My fish has just had babies what do I do?

[slushy06]

She is in a tank alone and has given birth unexpectedly do I separate or not.

Do you have enough towels and hot water?

I think you separate depending on what breed the fish are. Have you tried gooling the breed?

I had black swords and danios that bred. They were in with goramis (? ) at the time, and most of them got eaten but I did get two new fish. Didn't notice until I saw 1cm long little fish darting about!

She is a mollie there are three so far we bought her yesterday set her up alone to quarantine will She eat the babies or is it other fish that eat them.

Plenty of towels thanks .

omg I am shocked 5 fry now, I have put a net across the tank that I think is all I can do, so we will just wait and see I guess.

Aw that is so cute

As long as mum doesn't eat them

Sure she won't

Oh no!

"If your molly fish end up producing fry, place the fry in another tank immediately. Not only will they be easy prey for the other fish in your tank, their parents may also eat them."

I know I cant move her yet she is still giving birth and that will cause her to abort the remaining fry I don't know how I will know when she is finished though. I have put a old net that she can't get through but fry can I will just have to hope for the best.

A mollie can have loads of babies. Mine had at least 20 last time. I leave mine in the tank and I've only got a few now. The mum may eat them.

They may eat, or they may not - my mollies used to breed like mad, and I ended up frequently taking tubs of molly babies into my school biology dept for their tank. Mind you, I think most of them were just viewed as live food by the school fish

Have you plenty of weed and cover in there? They will instinctively seek good cover. You can then choose to leave it to nature and they have a reasonable chance, or you can remove mum and other big fish to another tank if you have one to hand, or vice versa and catch up the fry and transfer them - or you can get a floating separator unit that you can put the fry into in the same tank as the adults and release back out when they are big enough to be safe. Some of these separators are designed for the mum to go into to give birth, the theory being the fry drop into the bottom compartment and mum stays in the top...it is not foolproof that is for sure!

No good weed cover but lots of ornamental cover, I think we will remove her later tonight and then separate the male and female fry.

I missed the point about this being a virgin birth... you should tell Richard Dawkins on wed