Platy fry dieing

[Eileen]

My Tiger Stripped platy had babies in the last week. I was able to save about 8. I have them in a cycled 2 1/2 gal. tank. The nitrite,ammonia levels are fine, water temp is about 75-78. I found one dead yesterday and 1 today. I put an air bubble hose in today for air, The tank also has a azoo palm filter. I was wondering if others have had babies die for no reason? I was wondering if I was doing anything wrong. I feed them finely crushed Tertamin a few times a day. I did however catch the babies from the tank that the mom is in and put them in the 2 1-2 gal. I did not float them in a bag to get used to the smaller tank. Could this be the problem? I caught the 2 fry in the last few days. The main tank and the 2 1/2 have the same ph, water . I tested both tanks.

[james481]

Probably just stress from moving them around and their environment changing. I've found that I get plenty enough Platy fry that survive in the main tank. The other fish usually eat most of them, but the survivors always seem to grow up healthy and strong. However, I've had a similar experience as you, when I try moving them to another tank, they quickly die. Next time, I would try just leaving them in the tank where they're born. You'll probably get at least a couple of survivors. Here in a couple of months, you'll be cursing the Platy and it's "reproductive prowess" as you're trying to find places to put all of them.

[Sasquatch]

It could be that what your feeding them isn't small enough.

If you can find them, frozen baby brine shrimp might work, there are some flaked fry foods too. You have to have really small particles for the fry to be able to eat them.

If it's the food, try to find some quickly. Fry don't have much reserves and will die after only a day or two of starvation.

Good luck.

[Eileen]

Thanks for your fast replys back. I will leave any new born fry in the main tank with floating plants to hide, I covered the intake tube with a small plastic so the babies won't get sucked in the filter. I returned the male tiger stripe as I knew that she would be able to have babies without the male for a few months. I only have the 1 female and what are left of her babies. She is in a small tank with 1 balloon molly, 1 cory, 1 mystery snail. The male molly does not bother her at all. As for the food I put the flakes in a spice grounder so its a fine powder small enough for them to eat. Stress makes sense to the cause of the fry dieing. Thanks again for the help.

[james481]

It could be that what your feeding them isn't small enough.

I somewhat doubt this. Platy fry seem able to eat pretty large foods basically from day one. The smallest thing I put in my tank is NLS community fish pellets (.3 mm diameter, I believe), and they eat those in one bite without trouble. They don't even have trouble eating NLS Thera-A pellets, and those are 1mm pellets (of course they don't eat these in one bite, but they do love them). If nothing else, they seem adept at grazing for food in the stuff that normally builds up in gravel over time. In this respect, I think they're a lot like Mollie fry, which in my experience require "dirty" substrate to survive. I've never had luck with either in a clean or bare bottom tank.

[Tolley]

For future reference;

What I do is buy one of those floating breeder boxes and put the fry in this in the tank they were born in for the first week or two until they have grown a bit. Then you can move them into another tank.

I do not recommend raising a fish in one of those boxes for longer than 3 weeks though.

The stress of environmment change after being born would be very stressful.

[Eileen]

I do have a breeder box that hangs on the tank with air. I had a molly have babies once and left them in the box for a few weeks and they all died and that was in the main tank. I think that I will just leave alot of floating plants and plants in the back and have my Tiger stripped platy just have the babies without the box. It's less stressful on her and the babies. I'm sure she will have more babies over the next few months. Out of 8 fry now I only have 4 left.

[james481]

Well, unless you are vastly better than me at netting very small fish (a possibility, I admit) I'm guessing that there are still a few fry hiding in the main tank (they can hide even in the gaps between pieces of gravel), which I imagine you'll start seeing pop up in the tank in the next few weeks. I've never had good luck even with the floating breeder boxes. My personal opinion is that the fry just need access to "dirty" gravel to forage on all the time (unless maybe you can feed them every hour or something).

[Eileen]

This morning I could only see 3 baby fish. I found 1 stuck to the filter intake net I put over the filter. I feed them 3 times a day. It's sad to find them dead. I just hope that these last 3 make it. You know the saying only the strong will survive I looked all over in the main tank and their is no more babies in that tank. i have a sand bottom and I moved all the decorations and floating plants to find a the baby fish.

[Gayle]

Awe, I am sorry. Just love the three you have until next time! :)

[Fishguy2727]

I would feed new platies Hikari Guppy Food. When they got a little bigger I fed them crushed TetraMin Pro Crisps (now I would feed crushed NLS flakes). I personally would not trust the water quality in a 2.5. Live plants help out A LOT. Any time we get baby fish of any type at work I stick them in the planted tanks and they do fine. The plants provide tons of shelter, improve water quality, and tend to allow a lot of very small things to live for the babies to feed on.