Feeding Guppy fry

[TeaPea]

Well mama Guppy finally had her babies...to make a long story short I have abt. 6 of them still alive in a breeder net...

I've been feeding them frozen baby brine shrimp a few times a day. Problem is, when I drop it in their net I don't see them eating any???? Should I be doing something differently to get them to notice the food? And should I be feeding them anything else?

TIA!

[ChilDawg]

I believe that there are specially made first foods for livebearer fry, but I am surprised that BBS aren't taken so eagerly. Maybe they are just too big for the fry?

[Tinycl]

I have had really good luck crushing flake food up really fine like a powder.I'm not sure if the BBS is just to big or not.

Hope this helps.

Congrats on the babies.:D

[kveeti]

Congratulations on the babies, TeaPea, I know you were waiting anxiously for them.

Keep up with the brine shrimp, but supplement with other foods. As Tinycl suggests powdered flake food can be used. You can crush it through a fine net to get a powder.

[TeaPea]

Thanks for the replies...I'm not sure what you mean by maybe the BBS are too big for the fry...how big do the fry have to be to eat it? They were just born yesterday so there I guess as small as you can get. But the BBS are soooo tiny. The fry just don't seem to even notice that I've put it in there. Maybe I'll try some crushed flake later and tomorrow buy some fry food.

Thanks again!

[Dangerdoll]

Since you're going to buy some fry food, they have 2 different kinds for live-bearers. One is made by Wardley, comes in a white tube with orange writing called Liquid Small Fry and is a livebearer formula. The other is a very very fine powder made from TetraMin and comes in a tiny container (yellow), also a livebearer formula.

HTH

[mickey]

Interpet make a product called liquifry no.2 and this is excellent food for baby livebearers, if your LFS dosnt stock it any good brand of liquid food should suffice.
You should give it a go for a couple of weeks untill the fry get a little bigger and stronger.
Cheers.

[caz]

my platy and molly gave birth a few weeks ago. they didnt accept baby brine shrimp right off either, although they are supposed to, but after a day or so, they eat it, its kinda hard to tell i guess if they eat it, because the bbs is so small. being so small, they look for tiny tiny stuff to eat, if its a well cycled tank, im sure you will be fine. keep up with the bbs and dont over feed :)

[JohnMemorialHS]

boil up an egg, and crush the egg yolk through a fine net.

[stik6shift98]

i feed most of my babies either baby brine or finely crushed flake food

also sometimes i use wardley liquid fry food formula

[thom336]

I used to use just normal tetramin flake crushed, and raised some great guppies. But with my recent batch of fry I have changed to tetra growth flakes...and the increased growth rate has been dramatic. Don't forget to crush the flakes up real small, and dont over feed.

Research is going into ZM fry foods at the moment, but I'm not sure as to whether it is being looked at with livebearer fry, it doesnt mention it on the website, www.zmsystems.demon.co.uk, but I believe some people are looking into it with livebearers.

Good luck,
Thom.

[TeaPea]

Thanks again for the great suggestions...I didn't get a chance to get to the lfs yesterday so I tried crushing up some regular flake food and the hungry little babies ate it right up!

A lot of you have said "Don't overfeed"...how often would you suggest feeding them? I've read it's good to feed small frequent meals 3-4 times a day. Is this correct in your experience? Or just once a day?

[thom336]

In an ideal world, it would be mini feeds as often as possible - clearing up all the uneaten food at the end of each day, or even more regularly.

But I feed mine 2-3 times a day. Works well for me, and for them.

Thom.

[JohnMemorialHS]

Use a bare bottom tank with a sponge filter.
Feed heavily, then siphon out the uneaten food immediately afterwards, and replace that water with declorinated tap water with a bit of aquarium salt.
This is only if you move all the fry into another tank.
This is practiced alot with a lot of guppy breeders.
Also, set the heater to about 80 ~ 82, it will help the fry grow a lot faster. You will have guppy "teenagers" in no time with this method.

[thom336]

Sorry, I fail to see where salt comes into this.

Thom.

[JohnMemorialHS]

all livebearers prefer brackish environments, some like more salt than others, guppies preferr a little bit salt, and for argument's sake, mollies peferr a lot of salt.

[thom336]

You are correct in thinking mollies prefer salt, not necessarily requiring it, but do better in it. However, Guppies and other livebearers (with exceptions such as the half beak) do not prefer brackish conditions as a general rule. Livebearers are sometimes kept with some salt in the water by breeders in the middle east to reduce the chance of diseases, but they are not strictly speaking a brackish water fish, they are just very adaptable and hardy and will accept brackish conditions. In fact some molly strains will live quite happily in full marine conditions.

Thom.

[ChilDawg]

Fancy guppies are oft-kept in sea-strength salinities in the Orient...fin rot seems to be a consequence of not keeping salt in the tanks of Oriental guppies.

[RCA]

From my experience with baby guppies and platies, they tend to be very shy when a few days old as part of their survival instincts, I'd guess. All they want to do is mostly hide among the plants' leaves, and not eat the crushed flakes right away. But several minutes after I've walked away from the tank and come back, I see them eating.

When I fed them too much, the uneaten food rots, and becomes moldy. I try to feed them a small amount of the crushed flakes 2 times a day. The BBS sounds like a good idea. I'll try that next time and see if they like it.

Good luck on the babies!!

[ponche]

I fed my baby guppies on Liquifry for first 2 weeks. After this I fed them very finely powdered flake-little & often. Maybe the shrimp is getting caught in the mesh of the net ? Hard to say. I keep mine in a plastic breeding trap untill they are big enough for their "playpen" tank.:)