swordtail fry ...?

Question

I have 5 fry that were born a few weeks ago, not sure if its been longer. They are about 1/4 inch long and are swimming around with my male and female swordtail and my neon tetra ....

my question .. my tank isn't going to be able to hold all these fish soon. I have my 3 fish PLUS a algea eater (brown) he's close to 3 inches long and my catfish which is 2 1/2 long .... my swordtails are 2 inches and my tetra is about an 1 ...
I have a 10 gallon tank. What do I do about my fry ... and what if my girl gets pregnant again .. what do i do with those fry????

I don't have anyone to give fish too .. do I just flush em down the toilet or what?? Reason I am asking is if do you think I should get another tank for my fry's or just leave them be?????

Answer 1

No you do not flush them. Your female didn't get pregnant out of the blue and pretty sure she didnt mate with the neon. What you need to do is seperate the male and female or you need to return one or the other so you carry two of the same sex to prevent this in the future. Bring the fry to your pet store, and yes you can leave them be for now. At that size they could become food for that pleco or the parents. Either way don't flush them. Try your pet store first, they should take them and if you don't want this happening again, you need to seperate or return one and keep the same sex togeather

JV

Answer 2

Thank you for realizing the problem before it becomes too large to deal with and wanting to handle it now.

First of all, your girl is pregnant again. And if you separate her now, she will be pregnant for 2 or 3 batches of fry. They can store sperm again future use so you are looking at more fry in the future.

I guarantee that she had more than 5 fry in that first batch though so most of them were eaten outright. This will happen each time. You need to find a place that will take the fry and you might want to consider getting rid of the female (all the females) if you don't want anymore.

There are some pet stores that will take fry for adoption. I believe PetSmart is best known for this. Call them first to make sure though. Perhaps a better choice would be to see if there is an aquarium club in your area. Someone there might be interested in them.

Good luck and thanks again for wanting to do what's right for your fish.

Answer 3

If you want another tank to take care of, by all means get one and put the fry in it. Or, get a much bigger one, and put the whole happy family in it (plus Uncle Tetra and Aunt Algae-Eater, too).

I predict that your swordtails will continue to reproduce, and you will continue to have babies galore. This is actually a compliment to your fish-keeping skills because they wouldn't breed if they weren't happy. However, you can soon be overwhelmed with fry!

Are there any local pet shops who will take the fry from you? If not, maybe you'll want to keep one or two to replace dear old Mom and Dad (once they kick the bucket on their own), and then you can get rid of the rest.

You can flush 'em down the toilet, or put them in a bucket with some clove oil (available at some grocery stores and kitchen specialty shops - generally with the candy-making supplies. It has to be the essential oil of clove, not clove extract or whatever). The clove oil will anesthetize them so they won't stress or feel the chlorine burn their gills when you flush 'em.

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

You will have to find a solution as it's going to happen continually, the algae eater wont eat them unless they're in the gravel same as the catfish they're not carnivor's and wont go hunting the tetra probably ate most of them, so either you get rid of the male or get a larger tank, with a larger tank will be able to put something in that will limit the population to managable levels, maybe an angel or small cichlid, like krebensis. however if you leave it unchecked as you've noticed your tank will fill quickly, and if you get a second tank just for them you've not solved your problem you've just moved it and increased your potential to have more broods.

If the LFS won't take them and apart from what most say they won't, then you'll have to cull them and for that size fish iced water is probably the quickest solution. But that is a last resort.


AJ

Answer 5

Go an Buy a Biger Tank like a 55 gal. The alge eater will eat the fry if it is a chinees alge eater