Bully Molly

[Jo]

One of my mollys a White one (can;t be bothered to look up how you spell their proper name) is a huge bully, she is constantly picking on one of my other molly's (a black one) and this is making the black one very stressed, she is constantly hiding and has recently developed pop eye in one eye (presumably because the white one has chased it into something and it has knocked it) although the pop eye is getting better, does anyone have any suggestions of how to stop the white one from being such a bully. She is starting to chase my platties round too. Do molly's get more agressive when they're pregant, because I think that she is?

 

[spanky_pp_]

I wonder how big your tanks is???
Mollys are not normally nasty to other community fish, and being pregnant could make her on edge a little more i suppose.-the fact that she will want her own space.
The name of your molly is, a silver molly. They look lice a pearl white colour .
Have you and live plants in the tank..?
post me back.

 

[Jo]

My tank is 80ltrs (20 Gallons I think)

Is very strange behaviour, my other black molly died as a result of all the bullying and now this molly is looking very ill...the silver molly (thanks, was sure that there was a more complicated name, but that'll do!) actually seeks out the black one, which has taken to hiding behind the filter, or underneath rocks to get away from her. It makes me sad because the black molly although she still eats, only eats when she's not about.

I bought molly's because I was told that they would be nice to other community fish, but am now regretting it. Would getting a more dominant fish (ie tiger barb or something) calm her down..she is definately top dog!

All help greatly appreciated!

 

[spanky_pp_]

Its good you got some stones and stuff for the poor little black guppy to hide away from... You should also add some living plants. These will give cover , seperate fish terratories, add oxygen to tank, filter substances from the tanks water, and eat the fish pooh, which they see as food but we see as fertilizer!

You could try removing the silver big mama ( You sure shes female?!) into a seperate holding tank for a day or two, introduce the new plants to make the environment slightly differnt, and allow the black molly to discover and claim terratory in the tank. Once the bully comes back, she might feel a little weird as its now a differnt enviroment to what she left, and the black molly would have claimed her own terratory.

What fish do you have so far exactly...???

Remvoing the silver molly will also allow you to see if the black one is hiding because of it, but if the black one acts the same when the silver molly isnt present, it could just be a shy molly.

 

[Jo]

Its good you got some stones and stuff for the poor little black guppy to hide away from... You should also add some living plants. These will give cover , seperate fish terratories, add oxygen to tank, filter substances from the tanks water, and eat the fish pooh, which they see as food but we see as fertilizer!

You could try removing the silver big mama ( You sure shes female?!) into a seperate holding tank for a day or two, introduce the new plants to make the environment slightly differnt, and allow the black molly to discover and claim terratory in the tank. Once the bully comes back, she might feel a little weird as its now a differnt enviroment to what she left, and the black molly would have claimed her own terratory.

What fish do you have so far exactly...???

Remvoing the silver molly will also allow you to see if the black one is hiding because of it, but if the black one acts the same when the silver molly isnt present, it could just be a shy molly.

Yeah, plenty of places to hide for all..not got any living plants because I have heard that it is hard to control the water quality in your tank if you do, being a newbie to all thins (only had my tank for a month) I'd rather keep it simple for a bit.

Silver one (named monica after the woman in "firends" for her initial neuroticness) is definately a female, she gave birth to six fry a couple of weeks ago and her gravid spot is appearing, so expecting more soon.

At the moment I only have 2 molly's, 3 platties and 6 baby mollies...I had the molly fry a week after I got the tank..on the day that I was going out to get more fish, with having to introduce them slowly and all. Decided against getting any more at the moment to give the babies more of a chance of survival.

