Mollies Or Platys

[steve hart]

Out of the 2 breed of fish above which has the most amount of fry once they have given birth!!!

Thanks in advance

 

[Truck]

molly up to 120 fry

 

[puppyjess123]

Mollys

 

[LauraFrog]

Depends on the size of the fish really... a big platy can have up to 100 fry (I had a medium sized, well fed platy drop 85 in one go) and a small molly might only have 20, so there is a lot of overlap.

Platy's normal range: 20-60. Platy's possible range: 5-100

Molly's normal range: 25-100. Molly's possible range: 5-160+. I believe there is a record of about 210 fry in a single drop but this is obviously exceptional. 120+ would be considered an extremely big drop.

So mollies are capable of producing more fry, far and away, but they will have less if they are physically smaller or if they are not well fed.

The main reasons for wanting a lot of fry are commercial interest and feeders. If you want feeders I strongly recommend you go with platies. Platies might produce slightly less fry, but mollies need salt, specific water conditions, are more expensive, harder to get breeding, harder to keep and grow slower... Platies are a 'just add water' fish, if the tanks are cycled and you feed well and have mixed sex breeders, you will get fry. Guppies are even better for feeders, they breed prolifically and grow extremely fast compared to the other livebearers.

Commerical interest - if you want to pump out livebearers to sell as pets, TBH drop size is not the main concern as any breeder serious about breeding livebearers has to cull plenty. If you have got even ten breeders producing 40 fry per drop, that's 400 fry per month, and that's on the light end of a breeding operation with a low estimate for the drop rates. 400 fry per months exceeds just about anybody's capacity to raise them. It's usual to raise the fry to one or two cms and then keep only the best (using the rest, or selling them, as feeders.) So regardless of whether your fish are dropping 40 fry a month or 100 fry a month, you will almost certainly run out of space if you are keeping all of them. Drop sizes aren't as important as which fish will fetch you the most money.

 

[steve hart]

thanks for that advice, i've just got back from my local fish shop and have bought some mollys... Thanks

 

[twilight_angel]

Out of the 2 breed of fish above which has the most amount of fry once they have given birth!!!

Thanks in advance

of course molly...