Those that aren't smart enough become a food source.

Me too. I save fry from one female that is my star breeder, but the rest I leave alone and I find that they do well if the tank is heavy on the java moss/horwort.
I actually just started putting my fry in my cherry shrimp tank. They leave the shrimp alone and the shrimp take care of uneaten fry food! And by the time they are big enough to eat shrimplets they will be big enough to join their mom in the community tank.

Or you can use rubbermaid containers with a sponge filter. More maintenance that I care for- that's why i put fry in with my shrimp

[nibor]

What do you do with them once tey are grown up?

[LyndaB]

If you have a lfs that's willing to take them, you can give the fry to them, sometimes for store credit. Keep in mind, that some stores do not take fry until they are months old, as they prefer to be able to sex them.

[gabysapha]

Craiglist.
Aquabid, if you have the supplies to ship fish. I don't.
Friends who want to start up a tank.

[nibor]

What does it take to ship fish? Would anyone bother buying a fish online that they can get at the pet store?

I think I'll look into my LFS and see what their policy is on taking fish.

[gabysapha]

Originally Posted by nibor

What does it take to ship fish? Would anyone bother buying a fish online that they can get at the pet store?

I think I'll look into my LFS and see what their policy is on taking fish.

Check out aquabid.com to see what goes on in the fish shipping world. You do need to know what you're doing; buyers wont want their fish to arrive dead! But yet people do buy platties that are not quality-bred.

Lfs is probably easiest!

[Shane83]

Originally Posted by nibor

What does it take to ship fish? Would anyone bother buying a fish online that they can get at the pet store?

I think I'll look into my LFS and see what their policy is on taking fish.

Shipping mollies for profit would be an exercise in futility in such small numbers. You will need to buy fish bags, advertising, a high quality oxygen supply and access to styrofoam shipping containers, ideally speaking. This coupled with the fact that to compete with most pet stores you would have to charge less than 5 dollars (Australian), it would not make you a large amount of money, if any. Chances are good it might actually cost you. I know that as a general rule, we don't accept livebearers at my lfs, though there are probably some that do. You should just ring around and ask.

[LyndaB]

Originally Posted by nibor

Would anyone bother buying a fish online that they can get at the pet store?

Generally speaking, people won't pay the shipping costs on a really common species that they can get anywhere.