FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I'm so excited, I was looking into my 30 gallon tank today and found two tiny platies!! I was afraid they would get eaten by my other fish so I moved them into a 10 gallon; they're all by themselves. What should I do? What do they eat? I'm afraid they might die in the 10 gallon, because it's not really cycled, I just moved some gravel from my 30 gallon into it and added new and improved cycle.

congratulations. i heard something about "first bites" they had it at petco yesterday

i feed mine finely crushed flake, and later im going t otry the juce from my frozen blocks

Congratulations, grandma

I feed my fry "Fry Food" from Nutrafin as well as baby brine shrimp. Finely crushed flakes will work too so long as they are crushed into a powder.

They grow best in fresh water and so I do partial water changes every other day. Now that may cause a problem since you are trying to cycle the tank. I would think that 2 fry will not produce much in the way of ammonia so they won't effect the cycle but the water changes will. I'm sure someone else will come along shortly to give you advise in this regard.

Have fun watching them grow.

Congratulations! From personal experience, I believe you'll get a lot of enjoyment from your new additions! One thing you should be aware of - due to the size of fry, you might have others in your main tank that you simply haven't seen yet.... In fact, as hard as this is to believe you might be spotting "strays" for weeks to come! Those little guys can burrow deep into gravel - and a few of mine have even evaded being seen during our weekly vac and partial water change!
In regard to "feeding" the nursery residents.... I started out with First Bites - then as the fry got a little bigger added a feeding of crushed flakes - and a little bit later on baby brine shrimp.... I now feed the crushed flake and brine shrimp on a rotation schedule. Currently, my nursery has 40-50 platy fry all doing well! Hope you have the same success!


To thine own self be true...

Right ,they are so tiny and as soon as they see anything coming at them they will burrow into gravel.some get stuck easily under shells ect.i wouldnt put alot in with them..they will get sucked up in it.cover with hose or the 44 cent plastic canvas.fry food for a week,Or make your own by putting flakes in baggie rolling betwenn hands until baby powder fine,If they are really tiny add some tank water to feeding amount let it dislove jusat a little use a wet tooth pic to feed it to them.make sure no soap or perfume on hands,,i wiped out 9 once forgot about hand lotion.goodluck mail if need anything.

Congrats hope things go well.

Yes, finly crushed flakes will work. They should be fine in the 10 gallon tank. Good Luck
-kristin

~!!I lOve LiFe!!~

Thanks for all your help. I went to Petco, but they didn't have those "first bites" things so I'll just crush up some flake food. I'll keep a watch on the tank in case there are more fry. Does anyone know how long it takes for them to grow to their adult size?

Hi, congrats.

I've not long found my first fry aswell..

Not sure one how long it takes till there fully grown but mines 3 weeks old and it allready 2cm

I would also recommend feeding microworms...very cheap and very easy to culture. Because I only have 1 fry there are so many microworms that I started putting some in my community tank.I have platies, danios and gouramis and they all love em.

About how many babies does a mommy platy have at one time? I have spotted three this morning. She had only three viewable black spots in her belly before giving birth, so is 3 the usual amount? I hope she had more that are just really good hiders because i want to at least have one that grows up. I'm not going to move them because there's lots of places for them to hide, but my zebra danios look like they are on the hunt since the new delivery. Anyway, im still very excited!!!!
littletank/:'