How long til platy fry are too large for parents to eat?

[PineSong]

I finally have some fry from some female platies that I brought home July 24th. Unfortunately they were born in the QT tank without substrate and only a handful of floating plants and pothos along the side. I added some fake fry-cover plants today and will go get more tomorrow.

I'm feeding Hikari First Bites in the plants area multiple times a day while the adults eat on the other side of the tank.

Assuming "typical" growth rates for these guys, how long will it be before mom fish sees them as tankmates instead of possible snacks?

 

[lefty o]

the easiest answer, and it applies to all fish. when they wont fit in the parents mouth. imo most livebearer fry are fairly safe after 4-6 weeks, depending on how well they are growing. after a month they usually have a little size, and have gotten smart enough to stay away from larger fish.

[PineSong]

Ugh. So I will be worrying for a month if I don't move the mom fish. I've painted myself into a corner with three QT tanks set up at once and was hoping to leave them where they were. But That's gonna bug me, so....I guess tomorrow I will set up One More Tank.

There is another platy who looks like she'll be delivering babies any time now, so I'll wait for her to give birth and then move the adults out for now. I'm going to need a flow chart for how all these fish are eventually gonna end up in two tanks.

Thanks for the answer!

[Ben P.]

Honestly I wouldn't worry about it.  Just feed crushed flakes of any kind and feed them at least twice daily.  I find my platys are either uninterested or too lazy to eat them.  Just give em a bit of cover and you'll be fine.  Worst case, the parents eat them and you'll have more fry in about a month

[Atitagain]

I was breeding platties in a 20G, 2 female 1 male with plenty of cover. Lost 2 whole batches too “ I will get them tomorrow “ finally seen new babies and put them into a breeder box immediately! Got 14 of them. I would move the mom as soon as you can IMO. My platties are piggies and will eat everything 

[CalmedByFish]

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/penn-plax-deluxe-net-breeder

I have a different version of this. But the idea would work with another object. For the moment, you could even figure out a way to hang a (carefully cleaned) tupperware or plastic cup on the inside of the quarantine tank, and net the fry into it. Then as soon as possible, find an object that will allow water to flow through it.

[PineSong]

On 8/28/2021 at 9:09 PM, CalmedByFish said:

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/penn-plax-deluxe-net-breeder

I have a different version of this. But the idea would work with another object. For the moment, you could even figure out a way to hang a (carefully cleaned) tupperware or plastic cup on the inside of the quarantine tank, and net the fry into it. Then as soon as possible, find an object that will allow water to flow through it.

Thank you. I do have that exact net breeder that I bought when I got these fish because I anticipated they would have fry. I assembled it--and felt like I deserved an engineering degree, what a PITA it was--but could not net the fry because of all the plants and my net being large-ish.

I think I will need to carefully remove the plants to be able to swoop up the fry. I got a smaller net today to try again, but I also got a bunch of pointy plastic plants I crammed into the tank to give the fry places to hide because I had no spare time to go through the tank today. I'm sure the tubby moms could finesse themselves through the tangle of plastic plants if they wanted to, but I'm feeding them in the section of the tank that is still clear so hopefully they will not bother.

[Hobbit]

I have hundreds of platy fry in my outdoor tubs. The plant cover is okay but not super dense by any means. To my great surprise, I haven’t seen any evidence of parents eating the fry. I feed them all in the same general area. The parents don’t appear to go after the fry, and the fry don’t seem scared of the parents. I have no idea why this is the case.

In general, I’d expect fish to eat their fry as long as they can fit the fry in their mouths. My largest fry are 2 months old at this point and I think a full grown adult could still fit one in their mouth if they were really motivated.

Hopefully your platys will be as uninterested in their fry as mine are! If you can net a few into the breeder box just to be safe, you’ll hedge your bets that at least some will survive.

[PineSong]

My fry were hiding quite effectively--I could not tell if there were more than two or three. I went ahead and moved the adults out of the tank so now it's just fry. Interesting that shortly after the mom fish were removed they stopped hiding and began swimming all over the tank.

There are only about six of them and they look like they are from different batches--some are much larger than the others.  I'm hoping they survive and that at least one of them is male so I can keep this sparkly blue line of platies growing in my tank.

 

[Amanda77]

I have some platy mothers who are aggressive hunters and will run down each and every baby to eat. From about 40 babies form 3 mothers I had one survivor. In this situation I removed the mother the second time and the babies (about 23 of them) are doing great. 

Other platys don't seem interested in their babies and I do not need to remove the mothers or babies. 

I always have some community tanks with just shrimp/snails/live plants hanging around in case there is a baby wave that needs salvaging. All I do is get tanks from Facebook marketplace (never pay more than a dollar a gallon), some guppy grass and/or hornwort, some pond snails, some neocardinia shrimp, sponge filters/tubing/bubblers on Amazon and park the thing by a window with a lot of light. 

[PineSong]

On 3/29/2022 at 9:06 AM, Amanda77 said:

I always have some community tanks with just shrimp/snails/live plants hanging around in case there is a baby wave that needs salvaging. All I do is get tanks from Facebook marketplace (never pay more than a dollar a gallon), some guppy grass and/or hornwort, some pond snails, some neocardinia shrimp, sponge filters/tubing/bubblers on Amazon and park the thing by a window with a lot of light. 

I now have dozens/hundreds (?) of fry in a heavily planted tank with lots of adult female platies and I will soon be out of windows to pop tanks in front of, lol. I need to get up the nerve to rehome some fish!

[Hobbit]

@PineSong giving them up is hard at first but it gets easier! Eventually way easier than trying to keep them all. 😆

[MarkM]

On 3/29/2022 at 2:01 PM, PineSong said:

I now have dozens/hundreds (?) of fry in a heavily planted tank with lots of adult female platies and I will soon be out of windows to pop tanks in front of, lol. I need to get up the nerve to rehome some fish!

Remember, it's only like 4 months until those fry can start having fry of their own!  I couldn't even imagine keeping up tank expansions with all the livebearer fry.  I tend to let nature take it's course and populations are pretty stable. 

[PineSong]

On 4/1/2022 at 6:21 PM, MarkM said:

Remember, it's only like 4 months until those fry can start having fry of their own!  I couldn't even imagine keeping up tank expansions with all the livebearer fry.  I tend to let nature take it's course and populations are pretty stable. 

Thanks for triggering a panic attack, lol! I am at my max number of tanks right now with plans to reduce by three as my betta ages out and other numbers dwindle; my fry protecting days are over. This will be my first summer tubbing and I’m contemplating an all male tub!

[MarkM]

On 4/1/2022 at 6:32 PM, PineSong said:

Thanks for triggering a panic attack, lol! I am at my max number of tanks right now with plans to reduce by three as my betta ages out and other numbers dwindle; my fry protecting days are over. This will be my first summer tubbing and I’m contemplating an all male tub!

Could always see if your LFS would be interested in the fry, grow them out in the tub and slowly sell them off throughout the summer as they mature. (And then swear to yourself you'll take the tank down in the fall and definitely not wind up with it in the basement as a year round project.  That would never happen...)

[PineSong]

On 4/1/2022 at 6:48 PM, MarkM said:

Could always see if your LFS would be interested in the fry, grow them out in the tub and slowly sell them off throughout the summer as they mature. (And then swear to yourself you'll take the tank down in the fall and definitely not wind up with it in the basement as a year round project.  That would never happen...)

It can’t! I don’t have a basement! Or garage. I’m truly limited and part of the reason I bought such a small place was self-knowledge;-)