# Disapearing fry?



## Zoe (Feb 26, 2006)

Five weeks ago, our balloon mollie gave birth to about 30 babies. About 13 were stillborn, but the rest were fine. We put the babies in a 2gal plastic tank. A few days later, our platy also had babies - but in the tank. I caught them with a net and put them in with the mollie babies. Over the weeks, the number of mollies has dwindled to a single one! And yet, there are no corpses... There are also two SMALL ghost shrimp with them.
Are the ghost shrimp eating them??? The platies don't seem affected. Are they dying, and being eaten by the platys and shrimp?
It's really weird.

Last week the molly mom had 30 babies, some of which moved a little, but all of them died. Today, she died also.

I'm confused  :-?


----------



## Cichlid Man (Jan 19, 2005)

I've never had luck with livebearers either. The only time I manage to keep them thriving and for the fry to survive is by doing 90% water changes every day. I think they are very sensitive to nitrates and bacterial blooms.
That's why I stick to cichlids.


----------



## leafgirl115 (Mar 26, 2006)

Zoe what kind of filter did you have on the tank? Fry get sucked up in the filter and sadly die. That may of happened to you and that would also be why there where no dead fish floting around.


----------



## Zoe (Feb 26, 2006)

There is no filter, and I do 50-90% water changes every day.


----------



## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Whats your water like? I kept mollies ok in hard, alkaline water but I can't seem to keep them in soft, neutral water here. Do you see any bones? (kind of a white thread), I don't think other fry eat them whole.


----------



## Ownager2004 (Apr 4, 2005)

Ive had "ghost shrimp" in the past in with livebearer babies. I saw one munching on a fry once ( he took a trip to the betta tank, lol). I cant say wether the fry was dead before he started eating it or not, but the rest of the fry were perfectly healthy when this happened. I think it caught and killed the fry. Ive heard they sell a few different kinds of shrimp as ghost shrimp and that not all are safe.


----------



## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

Fry are small enough where I see them mixed down in the gravel of the tank. 
To keep fry alive it is best to have either a gravel-less tank with a few plastic plants thrown in with a sponge filter in the corner. Or if you want gravel you really need to have lots and lots of plants in the tank with a sponge filter. Even though there are no adults in the tank to threaten them they still feel more secure when they have places to hide.


----------



## donnag (Apr 21, 2006)

the reply about the gravel is definetly true i lost a whole litter of guppy babies due to them hiding in the gravel now i wont use gravel with my baby guppies i found most of them when i washed my gravel in my 1 gallon tank


----------



## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

I have a 6.5 gallon tub ready, with the sponge filter maturing in the tank with the mum-to-be. It will be bare bottom with a heater on sponge filter only.

I really hope I am successful with these fry! The mother is taking her time though. She's getting fatter, but by no means the huge bulging bellies I have seen in pictures here.


----------



## Ringo (Apr 10, 2006)

i have no clue what happened to some of my fry, when they were born (in the tank) i caught 11 and put them in a fry net, about 10 days ago i put the fry in the 38G tank, and only 9 fry came out of the net, this morning i can onlyfind 7 fry in the 38G. its a big tank and plenty of hiding places, but the number always seems to be 7


----------



## blcknwitecuban (Apr 17, 2006)

probably the introduction of the platy fry did something to kill the molly fry. then the molly corpsues were probably eaten by the shrimp


----------



## fishaddic25 (May 29, 2006)

This is happening to me too! My platy had at least 5 fry that I got out of the big tank and put in a 10gal. with no big fish...and now there is only one fry and I know for a fact there are none hiding in the gravel...there's only so much hiding space in a 10gal. I do have a filter in there and I 'm thinking that might be the cause...going to put pantyhose over it or something


----------



## Cichlid Man (Jan 19, 2005)

fishaddic25 said:


> going to put pantyhose over it or something


Good idea, I always ask for one of my wifes which has a whole in it. Very handy.lol


----------



## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Look in the filter box, sometimes you find live fry


----------



## tonkstoy2003 (Jun 12, 2006)

if you don't want to use pantyhose, petsmart sells a mesh-type sock that goes over the intake of the filter so i bought one of those because i cannot find a sponge filter, they're only like 1.50 ea... my fry are in a 10 gal right now with that sock thing on the intake and so far so good. they haven't gotten sucked up to it either.. i'm praying that they dont  also, my sister had some fry, and she had some ghost shrimp that she bought from wal-mart and so she had the shrimp in the net with the babies because it was pregnant or had eggs whatever they do.. lol and the next morning all of the fry were gone.. only the ghost shrimp was left.. so i believe they eat the babies.. not sure.. i'm not an expert LOL


----------

