mollies fry

Question
I brought my son 4 new fish for his tank yesterday they were Mollies after being in the tank for a few hours we noticed there were babies. We are very new at keeping fish and I read up a little about what to do next but I wondered if you could help.

Answer
Hi Dinah
There's several things you can do.  If you leave them in the tank, the parents or other fish will most likely eat them.  It's common...If you're tank is large enough to handle the extra fish, you can buy a breeders net for them.  If you're in the US, Walmart sells them(usually)for about 3 or 4 dollars.  It's just a mesh net that hooks on the side of the tank.  

For feeding them, I just took their flake food, and crushed it in the palm of my hand with my nail/finger almost to a powder.  I had quite a few survive with this with no problems.

Keep in mind though, livebearers can have babies/fry on average once a month.  And it's very easy to get overrun with them.  I remember one of my old mollies having about 23+ babies at once....AND, females can continue to have fry for about 6 months with no male in the tank.  They actually can store the sperm in them and "use as needed" so to say.  So, like I said, if you're tank is large enough to handle the extra babies, then that's great!  Otherwise, I'd either let nature run it's course and let them be in the tank, OR check with some of the local mom and pop pet stores around to see if they'll take the fry when they're big enough.  Some places will even give store credit when giving them fish.  But, that's harder to find with livebearers because they breed so easily.  

Hope that helps and good luck!  Let me know if you have more questions!!

Christy