I Thought My Molly Was A He, But I Think It's A She!

dsiegel13 · Jul 16, 2011

I only have two mollies in my tank, a dalmatian molly w/ the fancy tail/fins and a silver molly w/o fancy fins. I thought that the dalmatian was a male, but now he/she looks pregnant, and if that is true who knocked her up? I know my silver molly is a female, so could one of my platies done it?

Do Mollies self inseminate? or switch sex (like some frogs)?

Pics below. Thanks!

Dalmatian Molly

Silver Molly

helterskelter · Jul 16, 2011

Your dalmatian is to me, is clearly a female,It's expressing the lyretail gene which the fancy finage

The other I cant sex from the photo

dsiegel13 · Jul 16, 2011

helterskelter said:
Your dalmatian is to me, is clearly a female,It's expressing the lyretail gene which the fancy finage

He's a girl?!?!? I asked the lfs for a male....seems they gave me the wrong sex... oh well, she is a good fish and she looks pregnant, so I guess the silver has to be a male.

Here's a pretty good shot of her from the front/side

Here is a better shot of the Silver, probably easier to sex him (her?) I thought that the males had big dorsal sails and the females had smaller less pronounced dorsal sails (which is what my fish has)

minnnt · Jul 17, 2011

The first molly looks like a lyretail balloon molly so will always look fat. I would say female too.

The second one looks to be male, i 'think' it looks like it has a gonopodium so this would definately make it a male.

helterskelter · Jul 17, 2011

The problem with the silver is it's clamping all it's fin's.

The dorsal should be larger general in males. if you can get a pic of all the fins showing clearly that would help.

dsiegel13 · Jul 17, 2011

minnnt said:
The first molly looks like a lyretail balloon molly so will always look fat. I would say female too.

The second one looks to be male, i 'think' it looks like it has a gonopodium so this would definately make it a male.

Minnt - pretty sure that she is a dalmatian lyre tail molly, not a balloon belly molly. She was a skinny mini about two weeks ago and only recently added the belly so that makes me think that she is pregnant.

helterskelter said:
The problem with the silver is it's clamping all it's fin's.

The dorsal should be larger general in males. if you can get a pic of all the fins showing clearly that would help.

HS - I will try to make 'him' open up so that I can get a good shot of his dorsal fin, but from watching him for the last month, the dorsal was never so pronounced to make me suspect him being a he.

dsiegel13 · Jul 17, 2011

Here are a couple pics of the Silver molly.

Dorsal fully extended

Silver's underside

lilfishie · Jul 17, 2011

definate male

helterskelter · Jul 17, 2011

lilfishie said:
definate male

I'm still not 100% sure as the fin's look clamped. is the bottom fin pointed or rounded when it's streached out?

dsiegel13 · Jul 17, 2011

helterskelter said:
I'm still not 100% sure as the fin's look clamped. is the bottom fin pointed or rounded when it's streached out?

It is rounded when the fins are stretched out.

helterskelter · Jul 17, 2011

dsiegel13 said:
helterskelter said:

I'm still not 100% sure as the fin's look clamped. is the bottom fin pointed or rounded when it's streached out?

Click to expand...

It is rounded when the fins are stretched out.

It's a female then. Clamped fin's is a sign of poor water quality, so you should do a couple of good sized water changes, to see if that helps to brighten her up again.

This Old Spouse · Jul 17, 2011

+1 on all counts.

How long have you had the dalmation? Could she have been preggers from the LFS? They can deliver up to 6 months after being inseminated.

dsiegel13 · Jul 18, 2011

This Old Spouse said:
+1 on all counts.

How long have you had the dalmation? Could she have been preggers from the LFS? They can deliver up to 6 months after being inseminated.

I got her on June 12, so she was probably pregnant when I got her, funny she didn't look pregnant until this past week.

About how long do Mollies stay pregnant before giving birth?

Are we agreed that my Dalmatian is Female and my Silver is Male???

helterskelter · Jul 18, 2011

It dose depend on the temperature. Warmer it is the quicker they develop, but have weaker fry.

At 26c plus you may get fry every 5 week's.
At 22-25c the fry will take 6 weeks or so but will be much stronger.

dsiegel13 · Jul 18, 2011

helterskelter said:
It dose depend on the temperature. Warmer it is the quicker they develop, but have weaker fry.

At 26c plus you may get fry every 5 week's.
At 22-25c the fry will take 6 weeks or so but will be much stronger.

I have my tank at a steady 78 F (about 25.5 C) so I guess that I will see fry in a couple weeks or so. Cool, already had platy fry, I am guessing that the Molly fry will be slightly larger... hope these last better than my platy fry, they all perished in the first week.

Thanks for the info. :good:

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I Thought My Molly Was A He, But I Think It's A She!

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Its a kinda MAGIC!! ^_^

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