Mollies and fry

1326 Views 11 Replies 6 Participants Last post by mistergreen, Jun 26, 2014

silva_unt

Discussion Starter · Mar 20, 2014

Hello! Excited because I have molly babies in the tank! Bought 6 mollies on Friday, 3 black and 3 gold dust. Unfortunately one of the gold dust mollies died a couple days later. The rest seem to be doing fine. 1 Black Molly male and the rest female.

Yesterday I counted 4 babies among the water sprite plants at the surface, a couple hiding among the roots that shoot back out from the sand. Really wishing i hadn't trimmed these unsightly roots since they are good baby hiding spots.

This morning I only counted 3. Possibly the fourth hiding or didn't survive...

Being in the community tank with minnows, mollies, and cories, do you think these babies have a chance? I have lots of water sprite. How fast do they grow? When are they safe and no longer have to hide? and finally, how often do Mollies have babies?

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drewsuf82

· #2 · Mar 20, 2014

I've had mollies off and on through my life and have had them in heavily planted and lightly planted tanks.

The fry will do much better with a heavily planted tank since there's so many places for them to hide out. I've found that usually out of a "litter" I'll have either a small amount survive (2-3) or a large amount (10+) it totally depends on the fry and if they're "smart" enough to hide.

For survival it's if it fits in a fish mouth, it'll be swallowed by the fish mouth

I've found though usually 3-4 weeks the younglings will start getting brave and coming out

Mollies are like guppies in respect to breeding, they are live bearers and will have the male chasing the female as soon as she's done giving birth, watch them they will square out when they get close (the female) and may (depending on the darkness of the particular fish) show a gravid (dark) spot prior to giving birth.

They're very cool fish and if taken care of can easily live for a few years (I had a few make it to 4 when I was younger) and they are pretty easy to get along with as for parameters.

Hope that helped

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silva_unt

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 20, 2014

Thanks drewsuf82, that was helpful

I guess she had more than just the four babies, but these are so far the only survivors? 1 seems like a good hider, the others i see in plain view sometimes!

I don't think i will be able to see the gravid spot since they are black, even the gold dust are black in this area. I believe it was the gold dust molly who gave birth though, since she was the roundest the other day and has slimmed down since yesterday

... the fry are all black though. Do they get color later or is this their color?

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drewsuf82

· #4 · Mar 20, 2014

It's all genetics, coloration is really hard to tell when they are fry, but as they get older you'll be able to see the colors.

When the female is younger she will have a smaller batch of babies, the older the get the more babies they have at a time. Most of the time none of the first batch or few batches will survive.

If you ever see one giving birth it's a special treat. The baby drops from the mother and then as it's sinking it'll start wiggling and swim off. I've only seen it happen twice but it's so awesome when it does.

Make sure that when you feed you take a small portion of it and really grind it up with your fingers so the babies can start eating after they've used the remainder of their egg sack (usually 2-4 days) -- Just be careful to not overfeed and foul your water

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silva_unt

Discussion Starter · #5 · Mar 20, 2014

I have Hikari first bites that i dusted over the water sprite, hopefully this came in handy for the little guys. I'll try grinding the flakes though as the first bites may be expired, the little bag has a seal.

I hope to see one of the mollies give birth, that would be exciting. I've only seen it in youtube videos :tongue:

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rcs0926

· #6 · Mar 20, 2014

Seeing your first batch or two of livebearer fry is always exciting. I remember saving the first couple of batches because I was afraid they'd get eaten. I now have 20+ guppies of all different ages after starting off with only a handful of adults. I don't even bother trying to save fry anymore because they are in no danger of being eaten in my tank. I wish this wasn't the case because I currently have no method of population control despite having several adult guppies, a small school of neons, a male molly and a honey gourami. None of them have any interest in snacking on guppy fry. I used to have a GBR that I think would eat some fry although I never saw him catch any. I also had ghost shrimp that I'm pretty sure would snag a fry or two if they were able to when the lights went out. Unfortunately, I don't have my GBR or ghost shrimp anymore. I'm hoping to get more of both eventually once I thin out my guppy population.

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Kat12

· #7 · Mar 20, 2014

They are born with their coloration

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drewsuf82

· #8 · Mar 20, 2014

Kat12 said:
They are born with their coloration

Maybe it's my bad eyes but I can't tell until they're bigger xD

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silva_unt

Discussion Starter · #9 · Mar 21, 2014

Well so far all three fry look solid black. Even though I believe the gold dust molly gave birth. I have a black molly who looks like she will be next to have some babies

I have a friend with a 30 gallon and plan on giving her some fish if I can raise mine to a healthy age. She has tiger barbs, dojo loaches, and blind cave tetras. She has one lonely swordtail platy who needs friends. I'll wait until the babies have grown to a good size though.

Yesterday, i did find the 4th fry, but it wasn't looking to good. Resting on the sand and swimming a little erratically. 3 appear healthy and swimming at the surface among the water sprite.

The mollies seem to produce a lot of waste! More than i'm use to. When i bought them on Friday, i did a water change on Monday...and feel ready to do another one! My tank is 30g long with an AC50. I'll most likely do a water change tomorrow morning. I usually do 3gallons. Does this sound ok? I use to do this only once a week but with the corys sifting through the waste i feel i need to step this up.

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Neatfish

· #10 · Mar 21, 2014

Pretty cool my guppies just had fry too.

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silva_unt

Discussion Starter · #11 · Jun 25, 2014

Update!

Just wanted to update....that the mollies had babies like CRAZY!!!! I have too many babies!!!! No babies were eaten by other fish, and the more there were, the more they were confident to swim wherever they pleased...no hiding necessary! LOL

So, My tank was not handling the waste load very well, even got a sick cory. I treated the tank and gave my friend all the grown up mollies and some bigger babies. She has a bigger filter and bigger fish.

I still have lots of babies and may keep some of the females, but the rest will be given to her or LFS when they are big enough. :tongue:

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mistergreen

· #12 · Jun 26, 2014

I have endler hybrids. The moms pop one out every week since they're smaller than a guppy or molly.

They all come out with no color I believe probably an adaptive trait so they don't stand out to predators although that goes out the window when selective bred by man.

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