Pregnant livebearer questions...? (Lots of pictures- You've been warned! :)

[Fishfriend1]

Well, all the fish in a tank (Betta included) will be more then happy to gobble up molly fry. Even the parents will eat fry, so yes, I'd say the female betta will eat any fry it can catch. The trick is catching them, they are small and fast, betta aren't. So it's a 50/50 really.

 

[TheFishBoss97]

+1

but adding lots of fake floating plants or real floating plants can bump up their chances of survival by 25%

 

[TL1000RSquid]

Well, all the fish in a tank (Betta included) will be more then happy to gobble up molly fry. Even the parents will eat fry, so yes, I'd say the female betta will eat any fry it can catch. The trick is catching them, they are small and fast, betta aren't. So it's a 50/50 really.

I had moved one of my betta's into my tank specifically to controll the molly fry population, I'd say only around 20-25% lasted more then 2 weeks by which point they grew enough to be left alone. (Then I dumped those into my reef lol)
Of course betta personalities vary some may not be quite so aggressive toward the fry mine won't even touch flake food if fry are around to be eaten.

 

[Fishfriend1]

Yea, I put all the molly fry I can catch into my SW set up. My clown and cardinal love molly fry I do plan to save a few so I can continue to feed my fish for less, but for now I'll let the females do their thing until the babies stop coming.

 

[raindropsfly]

I have also notice that the fry grow much faster in a larger tank. I had some fry stay in my 10g tank and took the others into my 55g tank with the adult fish. The fry in the 55g tank are growing twice as fast as the ones in the 10g! ( Both tanks are not cramped at all )