My platy fry are 2+ months old and still only a centimeter long...

peachyqui

The title sort of says it all, but I have 13 fry (mollies and platys) right now. I've just kept them in a breeders net in my tank because I don't really have the option to put them in a separate tank. Most of them were born in early April, but I've been finding maybe one more every week since then. The ones that I'm just now finding are almost the same size as the 2 month old ones. Could keeping them in the small net have stunted their growth? My tank is 55 gallons, could I just put in one of those tank dividers and keep them separate from the older fish that way? Sorry for the long post and thanks for any advice!

1077

Could use divider ,or get larger breeder net.
Something else to consider is genetic's.Many of the fishes we buy from same tank,same store,could easily be from same spawn, and introducing new blood every once in a while could increase both number's of fry produced,and size as well.
Many of these fishes are allowed to inbreed,(blood with blood relative) and number's and size of fry will steadily decrease in many instances.

jgraf

You should take out the breeder net and let nature take its course with the fry. As long as you don't have a super predator, some fry should survive to a safe size. I have a Swordtail and two platies that are two months old and are about the size of the adult male Platy. Sure I lost probably hundreds of fry to predation (angelfish) but those few that survived are strong, fast, and grow nicely.

Sad to say but not all baby fish are born for survival, especially with all the inbreeding. A breeder net just keeps the more flawed fish alive and puts more fish on your hands to take care of. Dang I sound like some kind of fish hitler...

Eolith

I don't think you're a fish hitler jgraf, I like your evolutionary approach. That is the approach that I will be taking with my tank. I originally intended just to have a few male guppies, but a roommate had a female that had some fry and she was able to save just one. When this roommate moved out, I took pity on the lone fry and have kept it... of course it turned out to be a female.

In any case, once I get a couple more females and toss them all in together with the two males I have, any resulting fry are going to have to fend for themselves. I don't have the time to commit to raising any of the babies in different tanks, etc etc.