I haven't been able to afford a new tank as of yet, so have got no where else to put her, despite her bullying antics, she does seem to be thriving, so it seems to be sad to "get rid of her" just for the sake of another molly, who is obviously not a well fishy!

time to call in the cat to do some fishing otherwise! he he

 

[ramesses]

Ok guys this is the deal:Mollies could and are be the biggest bully of the four most common livebearers(platies,swords,guppies and of course mollies).Most mollies are very peacefull,granted.But,there are certain varieties well known for their aggresivenes and territirial behavior.ARE YOU ...GEEZA,what you have is a silver molly,now let me tell you my story..........So,I have this 55 gall fish tank with about six pairs of guppies and I'd decided to add more fish to it.I went to my LFS and I saw these gorgeous silver sailfin mollies------by the way,sailfins are the ones with two inch dorsal fins-------I picked three,one male and two females.I took them home and they all seemed very happy;The second day though,one of the females started attacking the male,pretty soon the other started showing the same behavior.I thought it would be over soon,I was wrong.After three days I took the male out of that tank and placed him in a smaller one.
By then there was no use,the female mollies had taken over the whole tank.At feeding time it was the mollies that would eat and the gups had to wait,doing otherwise
would meant to be chased and bit by the two females.Sick of this I decided to take the females to the smaller tank and bring the boy back and in a few days introduce the girls back to the bigger tank,see if there was any change in behavior.

Well,what can I say .....It didn't work.At chow time they started their old bitchy antics,attacking,biting,chasing.I could not put up with more of their crap,even my very hi priced fancy guppies were showing torn tails,and signs of being terrorised.

I took them back and I received some store credit.And that was that!
You see,I have a very well planted aquarium,plenty of hidouts,I even took them to another tank to see if their behavior would change,but didn'tSo,belive me when I tell you this...GET RID OF HER!Nothing is going to work,pretty soon she'll start attacking other fish until she's the only one left.

 

[Alien Anna]

I have a very aggressive male sailfin molly, but in the tank he's in he's not a problem (with guppies and SAEs). I wouldn't put something more dominant in there with him, however since I think that would end in tears and torn fins. He has a harem of 4 females which probably helps as well, and the tank is increasingly planted with plenty of rock caves for "victims" to hide in.

 

[pondfreak4365]

We have a couple of bullying mollies, a silver sailfin male, a black male and a dalmation female. They are currently in tanks with the big fish ( giant danios for the silver, silver dollars and rainbowfish for the other 2). These are fearless fish!

 

[Jo]

Thanks for all the advice...unfortunately I got home from work tonight and notice that she has won over the only other molly left and I had to use some euthanasia and kill off the only black molly that I had left because she had stressed him out and made him ill...He was so miserable and run down by her I couldn#t stand watching him suffer any more, I'm sure that he would have been dead within a day or so anyway...I'm annoyed because I liked the black mollies better than her is all very sad, never had to kill a fish before.

Needless to say I have now had to completely clean out my tank to stop the others getting infected with what black molly had, but I hope she doesn't start chasing the platties..am thinking of getting another tank and putting her in that and leaving my main tank for the more peaceful (and to be honest prettier) fish....colourist I know, but she has upset me by killing two of my fish

 

[graemesmith]

I just came across this and was just reading on another site JUST a few minutes ago (sorry lost the link) that Molly bullying can only be dealt with by increasing the number of mollies to up to as many as 8 fish. At this point the bully can't cover them all and near peace reigns. Of course you need the tank size!

I just took a pink kisser back to LFS because I couldn't stop it bullying - Proven bullies need dropping before they do more harm to many others.

Wish I could find the link - it was a good all mollie site.

 

[ramesses]

I agree with you GRAEME when you mention getting rid of the bullies before they damage the peaceful community tank and the less aggresive fish,never mind killing some during the whole prosses.
I don't know if increasing the amount of mollies sounds realistic.You see,unless you want a tank full of mollies and nothing else.In my case I had to get rid of the problem and it was the female silver molly.I took it to my lfs and got some credit.Granted it wasn't what I paid for her but,better than nothing.
I really thing that if what you really want is a "community"tank then,get rid of the bullies no matter how pretty or cool they look.Trust me,the rest of your fish will be better of for it.

 

[Jo]

Hmmmm, yeah I might have too...don't want to get more mollies, cause nice as they look, the ones I have had have been nothing but trouble...she has been quieter since, will wait till she drops her fry to see if that calms her down and if it doesn't I'll take her back..thanks for all that advice....

PS: IF you do find that link lemme know would love to have a look...you can have a look in your history and see which sites you visited...you might find it there?...just an idea...?

 

[aiaisir]

usually i chopped off their tail fins shorter. then they will be like chicken.

just dont cut too short, or else they gon die