Posted by mlaird on January 12, 2003 at 15:23:03:
In Reply to: Re: Lots of Fry? posted by Enigmagirl on January 12, 2003 at 03:22:11:
: Thanks for posting the picture. About how small would you say
: they are? The guys I siphoned out of the tank were about the
: size of a period made by a ball-point pen, and moved only
: sporadically at the bottom of the container, basically going
: from one piece of debris to the next . . .
Mine look just like the posted picture, except that they are a bright yellowish-orange color where the guppies are gray. They started off around an 1/8th of an inch long, and I found that if you disturb them they will dart all over the place. If you leave them alone, they started out hiding all the time, but then got a bit more daring and started exploring a bit.
: Also, what is the best way to do water changes while they're so
: small? I don't want to siphon them up with the gravel vacuum,
: but also don't want the tank to get dirty in the meanwhile. Is
: there some type of trick to this, or should I just wait longer
: than my usual two weeks to do another water change?
I have to admit that I'm not an expert, having only raised these platy fry for about 3 months, but I didn't have too much trouble vacuuming the gravel with them in there. I went ahead and cleaned like usual, but was careful to keep the gravel vacuum down against the gravel. Then my activity in stirring up the gravel was almost always enough to scare away the fry and keep them from getting sucked in. Whenever one did get sucked in, I just stuck my finger over the other end of the hose (where I keep it all the time anyway to control the flow), and let the little one swim out of the siphon. I'd be happy to hear other folks' approaches on this, but mine has worked for me so far.
Speaking of lots of fry, what do you all do when you have too many fry? Do local fish stores pay anything for platies that have grown up enough to travel (say 1/2 inch or larger)? Or do you have to just give them away?
-- Michael
