Adding mollies to F8 tank?

[apachepufferman]

Most of my fry just die in the first couple days. My GSP's don't eat them and Mollies are one of the few live bearers that don't eat their fry. I just get 13 or so that do survive and my piscavour seems to like them as a treat when the fry are about a month or so old. I use them as feeders because I know they have no parasites and that they are getting proper food. Its alot better than goin to the LFS and getting Goldies as feeders.

Also I noticed that my mollies that are in my BW tank stay healthier than my mollies in my FW tank. So I would recomend getting the sg up a little in your moms molly tank.

[bazil323]

The F8 hasn't eaten any (that I know of) and he doesn't seem to see them. He usually stays near the bottom or middle of the tank while the babies were at the top. The bbgs were the ones who I know ate some of the babies, and I'm reasonably certain the molly parents ate a few also.

I did end up picking up the 10g from my mom and put the babies in there. I ended up with 9 survivors. Hopefully a couple will live to adulthood so my mom has them. The tank is going back to her (hopefully with the mollies) once the mollies are either a little bigger or die. I've been crushing tropical flakes to feed them. I did see them at least try to eat the tiny flakes, but I'm not sure if they actually do. They also try to eat off the bottom of the tank (bare bottom). Is there anything else I can feed them? My lfs didn't have baby first bites or any other fry food.

I do have frozen brine shrimp with spirulina, but that seems too big for the tiny fry. I also have freeze dried baby shrimp, tubifex worms, tropical flakes, tropical crisps, tropical granules, goldfish flakes (two kinds: one based on fish meal the other with salmon, cod, etc), frozen bloodwoms, frozen mysis shrimp, algae wafers. Can you tell I'm fish crazy?

[side19]

make sure the babies get some algae in their diet. its very good for them. drop an algae wafer in and let them peck art it for a few days or so. i find it funny that your mollies went after their fry. mine will leave the fry completely alone. the only fish i have that goes after the fry is my betta spaz. raising healthy baby mollies isn't too hard to do. just make sure you grind the food small enough, they can pick off small pieces when tis larger but it helps if you can grind it really fine. i've had 4 batches of babies in my tank as of right now and only 5 fry in total haven't made it (apart from the ones my betta ate, i never got a count becuase she always ate them at night). good luck. hope the little ones do alright.

[bazil323]

I never saw the adult mollies eat a fry, but I did see them chase the fry for a few seconds if they saw the fry. I'm thinking that the bbgs did most of the fry eating.

[bazil323]

Well, they're still alive. I did drop in a bit of an algae wafer, and they went after it like it was their last meal. I'm also feeding crushed tropical flakes twice a day. They've nearly doubled in size already. The filter mom had with the tank didn't have any filter media, so I just stuffed the box with filter floss. It seems to be working well. I didn't even cover the filter intake. I'm pretty sure all 9 are still there, but it's hard to tell as they like to go in this fake log or hide in the fake plants.

[side19]

good to hear they're doing well. they do grow very rapidly. and yeah they do like to hide if given the cahnce. mine don't since they're in a breeder bow atm becuase if they were let out my betta would eat them all up, and 25 fish inside one 2.5 inch betta is not a good combination. she would literally eat all of them in a day (has done it before and looked like she would explode). and as far as eating like that, yeah they do that, they even swam around my finger when i dip it in and all start nipping at it to the very last second when i pull it out and then they start swimming around like "where did it go?" mollie fry are fun to raise and fairly easy. hope they all do well.

[bazil323]

Yep, all 9 still there. It looks like they are all going to be that mixture of black and orange with the dalmation pattern. There might be one or two that are just dalmation.

On a side note, I had to replace the original adult dalmation with another one. It turned out the new Dalmation molly is a lyretail (pretty cool, got it for the same price as a regular). Anyway, the male molly chases the Dalmation lyretail, and she usually is unable to join the group. She has to sneak up to the top just to grab a mouthful of flakes. I'm thinking I'll have to exchange the male for another female. Otherwise they are all fine.

[lazee]

I never saw the adult mollies eat a fry, but I did see them chase the fry for a few seconds if they saw the fry. I'm thinking that the bbgs did most of the fry eating.

My adult mollies def eat their fry. Sad really but true...