my fish had babies

Question
my fish had babies today. i think there are about 5 or 6 maybe. well anyways, i had the momma fish, the baby fish, and another fish of a different species in there. the first fish the mom gave birth to, the other fish ate, so we put the non-pregnant fish in another container. i don't know what to do with all my fish at this point. if i put the other fish back in with the momma and babies, it will eat all the babies, but if i leave it out of the tank, it will eventually die because of lack of filtration. please help!
    thank you,
       sarah

Answer
Hi Sarah
What kind of baby fish are they?  If they're livebearers, like mollies, platies, guppies they usually have a bunch of babies.  I remember my mollies having like 20+ lol.

Your best bet if you want to keep the babies, either provide a lot of hiding places like plants, grass, etc. for them to hide in.  

Or you could pick up a breeders net for them.  If you're in the US, Walmart sells them for about 4.00.  It's just a net that slips over the side of the tank, so it gets the same filtered water, they're just protected by the mesh from the other fish.  The fun part is finding them, and chasing them around with the net to put them in the breeder.  

Or, you could just let nature take it's course, the strongest will survive.  You need to take into account, how big is your tank, and with extra babies growing up, will it overstock your tank?  What babies do survive, they will grow up and breed as well.  Just something to think about.  If you chose to leave them to fend for themselves in the tank, be aware that they can/will get sucked into the filter intake tube also.  You can put a pantyhose sock slipped over it and tied to the top to cover the large openings.  

If you go with the breeder, they make special fry food, think it's a gel or something.  I just used the regular fish flakes, and squished them in my hand into almost a powder, and they chowed on that.  My last batch several years ago, think I ended up catching 21 or 23 of them, and ended up with 9 left in the end that I gave to a friend.  So, they are hard to keep alive as well.  

Definitely don't want to leave the other fish without filtration.  He needs the oxygen in the water, and the water will grow poor fairly quickly.  Until you can get that breeder net(if you do it), get some kind of container that you can put in the tank, I can't think of anything off hand.  Put the babies in there, and figure out a way to hang it off the side of the tank in the water so the temp will stay the same at least.  If I think of anything in the next few hours you could use, I'll come back and add it here.  Look around the kitchen lol, just be sure to rinse it well to make sure there's no soap residue on it.  

Good luck!!

Christy

You know, I don't know if this would work, but they're so small, they won't put out that much waste.  You may be able to use a large freezer zip lock bag, fill it with water, and put the babies in that, and hang it in the water from the size of the tank-just till you can get the breeder net, and I'd get it asap. Change a little bit of the water every so often too and add new tank water to the bag.  You may be able to poke some small holes in it, I don't know if the water would leak out or not.  Just a thought....