Pregnant Mollie... How long? How many?

C

Caesar77

Caesar is our cat
Dec 26, 2005
38
0
0
47
Wester NY
When I was away my platinum mollie had a fry. When I got back there were only 4 left (I just bought her and didn't know she was pregnant). Now she is pregnant again.

- how can I be sure she is pregnant
- how long is an average pregnancy
- from how many to how many fry can I expect (I know it can very a lot)


Any other info would be greatly appreciated
 
Your molly will develope a really big belly and she will sort of square off in the front. When she is getting ready to give birth she will tend to stay towards the bottem, your mollie should have fry depending on her age every twenty eight days to even as long as thirty eight days. Beware she will eat her young as will the other fish so I recommend a fry net. You can buy them at any pet store and even most walmarts. they are usually very inexpencive. Then you should feed them food called fry food for optium growth. Even with no male in the tank your female can continue to have fry for up to six months due to eggs that have been previousely fertilized. I find in my tanks that I will remove the males during or soon after she gives birth to give my female a break, the males will continue to breed her right after birth and have had on occassion, males kill a tired mamma.Your mamma could have as little as 1 fry to 200 depending on her age. It will vary alot, I had one give birth to 197 babies and her sister of the same age only have eight two days later. Good Luck, raising fry is a lot of fun!!!
 
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I have one male marble molly, one marble female, and one black female. The marble had fry like a week ago, I counted about 25. I've never actually witnessed a live birth, the babies just always appear in the morning when I turn on the light, so I really have no idea how many they ate before I counted. Most I ever counted was like 40.

I'm still pretty new with mollies, only having had about 7 or 8 batches born... none have survived. I don't have a breeding net, but I have 5 plants in the gravel, and two floating. Still, they've all gotten eaten. One black baby survived for approximately one month, but then was gone.

Originally we decided not to get a net, thinking we'd get maybe one or two per batch making it, and not wanting to end up with an insane amount of fish within a few months time. Now we're considering getting a net just to be able to see a few grow to adults. It's always sad when the last baby is nowhere to be found.

A few things that I've noticed about my preggo mollies... It seems like they go WAY longer than the 28 day period... sometimes it seems like 2 or 3 months or so. I also can't seem to get my marble male to get friendly with my black female. (The Marble male actually to ME looks more like a platy, but whatever. Petco, so who *really* knows.)

The main thing that I've noticed about my female mollies (that I haven't seen posted) is that when she's got her "I'm-so-pregnant-I'm-about-to-pop" look going on, she'll start getting much more aggressive towards the other fish, especially the other mollies. She'll chase them around, nip them, etc. WAY more than normal, and especially at feeding times. That's usually how I can tell it'll be any day that she'll drop the babies. (With the black mollies, looking for that little black gravid spot just isn't gonna happen.)

Anyway, enough rambling... just thought I'd offer that tidbit up, wondering if anybody else noticed the same thing, and if this is just a molly thing, or a general fish thing. I know I'D be pretty uhhh... not nice, if I were THAT pregnant having to constantly smack away some guy that wouldn't leave me alone.



Just so you have my specs (that seems to be a pet peeve around here ;) )
10 gal, about 10 month old tank.
all normal pH and nitrate levels (have actually never gotten an "off" reading)
3 mollies, 2 cory cats, 1 pleco that I really want gone (talk about poop-machine)
and a betta.
My plants are plastic, my filter is "Regent" using Penguin carbon filters, and usually my tank temp sits around 78-79.
 
we had our first fry on Superbowl Sunday and their really big now, we had them in a net until 3 days ago, when we interduced them back with the other fish, 2 dalmation mollies (1 male, 1 female) and 2 red wag playts (1 male, 1 female) the platys had babies so we put them in the breeder net with the mollies. but the mollies have grown like crazy, so we let them back with the big boys and no problems so far. the molly looks very pregnant again, and the platy fry are about a week old. we had 25 platy fry and 11 molly fry, but i know of at least 4 more that made lunch for the big fishies.
 
I have 2 molly-pregnants now. One is very much pregnant with a fat-square tummy and the other is just a bit fat. This was the first time I bred mollies and am eagerly waiting for the fry to pop out.

I had even posted a question in the newbee forum about the 'net' thing . Some
showed me green signals but some did'nt recomend it. So i have taken a decision-
I release my preg-mollly tazmin, for about 3 hours from the net, rest of the time
it is in the net. Anyways My fingers are crossed and I cant wait to have fries!
:);):)
 
Just don't forget how many little baby fisht you'll end up with!! Those mollies are worse than rabbits, and if you're netting them all, oooooooooo... LOTS of babies!! (which of course then become adults, which then have their own babies, and so on, until every sink, potty, and bathtub in your house have to be used to hold all them little fellas.

Best of luck! ;) Mollies are big fun!
 
that's fine with me, my LFS sells these mollies for 4 bucks a pop and said that if mine are healthy, they will buy them back for 1/2 of what they sell them for. mine so far, are crazy healthy, fat, huge, active. very cool. they are all white with black spots, they look like little cows :)
 
Ahhhh... the joys of having a LFS worth a darn. I wouldn't know. I get PetSmart and Petco, neither of which will accept ANY fish that they didn't purchase from their breeder. So not only can I not sell my mollies (which, duh, I'd buy a net in that case) but I can't even hand over to them the pleco, that they sold me months ago, telling me "it'll only grow to fit your tank." Ummm, yeah. That would be another thread though.
 
the fry amount is usually an average of 30. the time from the mating to the drop can be anywhere from 30-80 days, depending on how much fin modification is in the species. A ballon lyre-tail hi-fin longfined molly would take quit some time
 
fish_breeder_05 said:
the fry amount is usually an average of 30. the time from the mating to the drop can be anywhere from 30-80 days, depending on how much fin modification is in the species. A ballon lyre-tail hi-fin longfined molly would take quit some time
Click to expand...
Can you elaborate on the "fin modification" comment? I'm curious as to how that relates to the term.

I have 3 Cremecicle mollies now. The female is showing signs of pregnancy. The fry tank (7.5G) is ready to roll. This is my first attempt (if you can call it that).
 
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