View Full Version : breeding mollies
08dwright
09-16-2007, 01:31 AM
i just recently bought 3 black mollies and 3 dalmation mollies. two of each are female and 1 of each is male. i heard that they are easy to brred and had a few quesitons. how soon after i get them will they breed in a community tank? also, is it possible to mate a dalmation with a black molly? are the fry easy to take care of or do they need help? and lastly, do i need to take them out of my tank in order for them to survive once they are born? thanks for all your help
Algenco
09-16-2007, 01:58 AM
The females are probably pregnant already. Color makes no difference, the will breed. No special care is needed in raising the fry. If you have some floating cover some will survive, you really don't want all the fry to survive, you would quickly be overran with mollies.
08dwright
09-19-2007, 12:26 AM
what do you mean by floating cover? are plastic plants okay or do i have to get something differnet. i also have a pirate ship with holes and well as a cave. do i need to buy something else?
You can use plastic plants as floating cover, just let some of them randomly float around the top of the tank.
Algenco
09-19-2007, 12:55 AM
livebearer fry try to hide near the surface, if your really want to save them they need something near the surface for them to hide in. I think the plastic "breeding grass" floats, the best thing is Naja grass aka guppy grass
http://www.plantgeek.net/plantguide_viewer.php?id=174
Very prolific, easy to grow
just to add on..the fry do like to hide near the surface but they aslo hide near the bottom. Putting in some java moss if you can find it or some grassy type plants will also help(they dont have to be live) . It helped some of my fry survive.
nanaglen2001
09-19-2007, 12:45 PM
I advice "Riccia fluitans", and let that stuff just drift arround in your tank. It stays at the surface, and gives great cover for every Lifebearer fry.
*Sarah*
09-19-2007, 01:26 PM
You could do that, or you could get a breeder basket to put the fat momma in. Then she will give birth to the fry, and they will fall to the bottom so they can't get eaten.
What I did is I have a 40g with all the parents and a 10g to raise the fry in. That way they have a better chance of survival. I trade the partly grown babies in for store credit at my lfs.
KINGMED
09-21-2007, 06:40 PM
i just recently bought 3 black mollies and 3 dalmation mollies. two of each are female and 1 of each is male. i heard that they are easy to brred and had a few quesitons. how soon after i get them will they breed in a community tank? also, is it possible to mate a dalmation with a black molly? are the fry easy to take care of or do they need help? and lastly, do i need to take them out of my tank in order for them to survive once they are born? thanks for all your helpMy experience is that mollies will breed almost all the time, it shouldn't take no time at all before the male is chasing the females around. Dalmation mollies are a mix of black mollies and probably gold or silver mollies so I'm pretty certain that they will have no problem having young together. For fry it's best to place the mother in either a breeding net attached to the inside of the tank or place her in a 5 or 10 gallon tank with plenty of cover cause she will eat or try to eat her young alot of the time. And yes they are easy to take care of, I used to just take some good quality fish food and put in a sandwich bag, put on the counter top and roll a rolling pin over it to make power, don't need much but it will work for feeding young. The young should if you want to keep alot of them should be put into a 5 or 10 gallon cycled tank of their own, if you want just a few you might be able to get away with providing plenty of cover in the parents tank and hoping that some survive which is like playing russian roulette. Livebearers are some of the easiest fish to raise that I've found. Good luck with your fish.
08dwright
09-30-2007, 04:40 PM
well she had babies. i woke up to 12 of them. i moved them into a 1 gallon little bowl for now and am feeding them the Hikari Tropical First Bites. its like a powder food. i was wondering how much i should feed them bc the bag say as much as possible but i dont trust that. do i need to do anything except feed them? should i put them back in the tank in a lil while?
The bowl would need to be heated and filtered for long-term rearing of the fry. I feed my fry finely crushed flake food. No problems.
08dwright
10-02-2007, 02:28 AM
im only keeping them for a little while and then im going to sell them to my lfs. he said to wait a little while, do you know how old they want the fish to be before they buy them? and if i were to get a 2.5 gallon, does that need to be filtered and heated for them?
You are raising tropical fish. Tropical fish need heat. A small water volume, unless you do daily or every other day large water changes, which would in turn be quite stressful for the fry, needs filtration. I would guess that the fish will need to be at least a few months old before they will take them.
08dwright
10-04-2007, 12:54 AM
big problem, they have been with me for about a week now and i have them in a breeder in my main tank now since it looked like they were gettin sick in the small bowl. they all have this long, long, long piece of something coming out of them. at first i thought it was just poop but it has been there for almost a whole day now and they all have it at the same time. what could it be and how can i fix it, or is it too late for them bc they are still young?
08dwright
10-05-2007, 04:10 PM
another thing. one of my mollies was very very pregnant when i went to work yesterday and when i came home she was very skinny but there were no fry in the tank. when i woke up this morning there was one swimming my my bredder with the other babies in it. is it possible that she only had one baby or do you think the other fish ate all of the babies while i was at work?
big problem, they have been with me for about a week now and i have them in a breeder in my main tank now since it looked like they were gettin sick in the small bowl. they all have this long, long, long piece of something coming out of them. at first i thought it was just poop but it has been there for almost a whole day now and they all have it at the same time. what could it be and how can i fix it, or is it too late for them bc they are still young?
It probably is just poop... it might be worms, but I find that most livebearers are waste machines...
In response to your next question, they were probably eaten. Some may be hiding in the gravel or plants though.
Powered by vBulletin® Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.