A Little Help with Freshwater Babies

I thought I would ask this here to see if I can help my daughter out a bit.

I do not really know much about freshwater, nor do I really want to. I can do saltwater with no problems, fish, SPS, LPS, etc...but freshwater is not my thing!

She is 5 years old and has a 5 gallon freshwater tank(that I maintain of course), well yesterday we picked up a new fish for her b/c while we were away one of hers died. So we bought a mickey mouse fish and she now has that and a tetra in the tank. Well here is what I need some help with...

When I emptied the bag into a bowl before putting the fish in, I noticed there were about 5 baby fish and 1 egg in the bowl. She wanted to keep them in the 5 gallon tank of course, but I put them in a small 1 gallon tank for now. They are still alive today, but I have no clue what to do with them.

How do you feed them? What do they need? We kinda prepared her already for the worst, but I want to see if its possible to keep them alive for her.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much....and if this post needs to be moved anywhere I'm sorry!

 

how big are the babies?
back when I was breeding fancy guppies we fed masqito larve for a few days to a week till they were big enough to eat newly hatched brine shrimp.

good luck

 

they are pretty small....like 1/4''

I saw some food "first bites" by Hikari online at petland....I am thinking of picking up a package of it.

 

Good idea, in the mean time just grind what you feed the adults between your fingers to make a powder for the babies.

 

Baby brine shrimp and they make baby fish food as well. They are pellets about the size of a grain of sand.

 

For my Platty babies (which is what your Micky Mouse fish are) I just pulverized shrimp pellets and a shrimp/spirulina pellet into a powder and feed.

I have 85 of the little guys in two fish bowls (a 1gal & a 2gal) with some plants (live ones) and so far so good. They do need to get into a bigger bowl or tank soon though to grow out.

Also the egg may just be a premature fry since Platties are live bearers & may have the young prematurely if stressed (like in being caught & moved).

 

i use to have mollies, the release like 100 babies like every 2-3 months lol. I decided since it was a 20 gallon tank it would be a survival of the fittest kind of thing. because the other fish and the parents will actually go after and eat the baby fish. the ones that usually make it are the ones that hide good. I would feed them crushed flake that was like powder. gl with the babies

 

Thanks for the input everyone....I am grinding up the flake into a powder for now and they seem to be eating....

We'll see what happens!!!

Not my cup of tea but...Anything to make the daughter happy....