Balloon Molly

does anyone have pics of a pregnant balloon molly? i can't tell if mine is. please help!

It's very difficult to tell when Balloon Mollies are pregnant, because of their unusual size and shape, but they do get larger. If she has been around a male, she is likely to be pregnant.

i dont understand why everyone says its hard to tell if a balloon molly is preg it so isnt!
they get way larger then usual and their belly becomes alot wider! you will be able to tell

well, i'm new to this.

You can check to see if she's got a gravid spot. Look at her body just forward of her butt, if there's a dark area there under the skin then she's almost certainly pregnant. As I've heard, the darkness is caused by the eyes of the developing fry.

Of course, if you've got a black molly, this won't work. ;p

Their bellies do get noticeably bigger, but only if you are fairly familiar with the individual fish and have seen her when she isn't pregnant.

If you'd still like to see pictures, I can see if I can get some good ones after work today. (Coincidentally, my favorite female just popped this morning, and I've got over a dozen tiny little brown wigglies in the tank now. X3)

SnBMeg said:

You can check to see if she's got a gravid spot. Look at her body just forward of her butt, if there's a dark area there under the skin then she's almost certainly pregnant. As I've heard, the darkness is caused by the eyes of the developing fry.

Of course, if you've got a black molly, this won't work. ;p

Their bellies do get noticeably bigger, but only if you are fairly familiar with the individual fish and have seen her when she isn't pregnant.

If you'd still like to see pictures, I can see if I can get some good ones after work today. (Coincidentally, my favorite female just popped this morning, and I've got over a dozen tiny little brown wigglies in the tank now. X3)

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sure! i'd love to see pics, if you can get some. thanks a ton for your help. i got my balloon molly about 2 or 3 weeks ago, and when i brought her home she did seem to look darker on her underbelly towards the back. i know about the gravid spot, so i assumed she was pregnant then, but now there isn't any dramatic darkness... she's orange and white, so you'd think it would be noticable. i've seen my male black molly "persuing" her and i'm pretty sure they've knocked boots ;-) ... but like i said,i'm fairly new to this and cannot tell. i'd like to know if she's pregnant so i can separate her and save as many fry as possible, so help is greatly appreciated!

Glad to be able to help!

When I got my newly-popped female a while ago, she was already quite large and gravid. On the other hand, my other two ladies (a silver and a dalmation), who weren't so big and whose gravid spots weren't all that obvious--more like bruises--both gave birth several weeks earlier.

Actually, I wonder if gravid spots are more obvious the more fry there are, which would make sense; more fry=more eyes=denser black. Because with my first two batches of fry--the ones from the not-so-obviously gravid females--I only found 3 and 6, but with this most recent one there are several times as many.

i assumed she was pregnant then, but now there isn't any dramatic darkness...

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So is there still some "discoloration?" Or is there less than there was before? In the latter case, I'd expect that she already had her babies, and maybe they got eaten.

What would you be putting your girly in to separate her? If it's a tank or a large enough breeder net then you could probably go ahead and move her now. (Don't want to move her too close to fry time, otherwise she could miscarry.)

None of the pet stores around my house carry breeder nets, so I'm limited to breeder boxes, which are way too small for an adult molly, even a balloon. So I've just been leaving my preggos in with everyone else, and then I scoop out what fry I can find. I figure it also keeps the population down a bit, which isn't a bad thing in my case, especially now.

i've seen my male black molly "persuing" her and i'm pretty sure they've knocked boots ;-)

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My male will take flirting over food about 90% of the time. XD

there is still some discoloration, but she isn't very big. it just looks like bruising like you mentioned, on the underside of her belly...

i'm also wondering how big molly fry are at birth, and how long gestation usually is

I'm really sorry. Since my last female just had her babies, none of my mollies are far enough along anymore to be showing yet. They've all got a little bit of gravidity (is that a word?) visible, but no more that you'd usually see in pics of females online.

From how you've described yours, though, I'd guess that she may still have a few weeks to go. Although it can certainly be hard to tell! Some individuals simply show more or less than others. Some get very dark spots, others just looked "bruised," while others (i.e.: black mollies) don't show at all. Some get huge and others just get a bit pudgier.

Gestation is something around 4-6 weeks, occasionally less or more. At birth the fry are just about 4-5mm long, and very cute! X3 They look like little bitty tadpoles.

If you've got plants in your tank, even fake ones, new fry actually have a good chance of surviving for hours, if not days--plenty of time to find and "rescue" them. The best is to have the plants floating on the surface; I've got Vallisneria gigantea in my tank right now, as well as a few short, leafy plastic plants that I've left free-floating (like the one in the middle top in this image http/www.fishandfins.co.uk/images/weed.jpg , although any of these would also be very good.) The fry will instictively hide in the plants. I always take a look around my tank when I'm feeding my fish (morning and evening; so far I've found all my fry in the morning), and it's fairly easy to spot the fry wiggling around at the surface between leaves.

here are some pics i managed to get of my girl... sorry if they're hard to distinguish.

I would definitely say that she's pregnant. She's starting to get that kind of box-y look to her. Hard to say how close she is, of course, although I think she's about as gravid as my dalmation was when she popped.

Those plants that you've got will provide excellent cover for fry if you leave her where she is.

you just made my day!!! thanks!

I'm happy to contribute whatever I can.

Glad that I could make your day! Hopefully soon you'll have dozens of adorable little fry!