Are your fry just food?

[Owen Stubbs]

As I consider what few fish to stock my son's now-cycling 10g tank, the possibility of livebearers is certainly out there. Obviously, I can stick to males to prevent fry, but I began wondering - not everyone in this world can be a breeder actively selling their fry to fish stores, so it makes me wonder...

If you have livebearers, and they do, in fact reproduce, are you just wanting this to create a little "treat" for the other fish, or are you actively interested in MORE, grown, fish?

[Drumachine09]

Mine were treats to the pacus that i bought (under terrible guidence.)

[fishbiz]

I'm battling with this one myself. It seems to be the norm from what I have been reading to let the fry fend for themselves. They either don't survive their tank mates or the filter.

I bought two mollies and ended up with fry the next day. I've separated the fry, but I don't think I want to or can continue to do that. I never had the intention of becoming a breeder. I also have a platy that might be pregnant, and if she is not, she will be soon as she is in a tank with two males.

The thing is... with live bearers, even if you stock your tank with only females, you can still end up with a pregnant one since they can mate as fry and grow pregnant (they store the sperm). Also, I have read that a live bearer can produce up to six times from a single mating. Seems to me that if you choose to have any, you will have to be prepared for nature to take it's course... After my experience, I encourage everyone to do the research first. I just jumped right in with minimal advice from friends...

[jweintraub]

From each batch of fry that my Platties have I generally only end up with 2-3 because I work all day and by the time I notice they were even born most of them become lunch to the larger fish in the tank, including the mother.

[Lady Hobbs]

If you don't put a rein on fry, you'd have hundreds. They lay so many eggs at once. (So I've been told!) I've not once ever had fry of any kind. I'm lucky I suppose because I didn't have to ever worry about moving them to keep them alive and wondering how to get rid of them. I don't know what my chances are to have 9 tetras, 7 rasbora's, 9 danio's, etc, and not once have fry but so far it's worked out that way.