Just before Christmas my son and I collected 4 warmouths and 2 Gambusia in a stream near our house. Since then they have been kept in two aquariums. The largest aquarium contains the largest two warmouths. The other two are in a smaller tank until I can get them to accept pellets and get large enough to put in the large tank.
Also inside the large tank is a breeding tank that had the two Gambusia in it. The smaller of the 2 Gambusia escaped about a week after I collected them and was quickly eaten. I was keeping the other Gambusia in hopes of collecting some more to breed in the smaller aqurium.
Well today I went to feed it and was shocked to find 2 fry in the breeding tank! Fortunatly I had stuck some small pieces of hornwart in the breeding tank - it looked like the mother was trying to eat them. I had no idea she was pregnant. Since I wasn't expecting the fry I havn't looked to see how to care for them. I have allready seperated them from the mother. What next?

What do I feed them. I put a couple freeze dried blood worms in there and they are pecking at them but the fry arn't much bigger than the bloodworms.

How long is the gestation period?

Thanks

Don

Gambusia can have a new batch of young about once a month but they also can delay the birth of their young for long periods. I'm no expert on exactly how they do this, someone else may be able to explain better. The adults are notorious for eating their young very quickly and they can have batches of 30 or more young at once so she probably had more but ate them. The young should be able to eat flake or small pieces of other foods including chopped up blood worms right after birth.