put fry in separate tank

I have 3 molly fry in a breeder so the mom and other fish wouldnt get to them. I am still concered they are in harms way. Would it be possible to move them into a sparate tank all together? I can than provide them with plants to hide in and such things like that. I have never had fry before, so I am very new at this. They seem to be doing alright at the moment, but so they can survive, I would like to move them into a separate 10 gallon tank.


Please feel free to give advice and tips.

Thanks! =]

What size tank are they in now?

If you were to moved them... You'll have to scoop them... Don't net them, it's too stressful on the little fry.

And... You'll need to take most of the water for the new tank from the parent tank that they're in right now...

What kind of food are you going to feed?

I have flakes that im crushing into dust for them. One fish is very active, and loves to swim all around the breeder. I can tell there scared, because the mom keeps staring at them. Can I carefully dump them into the new tank from the breeder so I dont net them?

the mom tank is 29 gallons. And I want to move them into a 10 gallon tank, so they can swim freely, and not be in harms way with the other fish.

One more question for the moment, should I keep the gravel in the new tank or remove it? and what should i provide them besides food?

Moving the fry to a different aquarium can be a shock to them, and they may not survive. As an alternative you can buy a so called breeding net. It's just some plastic legs forming a box with a net stretched over that to make a refuge. I've had the most success by moving the parents to a new tank or by floating a bunch of hornwort or other bushy plant on top of the aquarium. Hornwort is easy to grow, and it provides hiding places for the babies. You could also try raising guppies or red wag platties; they usually don't bother their fry. If you decide to move some fish to another aquarium, consider using the drip acclimation method described in the tips and tricks section of this forum; it greatly reduces transplant shock.

Thanks for joining our forum. Please let me know if any of those suggestions helped, and please feel free to comment on any posting that interests you.

That got posted before I saw any of Angela's comments, so there may be some duplication. If you have gravel in the larger aquarium, put a scoop of it in the new aquarium after you add conditioned water. The old gravel should have the bacteria needed to start the nitrogen cycle. Before the tank is fully cycled, you may get dangerous ammonia spikes, so be sure to test the water parameters before adding fish.

i keep fry in a ten gallon and have always neted them put them in a cup and slowly dumped them into the new tank and have never lost one but that isnt a very good idea i know

If you have several established aquariums, they probably have near identical water parameters. That makes it possible to move fish from one tank to another without hurting them. I've lost quite a few fish over the years by using the floating bag acclimation method on aquarium shop or shipped fish. Many times, it's taken more than a month for them to get sick, i mean show symptoms. So far, I haven't lost any fish introduced by the drip acclimation method. It takes a little time, but it's not difficult.

I wouldn't net your fry. You can move them, but it will be alot of stress on them and they may not survive. I have 1 molly fry at the moment. I had 7, i moved 4 of them as i didnt know what would happen, and all of the 4 that i moved died. Now i have 1 left of the 3 that survived, and that one is just in the breeder on the side of the tank. I would just reccommend leaving your fry in there, if they seem happy, and they are surviving, then i would just leave them x x

Livebearers are very sensitive to being moved when they are itsy bitsy. If you can...may be best to leave them in the breeding container until they are at least a week old or so. That may give them a better start at life.
Don't over look the importance of regular water changes too.
Siphon any uneaten food. Crushed flakes..or better yet.. baby brine shrimp is is a great food source.
When the fish are large enough not to be consumed by their parents you could probably add them to the tank with the parents. However mollies can be aggressive towards anything smaller..
so perhaps giving these little ones their own tank with a seasoned sponge filter would be best.

I myself am pretty new at breeding guppies, mollies and platties...so this is from my own trial and error...
I started with 15 baby mollies and 10 baby guppies. They were all born in a one gallon tank with their parents so i was forced to move them. I put them in a 5 gal with a pretty high powered filter without knowing they would be sucked up (first problem) thats when i discovered nylon hose. I cut a piece and using a rubber band placed it over the intake tube. First problem solved. Just be sure to rinse the nylon once a week to assure the water is flowing properly. If you need to rinse more frequently then you are probably feeding too much.
My second problem was the high amonia. At first i was doing 20% water changes every other day...and quickly found out that it was messing with my tanks natural balance. My fish guy told me then that i must let it cycle on its own and only do water changes once every one to two weeks (only when the amonia is very high) that in baby tanks the amonia runs a little high at first until you learn how much to feed and when to clean. For whatever reason his advice was right. My tank had now balanced out and my water is good (with ocasional amonia spikes) I now only do water changes every two weeks and have learned the right amount and kinds of foods to feed them.
this leads to my third and fourth problems...hiding places and food!
Baby guppies, platties and mollies are less stresses when they have plenty of places to hide. I added a large cave with plastic plants attatched to the center and several other objects like large shells and low plastic plants and they are way less stressed. As for the food...this was a challenge. It depends on how many babies you have. For my thirty I crushed beyond crushed regular flakes for the first few weeks and even though they were surviving they were growing very slow. So after extensive research i discovered that i needed to add agae tabs and shrimp pellets. Once a week i drop an algae tab in and they (especially the mollies) go mad. Three times a week i drop one to two shrimp pellets (the kind that moisten fast)and they are now growing quickly. You have to be careful how much of either you add because your tank can quickly go south. Your amonia and nitrite levels will spike quickly.I reccomend adding a snail or non-agressive algae eater to lessen the amonia. If you choose snails make sure they are slow breeding or you will spend most of your time picking them out. Durring my two month journey i lost several fish and out of the first twenty-five 17 have made it. Since then i have over seventy baby guppies, mollies and platties. Out of the original mollies i have five left who are now nearly an inch long and doing great. They in particular love the algae tabs.
As for moving the babies I use a small net and as long as i move them swiftly they all survive the journey.
Again this is only from my trial and error and maybe i have just been lucky but i have not lost another baby fish since. My problem now is i have tooooo many!!!

Try feeding the fry some frozen baby brine shrimp. Baby live bearing fish usually like to hang out at the top of the aquarium, so a bushy, floating plant like hornwort will greatly increase fry survival rate. About moving them: they should not, of course, be out of the water too long, but the main concern centers around water parameter (temperature, pH, etc.) differences between aquariums. I would also be concerned about the ammonia spikes; a cycled, balanced aquarium should not have them. Lots of things will unbalance the biological load, but the most common are over crowding and over feeding

That is soooo true. The only reason I get amonia spikes now is when i switch to new foods or overfeed. Also when adding new plants i seem to get small spikes. Add that to an overfeeding and you get a pretty good spike.
Testing your water often is soooo important!
I actually had one of my fish-ladies tell me NOT TO TEST FOR AMONIA! Wow what bad advice! She said that a tank must cycle on it's own (true when starting a new tank) and that she had discovered that testing was worthless. Then of course she hands me a paper on cycling the tank. Everything she had just told me not to do.:: I seem to get conflicting advice quite often, however everything i have learned from this site has been right-on! So stick with these guys and you'll do fine!!!

this was a dead topic but become a new topic, a few people comment here.great job...