Well, I must be doing something right...

[Rjoepenk]

Because my fish have given birth! I haven't even had them a week! Where does this leave me in terms of stocking, water changing, ammonia levels and so on? I really wasn't expecting this...

 

[Alyxx]

Congratulations! What kind of fish, how many fish in all, what size is the tank, is it cycled, and what are your parameters?

 

[Rjoepenk]

Cheers! They are Chocolate Lyretail Mollies, there's two males and two females, and we can only count three babies (There are lots of hiding places in the tank). The tank is 64L (Around 17 Gallon) and is currently in the middle of cycling. What do you mean by parameters?

 

[Alyxx]

Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels. Do you have a test kit yet? I do know that mollies have a pretty large bioload, so you should watch your levels closely and do water changes accordingly. Also, it is recommended to have 2 or 3 females per male when you a keeping livebearers to keep the males from pestering the females to death over mating. However, in a 17 gallon, I wouldn't recommend adding any more mollies, if you notice the females getting stressed perhaps you should return a male for another female. Also beware of over feeding, as uneaten food will decompose and produce more ammonia.

 

[BHead707]

parameters would be the levels of ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates in your tank

 

[Rjoepenk]

Ah, ok. My ammonia count as of tonight is 0.2, the Nitrite kit I bought was missing the card needed to read the test results so I am unable to take a reading of that at the moment, and I have been told by numerous sources that reading the Nitrate levels is not absolutely essential as it can only do them damage in massively high quantities, so I didn't buy a tes kit for that as I am on quite a tight budget at the moment.

I was first worried that they might be eaten by the adults but we have seen them eating algae side by side and as of yet the adults have not attempted to attack them. Since my last post my pregnant female has given birth to two more so we are currently on five.

 

[Alyxx]

Well, as a guideline for nitrite, baby blue is zero and it gets purple as it gets higher. If you have the API test kit.just keep an eye on the readings and you should be fine. Once the babies group you should probably try to upgrade if you want to keep them though.

 

[Rjoepenk]

Am going to the shop to return it before I go to work tomorrow. I will probably sell the babies back to the shop I bought them from to be honest, I didn't plan on this and can't afford to buy a bigger tank, and I don't want to keep them in an environment they won't be happy in.