black molly

[dscott14450]

how do i know if my black molly is pregnant or just really fat?

[Countrylovin4evr]

Depends- did you just pick her up from a store? Are you certain its a female? Do you have males in your tank? Has she recently become 'fat'?

[dscott14450]

just now realized that somebody replied. i have had her for a while and it is just her and a male, but she is much fatter than the male.

[ekfishlover2011]

most likely pregnant. I suggest u get at least one more female, males will pester the female to death if its just one female to that male. Minimum ratio is 2:1 females to males. I recently fixed this problem and i never noticed how stressed my litle freckles was until i removed pepper (i had it backwards, 1:2 f:m) and added another female. Shes so much more happy seeming now. Still always pregnant, but my remaining male Jersey is much calmer and not as crazy about assaulting the females as Pepper was.

[dscott14450]

I know I need another female but im waiting for my lfs to get them in stock again.

[ekfishlover2011]

ah. Ok. Just making sure you know. That explained why my female used to always die on me. I never knew that rule before. But yea, she probably pregnant. Dont worry though, they wont overpopulate. They inhale their young like some kind of special treat.

[dscott14450]

im not worried about them over populating. i have them with tetras a couple of smallish angelfish and a blue gourami . in fact i kind of want there to be babies because then i can feed them to my catfish

[ekfishlover2011]

If you want some babies to grow, i suggest getting one of those breeder things that hangs over edge or floats in tank that has like a grate that babies fall thru and mother stays above. Put the fat females in there and once they have a good amount of babies you can take her out and remove grate and babies an get bigger for your catfish in there. I never saw one baby until i got the breeder, then i saw 16 in one shot.

[dscott14450]

i have a net thing that hangs over the side that i use for my endlers but i dont want to put the molly in too early. is there a way to tell when its about to give birth?

[ekfishlover2011]

Its all guesswork that ive noticed. Avg gestation is three days im told, so if you see her not so fat and the male mating with her count three days and then stuff her in and hope she pops in a few hrs. That's only way i can think of.