Saving Livebearers' Fry the Natural Way
by Bob Berdoulay
From Gravel Gossip, Diamond State Aquarium Society, Delaware City
Aquarticles
Need a place for all those baby livebearers to hide? Instead of using
breeding traps I load the tank with a variety of plants that enable the fry to avoid being
food for mom and dad. A combination of bottom plants and floating plants gives the babies
places to hang out until they are big enough to not be considered food by the parents.
A few of the most common floating plants are riccia (Riccia fluitans), duckweed (Lemna
minor) and the fine leaved (a misnomer since this is a fern, this term should be
fronds) water sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides). The first two are found
worldwide, while water sprite is to be found in the tropics. All of these plants are easy
to maintain. They seem to do best in water that is slightly acidic (pH 6.8), temperatures
of 75-80° F, and like the water soft. The lighting requirements are modest since they do
not need a lot of light. The riccia and water sprite are members of the fern group and
will grow best if not under constant agitation. Duckweed likewise prefers quiet waters and
will grow rapidly.
The water sprite produces long trailing roots along with wide-spreading fronds that will
provide your fry with places to hide. This plant grows rapidly and sends out daughter
plantlets on its fronds. Your tank surface can become quite overgrown in a short period of
time and pruning will be necessary. The riccia is also a fern and grows in a tangled mass
at the surface, thus also providing shelter for the fry. The shading that is produced
lowers the amount of light reaching the substrate of the tank; therefore you need to think
about shade tolerant plants for the bottom plantings. Three choices come to mind. The
water sprite can be planted in the substrate and will grow in an upright position. Java
fern (Microsorium pteropus), and/or Java moss (Vesicularia dubyana),
both from Southeast Asia, can be used in the tank by attaching them to rocks or wood. I
use Java moss in large clumps lying loose on the bottom of a bare tank. This provides
adequate shelter for fry on the bottom with the water sprite doing the same at the
surface.
A major drawback to using these floating plants is their rapid growth and thus covering
the entire surface of the water. This makes it difficult to feed your fish as they find it
hard to locate the flakes among the plants, or the flakes land on top of the plants and
rot. It is necessary to keep some area of the surface clear of plants. I read about a
solution to the problem years ago, but I can’t remember where (that’s age!). It
is fairly simple and will control the plants, especially the duckweed. This device is the
"plant barrier." The barrier is anything that will contain the plants and
prevent them from spreading over the entire surface of the tank. I believe the original
device I read about was made of soda straws, bent, and connected end to end in various
shapes and used to surround the plants. The problem was that the straws would eventually
fill with water and sink, thus freeing the plants. I made my barrier from airline tubing
and connected the ends with small pieces of hard plastic tubing. The only shape I formed
was a ring but it worked and never sank.
Try this natural way to provide hiding places for fry, I have found that I usually wind up
with plenty of young without having the trauma of moving the females in and out of
breeding traps.
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