Pregnant Molly Behaviour

[~Col~]

Can anyone tell me what the normal behaviour is when a pregnant black molly is about to give birth.

I've had mollies for years and years. I've never worried about breeding. If they had fry and they survived...good! (blush) Usually I'd get out of bed in the morning, feed the fish and see some fry, so I've never really noticed what a pregnant females gets up to before giving birth. But now my kids are really looking forward to "their" molly having fry and I keep thinking she's about to drop and nothing happens.

I noticed tonight and last night the two pregnant females were being tapped in the belly by the male (when he wasn't chasing the 3rd female). They were also doing this twitch and flick type of thing, sometimes against rocks or the heater, but not always. Does this mean they're about to start giving birth?

There is no sign of disease or ich in the tank...just in case...

Cheers

[gadget228]

Mine would hang around the bottom and try to hide, never been able to catch them actually having them.

[sebastien]

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[SkipW]

Mine would also hang out on the bottom. She would start moving backwards and twitch a little just as the fry came out. Then she would swim to another spot in the tank. You have to be there at the right time and really be watching for it. I was lucky enough to see it, but the fry are very tiny and can disappear into the substrate. Good thing is that only one or two come out at a time, so it could go on for a while. The fry would find a hiding place along the glass and about a 1/4 inch under the substrate/gravel. After a day or two, they got adventurous and hid in the plants.

[~Col~]

Thanks for that! They're both still twitching and hanging around the bottom, but nothing yet. Gotta be soon! They got that real square belly going which is apparently how they get before they drop fry.

The main reason I want to catch them is because the Angel in the tank will eat them and the kids want to put them in another tank.

[SkipW]

Why not move the mollies to the new tank? I'm guessing the angel will find the fry before you do. Then once the fry are out, put the big ones back into the old tank.

[~Col~]

Just to confuse everyone. :) Sorry, I should have clarified. The new tank is just a small hex, approx 1.5 gal I think, filtered, heated, big enough for fry to grow for a little while but not really big enough for a fully grown molly, well not to move around in anyway. Two big mollies in there wouldn't be good at all.

It's one we have some cherry shrimp and guppy fry in at the moment. I plan on getting a bigger tank shortly, before both the guppy and molly fry start to grow too big. Just have to get it past my husband. (blush)

I do have two guppy breeding traps, those plastic floating ones, but I read somewhere that these can stress the mollies too much and cause a miscarriage. What do you think? Would they be okay without the little insert in them?

[SkipW]

I don't know anything about the breeding traps... I wasn't trying to breed anything, in fact we started out with a 2gal when my son won a fish at the local fair. Moved to a 10 Gal after I found out half of everything I was doing wrong..... all was good until he wanted a dalmation molly to add to his collection of 2 platy's and one silver sailfin molly. Oops! This led to the 36G tank which we still have 7 of the fry (now almost a year old) of which I think 2 are threatening me with more fry.
( I hope they get eaten. )

[sebastien]

I heard also the traps can cause miscarriage..

[~Col~]

Thanks guys, I'll see how it all goes!