# a little help required...



## robyn (May 29, 2006)

I know this question is asked alot, but im having trouble sexing my mollies. i bought 3 new mollies yesterday because my molly has been very lonely (his only companion is a snail).

The pet shop told me 2 were females and 1 was a male but im not 100% convincd. i think all 3 are female and 1 of them looks pregnant. also, when i was leaving, i noticed a stray fry in my bag, which they said i could keep. could any1 tell me from the pic how old he/she is and if i need 2 feed it baby food?









Milton (old Molly)









New Mollies (orange 1 looks pregnant)









Baby Molly


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## robyn (May 29, 2006)

i just went in 2 check on my fish and noticed the orange molly doing sumthin iv neva seen b4. an orange-ish faeces was being released, but it looked kinda softer (if that makes sense) and the other fish were eating it. wots happening?


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

A fish's poop will depend on what they have been eating. Your situation is normal. As far as the 3 mollies and the baby, they all look female to me and the baby looks about 3 weeks old. Hard to tell as there is no size reference in the pic.


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

They are all female. Yes, one is very obviously pregnant, but odds are the other two are as well.

Can the baby fit in the bigger ones mouth? If it can, and you want to raise it, you should put it in its own small tank or in a breeding net or something. Feed it finely crushed flakes, just a little at a time as it doesn't taste good if it's in the water for longer than a minute or two and the fry will ignore it. If you have blackworms or something, it will also eat those finely chopped.

What you describe could have been an aborted fry coming out, but can't say for sure. Fish will often try to eat poop and then realise what it is and spit it out. They aren't very smart sometimes.


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

Your original molly looks female too.


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## robyn (May 29, 2006)

i did notice them trying 2 eat eachothers poop earlier, but that was black. the orange molly looks much thinner now, nut i cnt c any sign of babies at all. if they are pregnant, how soon can i expect babies?
the baby molly is about double the size of their mouths, i think.


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## leafgirl115 (Mar 26, 2006)

Then you baby molly should be fine Can it get sucked up your filter?

Mollies have fry every 30 days. They can store sperm for up to 6 months. So you will have more fry


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

Livebearers CAN have fry every 30 days if they feel comfortable and unthreatened. They will try to hold their fry if they dont feel its safe to release.


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## robyn (May 29, 2006)

i think the baby should be fine. the filter isnt very strong and he usually swims on the other side of the tank. can any1 post a pic of a male molly, so i can c the difference?


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

The anal fin will look like a spur, instead of a fin.

I heard moving livebearers during their final stage of pregnancy can stress them to the point where they "absorb" the fry (or abort them somehow). So this might have been what happened to your female.


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## robyn (May 29, 2006)

mayb,cos she's definitely thinner than when i took the pics. it makes sense, anyhow


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## arcenciel (Jul 17, 2006)

The dalmatian one looks male to me, the rest look female.

Also the baby looks like a guppy... Not a molly. lol


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

How can you tell at that early stage? Looks the same as my platy fry (maybe a bit more elongated). They didn't start looking like platys until a couple of weeks.


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## doggydad38 (Jan 18, 2005)

All of your mollies, including the original one are females. The fry you got looks like a Guppy fry. If there were any males in the tank at the petshop, you can guarantee that they are pregnant.
Tony


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## robyn (May 29, 2006)

another thing that iv been wondering about is inbreeding. with my rabbits, if we ever buy new 1's, we buy them from diff shops (if we buying more than 1) and we ensure they hav diff markings 2 the 1's we hav. this is 2 prevent inbreeding. but with my fish, if the baby ends up a male molly? (lol) is it not possible he is 1 of their fry and then he may breed with them?


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

I've heard with regards to bettas you can breed brothers and sisters, it's actually recommended to make a new line, but with livebearers it can lead to more deformed/smaller fry. I wouldn't have thought it was a problem, fish aren't humans after all and lots of animals interbreed, but I'm certainly no expert. I plan to separate males and females when I can sex my platy fry. I'm guessing right now the smaller fry (there seem to be two sizes, rather than a big range) are going to be males.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Inbreeding among mollies is the very reason that mollies come in so many colors & styles. It's fine, and not a problem at all.
Your original silver one might possibly be a male with an annoying trait which makes his anal fin a fin instead of a gonopodium. Highfins & lyretails often get that trait, which is why they can't be linebred normally. The new ones are all certainly females.
The baby one could be anything. It's a livebearer, sure, but which one is anybody's guess at this point. Non-black mollies don't have black fry, so it could certainly be a baby molly of another color like the ones you have. Molly fry are much bigger than the fry of moany other livebearers, so after a week or two of feeding it flakefood crushed nto tiny bits it should be safe to put it back in with the adults. Molly fry, and adults, should also be supplementally fed with some greenstuff on top of their flakes.


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## robyn (May 29, 2006)

great, thnx.


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## robyn (May 29, 2006)

yet another 2 questions: 

1)everytime the orange molly swims by the black molly, the black molly's dorsal fin goes flat along her body, kinda like when my puppy cowers when she's being submissive. could this be because the other female is dominant and its the balck mollies way of showing that she is below the orange mollie?

2) i read sumwere mollies should get fed vegetables and a large amount of lettuce is good 4 them? is this true and how do i go about feeeding lettuce 2 them?


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

I think mollys and platys need some vegetable matter. Some chopped up blanched lettuce should be good, I think the green variety is better than some iceberg. I give mine small pieces of cooked inner pea.


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## robyn (May 29, 2006)

how small must the peices b? about the same size as their flake food or smaller?


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## corykid225 (Oct 23, 2006)

The fry is not a molly it is a guppy. I can tell because most baby guppys are more clear when young.


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## robyn (May 29, 2006)

corykid225 said:


> The fry is not a molly it is a guppy. I can tell because most baby guppys are more clear when young.


thank coryK, i recently found this out after posting a thread asking when he will get colours. his tail is growing and i can now see he is a guppy


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## corykid225 (Oct 23, 2006)

no problem


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