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I have about 20 swordtail fry that are a day and a half old. They were in a breeder catcher so they all survived and are doing great. I currently have them in a little goldfish bowl with an air tube on top of the hood of my main tank (surprisingly good at maintaining the temp at exactly 78 degrees). I have a few questions about some thoughts i had.

Should i move them into a breeder cube type thing in the main tank? This would provide them better water and constant air imo.

If not, how often should i be providing them new water (water changes) Would the water from the main tank be more appropriate than tap water that has been dechlorinated using jungle start right?

How often to feed them the powdered food and how much is appropriate?

They all seem to be doing great but i do not wish to do something dumb and kill them off by accident, any help is appreciated. I know down the line they will require a bigger tank but for the interim i am stuck with what i have.

Provided you do not have fish that would suck the fry right through the mesh, (I have seen angels do this) I would think the fry would be better off in a mesh breeder box inside the main tank, as your main vulnerablilty in the goldfish bowl is the lack of biofilter - the fry are at risk from ammonia poisoning. If you did daily WCs on the bowl, and do not overfeed at all, you might be able to keep them doing well for some time in the bowl, but there is little room for error.

You might like to get a 2-5 gallon tank with a small airdriven finepore sponge filter. Seed the filter by running it in your main tank for a couple of weeks and its good to go. You may also need to add a small heater. A tiny tank like this, fitted with a big clump of java moss is an excellent place for a momma fish to drop her fry and is great for growing out a small number of fry or for hatching eggs. The fry will graze off the microfauna on the java moss and hide in there as well.

Thank you for the advice, i currently have moved them to an empty 10 gallon i obtained. Why? Because lo and behold i now have molly fry as well LOL, so i have about 50 fry now and since it is my first batch(es) I have taken it upon myself to raise them as best i can. I need to obtain a filter for this new tank and some java moss, currently i am just doing water changes and watching the levels. There is very teeny amount of gravel in there and it is pretty empty because i was unsure what to put in there for them. Water temp is at 80 and they seem to prefer it that way.

Is 25% per day an acceptable level of water changing?

How many times a day should i be feeding these guys and how much? (do not want to overfeed or kill them by being stupid)

Thanks again.

Last edited by shadows at 30-Sep-2005 11:42

hmm.. i myself have recently been a proud parent of both mollies and swordtails.

my suggestions are to keep the fry in a grow out tank for about a week and a half, i feed mine three or four times a day with really finely ground flake food. nothing special, although there are fry food out there on the market. its really important to do water changes, i do mine about once a week sometimes a lapst a few days with time permitting. but its easy to raise livebearer fry. it makes even the most inexperienced fish owner seem like its a piece of cake.

general rule of thumb-
when releasing fry into a community tank, make sure the smallest one is bigger than the biggest fishies mouth.

be careful though, because its REALLY easy to overstock a tank when adding handfuls of fry, and before you know it, you'll have more and more batches and get in over your head.

sometimes i just let nature run its course and not "save" the poor little guys from the parents.

good luck,
Chelle

*Chelle*
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I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...