# New Fish Owner...with Babies



## jessicamh (Feb 2, 2010)

My husband and I recently started a tank a few months ago and just love our fish....yesterday, while checking out our tank, we noticed a teeny tiny little baby!!! Panicked, I got it out and put it in a separate tank and we quickly went to the pet store and bought a net insert to protect the little guy/girl. Well, in the past 24 hours, we have discovered 5 more little babies! Because we are new to having more than one fish (as opposed to a single betta or goldfish), we aren't sure who had the fry.

The first baby we found was orange, and we assume it is from our sunburst platy, but the other babies are black. Could they belong to our mollies? 

Thanks for any help--we really appreciate it! We thought we were obsessed with our tank before, but now we can't keep from watching the adorable little babies!


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## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

Although it is possible that they are from different females if they are all the same size then they are probably from the same fish. If you don't know the father of them, it would be impossible to tell. I have an orange swordtail who had fry. The fry it produced were different colors. Some were orange, some were black and some were orange with black tails. 

To offer a few tips...
Feed them 3 or more times a day for about a week and a half to two weeks. They will grow a lot in this time. 
Prepare a separate tank for them to grow big in. They can't live forever in the net. When they are big enough you will move them out of the "grow out" tank and into the main tank. 
Keep the water very clean in what ever tank the fry are in. Its very easy to overfeed fry since they dont eat much. Feed them Hikari First bites or baby brine shrimp.
Prepare for more babies. If you have males and females in the same tank you WILL have more babies. If the female is new and you dont have males, they can still have babies for up to 6 months after they are separated. They can have up to 100 babies at a time, and possibly as quick as a month between. Livebearing fish can sometimes be a (pleasant/unpleasant) surprise to new fish keepers. You have 2 different types of livebearers.


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## hXcChic22 (Dec 26, 2009)

As a note if you don't feel like buying Hikari First Bites, just put some regular flake into a baggy and mash the crap out of it until it's microscopic. 
Our platy and molly babies both do fine on it. We have some of the Hikari stuff too but making your own fry food is cheaper.


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## jessicamh (Feb 2, 2010)

awesome, thanks for the replies~! We do have another tank, which we will use to house them when they're a bit bigger. We had already bought some Hikari First, but it's good to know about the flakes too, especially since we know we are probably going to get more babies!


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