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My molly had and ate a fry

23 11:32:29

Question
QUESTION: My molly had 2 or 3 fries. She ate one. What do I do? Also, How long will it take for her to have all the fries? I have a 10 gallon tank with 4 mollies and the temperature at 78 degrees. I put her into a breeder net and put the other fry that I managed to catch into a cup.

ANSWER: ermm...depends how big the mother is? if she's small she may only have a few but it wont take long...i'd say overnight the rest will come...they prefer to give birth at night annoyingly...

she may have given birth and eaten the rest already (aswell as the other fish)

when you take her out the breeder net, put the babies in and let them grow in there.

dont keep mum in there too long as she will stress out and may die

good luck

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I took out the mom out of the breeder net and just put the fries in there. I found 7 other fries but they were outside of the net. They are all orange but now I'm suspecting that the orange molly didn't give birth. What happened? She is the only orange molly in the tank. How do I take care of the fries? I gave them crushed brine shrimp, blood worms, and flakes 3x in the morning. The last time my mollies had fries, they all died and I don't want that to happen again.  What can I do to keep them alive? Two of them are already dead. Are they supposed to stay near the floor?

Answer
they usually stay near the floor when they are born too early.
there orange you say? well i know you have an orange molly, but she might not have given birth, the male you female mated with could have been orange of the parents could have been orange.?

dont over feed them, you might kill them from over feeding...start with crushed flakes...crush so fine until its a powder, then put a pinch in NO MORE...wait until they have eaten it ALL, if they havent eaten it all within an hour take out the uneaten food and wait...they should be fed 3 times daily..and only small amounts...the amount they can eat without leaving it....some may still survive being born early, but you need to chill and not worry too much about them, they will look after themselves as long as they have the right amount of food and good water quality..

wait until they are a bit bigger then feed them brine shrimp...i wouldnt worry about the blood wors until there allowed in the main tank =]