Baby Mollies?

[Through-Glass]

My two Dalmation Mollies just had seven babies. I'm very excited However, I'm unsure what to do from this point.

Do I need to transfer them to a different tank? They were born about a week ago while I was out of town, and so far have not been eaten by the parents. Should I move them anyway?

How big should they be before I transfer them to a new tank?

They've been eating off of this ten-day feeder disk. Do I feed them regular flakes once this dissolves?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Grizabella]

Generally yes, you should separate the parents from the babies. But rather than try to catch the dozens of tiny baby fish, it may be easier to take out the two adult fish. You can also get isolation tanks for them, if you don't have a whole other tank to put them in.

For food, the babies should be able to eat powdered flakes. Just put some flakes in a bag and crush them up. They would probably enjoy newly hatched brine shrimp as well. You can get brine shrimp eggs at a pet shop, and hatch them like this:

Use an well rinsed out 2-liter soda bottle. Leaving the cap on, turning it upside down cut the bottom off. Fill it with a moderate amount of tap water. Then add about 1-1/2 tablespoons of aquarium salt, and be sure to put an airstone in for continous water circulation. Add 1 teaspoon of cysts and allow up to 48 hrs for the cysts to hatch. Once hatched, remove the airstone and shine a flashlight near the bottom of the container. In about 2-3 minutes the hatched larvae will swim down towards to light and the unatched cysts will remain floating. If you can use airline tubing, this is good to siphon the larvae from the bottom of the container and through a brine shrimp net which is most convienent. Then just take the net and rinse in a small amount of fresh water just for a bit and then feed to your hungry little babies. Normally, if conditions are right you can get several harvests from one setup.