Aggressive Mollies

raymondevil

raymondevil

Still Learning...
Apr 3, 2005
53
0
0
45
Malaysia
I thought mollies are supposed to be peaceful fishes? I've been keeping mollies for months since its still a fry. From 20 fries to 14 now. 6 dead because killed by own species.

Seriously I have no clue how to deal with them now. Looks like all of them keep chasing each other away and threatening each other. This morning a molly just died and found alot of red bruises on its body. I've seperated the females from the males as I found out male mollies are very threatening to the females. But still they can't stop tailing each other. What's wrong with them? Are they being too horny till become aggressive? It's really sad to find out 1 molly die each day... please help...
 
I have owned mollies for only about 4 months..but i started with 8..i actually had 5 boys and 3 girls..which was a mistake..you are supposed to have 3 girls to every guy or else the males get aggressive!

However, mine did fine! I have 245 Fry or so..and they don't fight at all...the WORST would be if you are keeping the fry with the adults!

The adult mollie's will FOR SURE eat the fry!! Make sure you get a tank divider or seperate the babies into a seperate tank if that's the problem..

Just curious..what type/kind of mollies are we talking about?

Best of Luck! :)
 
i'm not sure if it's still called fries coz it's still small compared to the adults one. it's been 3 months keeping the fries with the adult molly. so, i would say i have 1 mom and 1 dad and the rest 12 are their kids.

through my observation, the dad don't seems to chase them around but the kids do. look at my display, that's the dad.
 
The reason your mollies are fighting is simple, too many males, too small a tank, your sig says you have a 10g tank with 14 mollies in, basically there stressing each other cos there too cramed into a small space, also seperatinmg males and females is pointless the males will still fight as they want to be around the girls not loads of other males, ideally in a tank your supposed to have 3 females to every 1 male, and since mollies usually get to about 3 inches roughly 14 of them and tetra and cories etc etc all in that tank is way overstocked.

The upshot is you need more space, more girls, and more hiding places perhaps too. Hmmm sounds just like real life when I put it like that heheheh.
 
Im having the same problem, I had 2 black mollies in my 3ft tank but yesterday went out and bought another 2 sailfin mollies, since I introduced them the 2 sailfins appeared to be mating, with the anal fin of one of them swingin 90 degrees out to the side and rubbing alongside the other one. However then the 2 black mollies, who up to this point had got on fine, started going round in circles and appeared to be biting each others tail fins (also on of the mollies which was silvery grey has gone almost 80% black-is this a mating ritual?). Not knowing what any of the fish are how do I tell, and are they fighting or mating? This morning one of the black mollies was doing this spinning tail-eating dance with the sailfin???!!! whats going on?
Any help would be grand.
 
Well all types of Mollies can mate together. So, it isn't unusual for the black molly to be interested in the sail fins. Do you know the sex of all the Mollies?
 
no idea, forgot to ask the shop I got them from, and cant seem to find anywhere on www that tells me how to sex them!
 
Well female Mollies are often (not always) rounder than males. However, the anal fin is the simplest way to tell. The females fin is rounded and looks like a normal fin, the males have a long skinny tube-like fin. Now livebearers can change sex which makes things more complicated.

Anyway, males can be aggressive if there are not enough females around. I have hear that there should be a 1-2 or 1-3 male to female ratio. If you have all or mostly males you might be able to solve the problem by getting them some girl friends. This will likely result in breading, but if you don't want babies just don't do anything and the parents, plus other fish in the tank will eat all or most of the babies.
 
Are all of your mollies balloon mollies like your avatar? If so have you had any problems with them dieing during birth or anything? I'm considering breeding them.
 
thanks for your advice. looks like I have 3 males and one female!! yikes. They seem to have stopped hassling or mating each other now so fingers crossed!!
 
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