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Good morning. One of my balloon mollies delivered 33 fry a few days ago. At the time I was cycling a 10 gal. for the babies. It has since cycled. Is it okay to take the fry out of the breeders net and put them in the cycled tank? Will there be enough of a bio-load to keep it going? Do I have to add anything else? I set the tank up with a sponge filter, heater, thin layer of gravel, plastic plants, and spawning grass. Thanks

First off I just want to say CONGRATS!!!
Ok, if your tank has cycled well already it should be fine for the fry (ecspecially since there are 33 of them!)Sounds like you have a nice tank going for them. Be careful with the gravel (make sure the fry arent getting stuck in it) What are you going to do with them all?

Just curious,
What color variation were they?

Good morning. There are 2 dark ones, one with red on the top of it's head and the rest are white. My LFS said they will take them when they are saleable size. (no credit, no money, and then they will be sold for $6.99 each! Geez!) I have a problem this morning. I'm showing trace ammonia! Nitrite is still 0 and Nitrates are 10-15ppm. What do I do? This is my first attempt at livebearers, and I didn't expect wee ones so soon.

Congratulations on the fry.

So the fry tank is cycled, right? Often with fry, you have several little feeds daily & there can be some waste. When I had apisoto fry, I was told the little fry are very sensitive to ammonia & I should do a small water change daily. I had them in a bare bottom tank (so waste was easy to see) and what I did was take a small amount of water out of the fry tank daily, but instead of topping up with fresh conditioned water from the tap, I took water from the top level of the tank they were born in & used that as the top up water. In fact, the fry tank was set up from the start fully from top level water taken from their birth tank. That way, I hoped they'd never notice any change in water parameters.

If these small daily water changes don't help, what about one of those am-lock type products (sorry, don't know the right name). Go to your LFS & look for a product that detoxifies ammonia. Your test kit will still show you have ammonia (I think) but the product is meant to help make then ammonia less harmful.

Also, try another LFS for selling them to. I'm in Aus, but some here give credit, some don't. The ones I deal with give me 50% of what they will sell them for.

Fingers crossed for you - it's fun, isn't it.

Cheers
TW

Yes, fry acn be very sensitive to changes in water parameters. Also a good trick to removing waste (without having to siphon and worry about sucking up the kids) is to just take a turkey baster and suck up the waste. Then ,as Robyn said, fill what you took out with water from the main tank or tank they were dropped in.

Hi TankWatcher. I should have your name! Everything has been so neglected here as I sit in front of the Molly/Platy tank! Yes, I cycled the 10 gal. fry tank. I kept the babies in the breeder box until it finished cycling. I had to run errands today and when I got home I found 2 itsy bitsy platy fry in the tropical tank! I felt so bad that I wasn't here to save the rest.I have 2 more balloon mollies that are due any time. I didn't realize I was going to have such good luck when I started with livebearers. Anyway, My ammonia has gone to zero so all's well. I'll keep watch over the parameters. It's going to be so hard not being able to keep them all and watching nature take it's course. Thank you for your help. Platy-Punk, That's a great idea, using a baster! They are really poopers and I didn't want to mess up the bio-load by cleaning too often. Thanks!

is to just take a turkey baster and suck up the waste

Good tip. What I use in the fry tank is an air tube & just point it towards any wasted food.

Glad you seem to be past the ammonia problem.

Cheers
TW

Yea I have done that with my tanks. I have also done this when raising ACF tads.