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Ok I have a ten gallon with a male and female mollie, a male and femal swordtail, and 1 male and 3 female guppies.
I know the tank sounds crowded but they are all young and the biggest is the swordtail at 1 1/2".

I have a seperate 5 gal tank for the fry and in it i have a breeding cage with the v thing.. but I cut a hole in the bottom so the fry can fall through into the rest of the tank. I have successfully had 2 batches (for lack of better word) of swordtail fry... the first mom had 7 the next had 16 but she caught one....

anyways on to my questions...
whenever my female guppy shows signs of labor (rarely moving sitting at the bottom by the live plant or sitting by the water heater, and the square tummy) I go to move her into the fry tank like i did with the sword tails.... but she will go 2 days in there without having babys and her signs will fade away.. i move her back and 3 hours later she is showing the signs again.

I have added some stree relief medicine incase the move stressed her out... both tanks sit at 79 degrees...
Whats wrong?

also will the sword tail fry will they eat the guppy fry?
they are about 2 weeks now

First off, if you plan to keep all of those fry you may want to invest in a 20g. You can get away with the amount of fish that you have in your 10g now but nothing else. With the nonstop fry coming in you won't be able to grow them to full size in a 5g, their growth will be stunted and they won't be very healthy. So your best bet would be to get a 20g for the adults and use the 10g to raise the fry until their big enough so that the adults can't eat them then move them to the 20g. No, the fry will no eat one another no matter what breed they are as long as their roughly the same size. Even with a 20g you may want to think about trading in some of your extra fry for store credit at your lfs since those livebearers will continue to have more and more fry. Good luck!

-Nemo

Last edited by N e m o at 02-Oct-2004 00:34

well, guppy fry are extremly aggressive, as i found out the hard way, they cant be with any bottomfeeder fry, for they will be killed, i had 2 johney darter fry and 2 adults, i put the adults with the feeders i gathered from the river *the darters came from the same place* my guppy fry attacked the 2 fry i put with them, and killed them

Guppys tend to breed a few times a month. I had 3 males to 5 females, they breed crazy. I have them in a planted 2ft, and babies in an 18inch tank. To me they are still too crowded, only have about 40 babies but once they grow about 2cm, I would have to transfer them to another tank. I wouldn't suggest placing fry in breeding nets as there are not much water circulation inside the net. But, to me...I would recommend a min 3ft tank. I've only been breeding guppies for 4 months and Ive been through alot of loses of leaving them in breeding traps/nets, until a member on here donated a tank for my guppy fry. All are looking well.

Well. Hope this helps.
Mango

In my honest opinion, guppys and platys can be kept in a 10g, as can endlers, But Mollies and Swordtails just get WAY Too big. You dont want to stunt them, as their fry will likely be unhealthy, and you could lose the females after or during birth. A swordtail reaches 4-4 1/2 inches in lenght. Consider it this way, if 3 swordtails lined up down the length of your tank, tail to nose, they wont all fit!!!
I would suggest at least a 25g tall tank for you. This way everyone has tons of space to swim, and your swordtails will grow up without stunting.
A 33 would be even better for you.


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