Hi all,
I don't usually post on the freshwater site because I have a saltwater tank. However, recently I have acquired my brothers 30 gal freshwater tank which he had been neglecting. I cleaned it out and replaced the gravel, put some plastic plants in and a small cave along with the wood piece my brother had in there. The tank has a medium sized canister filter on it and a heater but no hood/light which is fine because the tank is set up in my kitchen and it's pretty bright in there all day anyway ... very natural looking.
Anyhow, I have had the tank for a couple weeks and restocked it with the following ...
1 sm pleco
1 sm banjo catfish
4 lg fancy mollies (3 females & 1 male)
4 glass fish
1 male dwarf graumi (sp)
2 tiny panda cory cats
1 pictus (sp) cat
It has been quite some time since I had a freshwater tank and I'm not sure if this is overstocked or not. It seems the ratios for stocking are different for fresh and salt water tanks.
Anyway, my main question is about babies ... 2 of my female mollies were prego when I got them. Since they've been in the tank 1 has had her babies and the other is still prego. When I noticed the 1 molly had given birth I spent an hour trying to round up the babies and put them in a breeder for safe keeping while they grew ... when I was finally done I think I had like 25 or so. Well, overnight most of the babies DISAPPEARED! I went to feed them their fry food and only counted 6 ... I think one of the adult fish may have figured out how to get in the breeder (remember the top is totally open) and had a snack. Anyway, I decided that if they could get in the breeder then the babies might have a better chance in the full tak where they could get away or hide better so I dumped them back in. My question is how can I rear the babies so that at least some of them survive? I've never had good luck with raising babies, they either get eatten or die off. Any help would be great as the other molly looks like she's ready to pop!
I don't usually post on the freshwater site because I have a saltwater tank. However, recently I have acquired my brothers 30 gal freshwater tank which he had been neglecting. I cleaned it out and replaced the gravel, put some plastic plants in and a small cave along with the wood piece my brother had in there. The tank has a medium sized canister filter on it and a heater but no hood/light which is fine because the tank is set up in my kitchen and it's pretty bright in there all day anyway ... very natural looking.
Anyhow, I have had the tank for a couple weeks and restocked it with the following ...
1 sm pleco
1 sm banjo catfish
4 lg fancy mollies (3 females & 1 male)
4 glass fish
1 male dwarf graumi (sp)
2 tiny panda cory cats
1 pictus (sp) cat
It has been quite some time since I had a freshwater tank and I'm not sure if this is overstocked or not. It seems the ratios for stocking are different for fresh and salt water tanks.
Anyway, my main question is about babies ... 2 of my female mollies were prego when I got them. Since they've been in the tank 1 has had her babies and the other is still prego. When I noticed the 1 molly had given birth I spent an hour trying to round up the babies and put them in a breeder for safe keeping while they grew ... when I was finally done I think I had like 25 or so. Well, overnight most of the babies DISAPPEARED! I went to feed them their fry food and only counted 6 ... I think one of the adult fish may have figured out how to get in the breeder (remember the top is totally open) and had a snack. Anyway, I decided that if they could get in the breeder then the babies might have a better chance in the full tak where they could get away or hide better so I dumped them back in. My question is how can I rear the babies so that at least some of them survive? I've never had good luck with raising babies, they either get eatten or die off. Any help would be great as the other molly looks like she's ready to pop!