# Oh My, It's Fry! Please Help



## LittleStar (Oct 2, 2015)

Oh boy. Oh girl! (If this is in wrong thread please move it, I searched and couldn't figure out which was best to post). I brought Boo Boo home, a balloon Molly, three days ago. She went directly to QT with a spot of ich as she came from Petco. I have an herbal treatment I use. 

This morning, surprise! OMG. I have never ever had fry before, never a pregos fish before. She is in our QT tank and for three days has been getting herbal ich treatment had planned to do it for ten days before even thinking of putting her with my other fish in a 10 gallon, and in there are two other female Mollys. 

She was eating them! OMG. I'm so anti-kill and have never lost a fish to disease let along cannibalism. I have a fish bowl on hand, it's two gallon size and I filled it with Freshwater One (I only use prepared fish water, either Freshwater One or Betta Water) and put a heater in there and got it to temp and netted the fry out and put them in their bowl.

I'm gonna let her finish her thing here and I'm going to keep her in QT and finish the treatment cycle I'm on before she can go in with the other ladies who are not knocked up (they are two year olds).

One of my great concerns at the moment - will the fry be "intellectually disabled" since they were exposed to medication? Some of the "babies" dropped out and... never moved. A couple were "just eggs". Ew. I am pretty freaked out lol.

What do they eat? I'm reading about it now, I can't just keep them in this bowl forever what's next? I wouldn't mind 1 but I can't keep ten!

I'm gonna need advice so your input is welcome. TY!


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## LittleStar (Oct 2, 2015)

Advice from Petco: "We have fry in our tanks by accident all the time, they are very nutritious for the adult fish".

- You mean you never try to remove them from your tanks? "No".

So basically fish are getting pregnant all the time at Petco, and having babies then eaten by other fish. That is so beyond disgusting, I don't even have words. And how do we know that isnt traumatic for the females as they are trying to give birth? I think this tops my gross award for the goldfish feeder tanks.


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## LittleStar (Oct 2, 2015)

Update:
About lunchtime, I had about 20 Fry before she finished. I am now down to 6 living. Hard to imagine anything could survive at all considering she was in a QT under treatment.


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## LittleStar (Oct 2, 2015)

Update about two more hours have passed, and now I'm down to 3. They are swimming good though, looks like these three just might make it. I'm going to keep them. Turns out God didn't give me anything I couldn't handle. I've got a spare 5 gallon setup with filter, heater everything so I'm going to get it out now and begin to cycle. Still could use fry care advice but thanks for a place to vent, was a nervous wreck this morning. This will conclude my fish purchasing experience for quite some time.
I hope!
I've never had fish babies that knew no other place but my home. Quite remarkable!
And Boo Boo the QT'd Molly is back to herbal "nasties" treatment, looking good, eating well.


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## christinamac (Jan 2, 2016)

Mollies breed like crazy, and the mothers do eat their young. The fry need a place to hide like floating moss. Plastic Easter grass that you use in Easter baskets floats and works great!


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## LittleStar (Oct 2, 2015)

TY I hadn't heard of that before! Is it okay to feed the QT Molly now that she has delivered, I've already fed her and she's going ballistic pecking around for food like she never ate before in her life, don't want to overfeed how much should I give in to this?


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## christinamac (Jan 2, 2016)

I'd probably give her a little extra. I mean, she did just give birth. I think that the mother naturally eats whatever fry she can catch after giving birth to get some needed energy. In the process, slow or sickly fry also get culled by Mom.


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## Netti (Apr 25, 2014)

If she already ate some of her fry she won't be really needing more food now. She might have given birth prematurely from stress if some of the births were eggs. I'm not sure how great the survival chances are for the fry you managed to save because of prematurity. Also keep an eye out for ich on the babies!

Don't worry too much about fish eating fry, it is kind of nature's way to keep their numbers down, since these live bearers really do produce greatly.


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## LittleStar (Oct 2, 2015)

Grose grose grose lol never thought this could happen to me aaahhh well she's not eating the three that remain since they are apart. I'm watching baby Molly videos and they look pretty big by 3 weeks, but seems to be suggesting wait 4 before putting with adult fish, and I don't know how I'm going to divide this situation up yet just praying!! they are all girls.

Yeah she probably knew they weren't healthy...and I bet that goes way back to the start of this mess, Petco. Gawd only knows who the father was! lol

Okay I've heard these fish can hold the males "fertilizer" in their bodies for months and then all of a sudden be pregnant again, ever heard of that? Once at this rodeo is more than enough...


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## LittleStar (Oct 2, 2015)

Update its about 6pm and I still have the 3! A member PM me info about getting a fry net and putting into the Molly tank with the two healthy Mollys and it just felt like the right way to go. The 3 Fry were in a bowl of Freshwater One all day not the water from the Pregnant Molly QT tank, so I felt there was a good chance they are not infected. They are so tiny. I went out and got a Fry net and Fry food, and put them into it and hung it into the Molly tank. My two girls went straight away and investigated but otherwise have really left them alone. So far so good! I can't believe this lol, so excited over something so silly...
I might have to change my username to FryMama 
hehe


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## SplashyBetta (Jul 28, 2014)

LittleStar said:


> Advice from Petco: "We have fry in our tanks by accident all the time, they are very nutritious for the adult fish".
> 
> - You mean you never try to remove them from your tanks? "No".
> 
> So basically fish are getting pregnant all the time at Petco, and having babies then eaten by other fish. That is so beyond disgusting, I don't even have words. And how do we know that isnt traumatic for the females as they are trying to give birth? I think this tops my gross award for the goldfish feeder tanks.


While it might seem sad since we love our pet fish, it's the natural order. Live-bearing fish have dozens of fry for the exact reason that so many get eaten. Many are not meant to survive. 

Don't worry, birth isn't traumatic for fish! It's a very easy process, nothing like a mammal giving birth.


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## CRAZYHERMITCRAB (Mar 10, 2015)

LittleStar said:


> Advice from Petco: "We have fry in our tanks by accident all the time, they are very nutritious for the adult fish".
> 
> - You mean you never try to remove them from your tanks? "No".
> 
> That is so beyond disgusting, I don't even have words. And how do we know that isnt traumatic for the females as they are trying to give birth?


Livebearers reproduce like crazy, its impossible to raise them all. Only if your goal is too breed livebearers would you want to separate them. But that gets out of control very very fast. I used to separate my babies from my parents, but that is too time consuming and the babies get out of hand fast. So now whenever my guppies give birth I either feed the fry to my bettas or I leave them in with their parents. Naturally their parents snack on their offspring, they aren't intelligent enough to develop emotional feelings. I usually have a few fry survive per batch. So for petco to leave the fry with the adults is completly normal. The fish breed because they are llivebearers and for petco to have to seperate sex's, catch fry, etc is too time consuming. They have a lot of animals and stock to care for and if they spent all day catching fish fry, breeding fish and raising babies they wouldn't have time for anything else. Its not gross, its completly normal.


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## LittleStar (Oct 2, 2015)

TY everyone, I'm relieved its over and hoping not to go through that again!~


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