# male ballon mollies problems



## chrisinha (Jan 24, 2005)

i have 6 balloon mollies - 2 males and 4 females. lately one of the males has been very aggressive towards the other, keeping him away from the group! a couple of minutes ago i saw him chasing the poor guy and, well, chewing his gonopodium!!!  

is there anything i can do to minimize this problem?


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## nosilver4u (Jan 23, 2005)

well, if they are anything like regular mollies, then it is completely normal. I have 3 male mollies without any females, and they harrass each other constantly. Probably the best thing for the underdog is exactly what he already has: females to distract the other male. Some things you might try to make them less aggressive include-raising the water temp, and feeding a little more. Unless you can see that he's actually been hurt, i wouldn't worry too much about it.


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## swimmers (Jan 18, 2005)

Hey Chrisinha, did you solve the Balloon Bully problem?


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## chrisinha (Jan 24, 2005)

well, i guess yeah... i introduced him to 5 beautiful gals! i hope he's happy now!


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## swimmers (Jan 18, 2005)

So you added one more female? I've had that problem w/ my platies too. No Balloon babies here & she doesn't seem to be sitting on the bottom much any more - much more active. she still looks pregnant though. Platy in with her is about to burst - maybe if one drops the other one will!


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## chrisinha (Jan 24, 2005)

no, i added five!!! lol
i couldnt resist it! they were too gorgeous!

maybe your molly is not pregnant after all? i could swear my molly was pregnant a month and a 1/2 ago. she looked like she was about to burst, and then.. nothing! i know, it's pretty frustrating. let me know if something changes. at least she's not sick! :fun:


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## swimmers (Jan 18, 2005)

Wow, 11 balloons in a tank - must be pretty cute with them all bobbing around. Are they all doing well? You could be right about mine, although she has a gravid spot that I can see but no change in her yet. Hungry & bossy with the platys. Did you get the same colors with the new ones?


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## chrisinha (Jan 24, 2005)

aww they are doing just fine!! so cute!! my intention was to get only 4 more, but when i got to the LFS i saw this other one that had just ONE eye, so i bought her as well. she's funny. sometimes she bumps into the other balloons, or plants. porr thing. but she's fine. i always make sure she eats. i got a REAL black one this time and i think she had 3 fry, because when i came back from las vegas on sunday night i found 3 little black babies with the guppies' fry. i moved all of them (plus the male guppies - i need to control natality here!! lol)  to a 10 gallon tank, where my betta is. i hope he doesnt eat them!!


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## Lexus (Jan 19, 2005)

yea :!: :fun: that would be cool to see 11 balloon mollies bobbing around!


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## chrisinha (Jan 24, 2005)

swimmers @ Mon Feb 07 said:


> Did you get the same colors with the new ones?


sorry, i had not noticed this part of your post before...

no, i got different colors:

1 black
1 dark dalmation
1 light dalmation (it's the one that has one eye)
1 silver
1 greenish/grayish lyretail (she's really different!)

they are all females! cuuuute!! all fat!! awww, i love them!! 

ps.: what's "bobbing around"?


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## Lexus (Jan 19, 2005)

we say bobbing cause balloon mollies dont really swim they looking like they are bobbing lol


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## chrisinha (Jan 24, 2005)

i see... lol :mrgreen: 

im going to take some pictures to post later!! :fun:


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## swimmers (Jan 18, 2005)

Cool Chrisinha, I can hardly wait for the pics of the new ones! My platy in with my balloon had babies, I've caught 3 & have them in the breeding net, maybe it will encourage my balloon to drop hers. How big were the 3 black fry you found? The platy babies are about the size of a pinhead. Congrats on the new ones. Oh, btw I had a platy that only had one eye & he did fine- was a little bully & fathered several batches of fry. That's cool you saved her!


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## chrisinha (Jan 24, 2005)

omg, the balloon babies are very tiny, but bigger than the guppies' ones. they are about 1 cm. you probably dont measure things in centimeters. i'll see if i convert it into inches for you later, ok?

now, let's go to the pictures!
they are not wonderful, but you can have an idea. first, one of the dalmation










here you can see a bunch of them bobbing around together










now, on this one you can see on your left hand side, the dalmation and behind it, the white/silver one. then, moving to the right you see the lyretail one and the one that has one eye, below the lyretail one, facing the camera. if you look even more to the right, there's the black one with the males (2), and finally on the top of the right hand corner, my other (older) blackish one.


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## chrisinha (Jan 24, 2005)

some close ups!

the lyretail:










the dalmation










the lyretail and the silver










the one eyed










her other side (you can see her eye in this one)










the black


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## swimmers (Jan 18, 2005)

Oh those are just too cute! That's cool seeing that many together. The one-eyed one looks very fat - maybe ready to drop some fry soon? I like the dalmation one too, very neat markings. Now I really want to get some more. I'm quite envious Chrisinha!!!  I figured the fry would be really small. Every chance I get I've got my nose pressed against the glass looking for babies here!


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## chrisinha (Jan 24, 2005)

swimmers,

i took some pictures of the molly fry (at least that's what i think they are) for you to see them.

there you go. note that there's one guppy fry with them. the molly's are black.


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## Lexus (Jan 19, 2005)

OMG CUTE!!!!! :wink: I must say molly fry are the most adorable! :fun:


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## swimmers (Jan 18, 2005)

Thanks Chrisinha, very good pics of them. Have you seen any more? They show up much more being black where my platy babies that are lighter colored take a while for the fins & tails to show up well. My balloon is about the same, hungry, bossy & quite fat & I can see her gravid spot. End of October was when there was a male with her so she sure is taking her time. Do all your new females look pregnant? The 2 males must be having the time of their lives with 9 girls to chose from! :lol:


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## chrisinha (Jan 24, 2005)

i hope they (the males) are happy. i was very concerned about one of the males because he was being left out of the group all the time. Besides, i even thought he could have dropsy; the scales on his tummy were sticking out a bit. But now he looks normal again! thank god!

i did find another microscopic fry, but i think it's of one of the guppies. there were 3 blacks, but i guess the betta ate one. so, i put them back in my community tank. Yeah, all my balloons look like they're pregnant! i dont even get excited about it anymore, you know?

Thank you both for the compliments! 

ps.: i forgot to ask... what is a gravid spot? how do i see it? do you have any pictures? (sometimes english descriptions dont work for me  )


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## chrisinha (Jan 24, 2005)

btw, when i got back home from school today, i could not find one of the black fry (ies), so i decided to look for it in the filter and there he was!!! luckily, he was still alive!!


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## swimmers (Jan 18, 2005)

The gravid spot is at the back bottom of the belly. As the female gets farther along, the babies hatch out inside her& start developing & the dark spot you see are the babies & their eyes developing. As she get nearer the time to drop the fry, it can get very dark & quite large. I have a pale yellow platy due any time & her gravid spot is very red w/ black dots you can see that are the babies eyes. Pretty amazing isn't it? That's cool you found the fry OK in the filter too!


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