BABIES! :D :D :D Mickey mouse platy fry! ...Food?

[KingOfTheFeeshes]

So, I was poking around in my nursery tank, thinking about how it needed a cleaning, and.... FRY!
My platy finally dropped her load of fry - I found 10 wee ones. A quick vacuuming of the gravel didn't result in any more.
I separated them into a breeder trap, and they're floating around now. The water change went well, and they all look beautiful.
I'm extremely excited, as this is my first time keeping fry (at least, ones that weren't aborted - poor Mama balloon molly... )
I'm considering using egg yolk to feed them until i can pull off crushed food. Would that be highly recommended?

[Sherry1966]

I would not recommend egg. It leaves the tank way too messy for my liking. I use bbs or first bites for the first two or three weeks. Then switch back and forth from first bites to crushed flakes for a little while. Then they get their food mixture, colour flakes, earthworm flakes, bloodworms, shrimp, algea wafers, ect. This is my opinion. Whatever works for your schedule.

[dr_lew]

In my experience, most livebearer fry are big enough to eat finely crushed regular fish flakes. You can offer more specialized food if you want, but there's no need to fret.

[madagascariensis]

Agree with above. While most fry need special food in the beginning, livebearers fry come out Unfussy as their parents. What works well for me(with guppy fry) is to take a good quality sinking pellet(one that doesn't disintegrate immediately) and put it in the breeding net. As the pellet slowly softens the fry will constantly peck away at it ensuring a constant food source. Works best with larger amounts of fry or larger fry, as too few or small fry will not be able to complete everything before it starts fouling.

[KingOfTheFeeshes]

Thanks for the advice, everyone! It's very valuable to me, as I don't have very much experience at all with this...

Agree with above. While most fry need special food in the beginning, livebearers fry come out Unfussy as their parents. What works well for me(with guppy fry) is to take a good quality sinking pellet(one that doesn't disintegrate immediately) and put it in the breeding net. As the pellet slowly softens the fry will constantly peck away at it ensuring a constant food source. Works best with larger amounts of fry or larger fry, as too few or small fry will not be able to complete everything before it starts fouling.

Madagascariensis: in your experience, would this work okay with ten fry? I'm worried about not being able to feed them often enough while I'm at school or not at home - not, though, that I plan to only feed them pellets all the time. I'm just wondering if I can use this as a last resort.