Selectively breeding Sailfin Mollies.

[Bryana]

We have a three tank system for our Mollies. Tank A has all of our breeders in it, tank B has tiny babies we fish out from tank A, then tank C has the medium sized juvis we grow up to sell off or put back into the breeding program. We are on our 5th generation of 'pearly' whites. We have been selecting for fin and overall body size. I would love to take this to another level and set up a few pairs with different color strains. I know this is quite common in Guppies but haven't found much information(or evidence really) on breeding Sailfins in a similar matter.

Has anyone here had any experience breeding these guys or have a little project of their own like us? I really don't want to dip back into the lfs stock and rather get any new 'blood' from other breeders so I know their background at least one generation back.

Any information or even sharing personal experiences would be greatly appreciated

Thanks guys:dance2:

 

[Fishfriend1]

To start with, unless you want to lose all the silver mollies, you best set up a new set of tanks for each color type your looking for. Doing otherwise will get you a ton of mutts with pretty much dull black color, brown dusting on the head, and maybe some white speckles. Thats what happened to me, but I wasn't aiming to breed them when I got them. Anyway, if you let black and white mollies interbreed you will get all sorts of fry, with no garentees of them being any 1 color.

I can't really help you with getting new mollies, the fry i have are one generation away from the LFS, so no promises there... I do have some that look really nice, but their parentage is very spotty, I never intended to breed them. I have some dalmatian mollies (white with black spots) some marble mollies (black, silver, with blue speckles) and 2 mostly black mollies (male) as well as a large green molly (brown/tan with some green in it). Thats what I get for not getting only one color...

So, what you should do is go to you LFS and get 3 more tanks, and basically make a whole new set up for the new mollies. Anything less and you WILL get mutts(black with brown speckles/dusting on the head) out of it. Mutts are worthless, except as feeders. So, if you want black mollies, set up a system of black only mollies, and take out all the mollies of any other color. A system for dalmatian and marble mollies can be set up by mixing some of the fry from both set ups in a whole new set up. So for a 3 general types of molly, you will need 9 tanks total, and if you want creamsikle(orange with black/silver/blue) you will need another set up for them too. (thats 12 tanks total).

DO NOT MIX THE FISH! That will lead to mixed fry and muts, which are usually worthless. If i repeated myself, sorry, i have a short memory
This is all from my experience, so it may not be the same with you. I do with you luck with your breeding though!

 

[Bryana]

I see where you're coming from about mixing colors! I didn't know if it was straight forward dominant/recessive genes we are working with or what so that is for sure helpful! Have you tried breeding any of your 'mutts' together or with their parents? I really enjoy my silver ones so I won't be getting rid of them but I will set up a few other tanks for experiments

Do you have any pictures of the one with green in it? It sounds interesting!

 

[Fishfriend1]

Well, my tanks a 30gal planted, and they don't understand the meaning of "stay still plz" so all my pics are crap. And this comp is a loaner, so I don't have any pics i can put up (grr...). AFAIK, there aren't really any "dominant" colors in mollies. most of my mutts are still to young to breed (around 1 month) and the ones that are old enuff are kept in 1 gender only tanks, i can't afford any more mollies, max of 3 tanks, all full. Wish I could help more, but I never really wanted them to breed. Good Luck!