1 Baby Molly.....without Pregnancy?

[jaarus]

Ok I have never kept livebearers before so any suggestions would be welcomed.

I bought 4 - turned out to be 3 females and 1 male.
Added them to my tank (mature tank) with a net - all fine.
two weeks later...I noticed one evening that one of my females, a dalmation, was being far more shy than usual -I tested the water - all good still.
the next day the dalamation female was dead

3 days pass.

Last night to my utter amazement I have 1 tiny baby fish swimming about.

The really odd thing is that none of the fish has swollen as though pregnant.
Had I poured the contents of the LFS bag into my tank perhaps a tiny fry could have been in there without my knowlege - but I netted them one by one into it?

where has this fish come from?

 

[Behemoth]

all lot of the times the fish will be pregnant when you buy it at the store, it is possible the one that died might of had it, but it's all possible one of the remaining ones had 1 baby.
sometimes you really can't tell if a fish is pregnant.

 

[jaarus]

I guess...I was just surprised that there is only one baby....thought that molly's are supposed to have 15-45 young?
Perhaps my dalmation died in childbirth!

or perhaps someone was peckish

I do want them to breed

 

[Behemoth]

i found only 1 baby before as well. other fish may eat them in the process

 

[WILDER]

I agree the molly could of died after birth quite common. Sorry R.I.P.

 

[DirkW]

Something similar happened to me. I had a female molly that was harassed by another molly while pregnant. As she died, she gave birth to four fry. An autopsy revealed that most of the fry died before hatching in her stomach. The fry that where born where larger than normal, likely about a week late.

 

[Morquinn]

You had an autopsy done on your fish? I have never heard of anyone doing that... wierd.

 

[DirkW]

I did the autopsy myself with a hobby knife; easy for an ex-fisherman. But I'm not edumacated enough to tell many details. I wanted to figure out what happened to the babies and possibly save any that where still alive. The unhatched eggs where rather obvious.

 

[hairyhaggler]

I put 2 mollies in my tank yesterday . The female didnt look pregnant at all.

I was looking in my tank tonight (1 day later) and bugger me , there is a baby swimming about. i was just looking to see how big it was to post here , its about 5mm in length, and bugger me i saw another one...:w00t: , i think she must be at the end of her birthing because she isnt big at all , she must have had some at then lfs , and maybe these are her last few.

Dunno , but its suprised the hell out of me.