What do you mean not breeder material? Like he can not breed at all? His fins were nipped by a tankmate a while back, so the ragged fins aren’t a birth defect if you’re thinking that. What do you also mean by, “you Wont have enough info to worry with, for another month.” Im not understanding what you’re meaning, Gary.
Molly Fish Not Breeding?
- Thread starter Rollxr
- Start date
Meaning it's not a high quality gold dust molly. When you choose to breed fish, you should aim to breed for strong, healthy, well-shaped fish so you're contributing good genes to the wider pool. If a fish is deformed, it's not good to breed from them and pass on those deformities into the hobby. While your fish isn't obviously deformed, it's not a great example of a gold dust molly, and might be better not to produce more fish from him that then enter the local hobby when you sell/rehome the offspring.
You won't know whether he's fertile or not until after the females gestation period has passed, which is from around a month-8 weeks for mollies.
Although bear in mind that as someone else said, the females may already have stored sperm packets from a previous mating prior to you getting them, so even if they produce fry, that doesn't mean your male is the father.
When I look at that molly, I question whether what I see is the result of age, or if he is a weak fish. Maybe he once was a strong, vigourous male. His body isn't a picture of strength and health now.
In a month, you'll know if the eggs those females carry were ever fertilized, and you may have a whole lot of fry coming from males along the supply chain. You may want him to be the father, but that may already be resolved. It's very rare for a pet shop molly to arrive unfertilized.
We don't often consider this when we want to breed mollies, but females choose males.
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In a month, you'll know if the eggs those females carry were ever fertilized, and you may have a whole lot of fry coming from males along the supply chain. You may want him to be the father, but that may already be resolved. It's very rare for a pet shop molly to arrive unfertilized.
We don't often consider this when we want to breed mollies, but females choose males.
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He still chases the females and sometimes tackles the female mollies. Would that still show strength for the male molly?
It looks like a female bred with a male somewhere, either the shop tank or your tank.......
Emergency, Fish Suddenly Gave Out babies
Hi, so one of my female mollies suddenly gave oht babies, i went to my tank and i notice fish fry. But the bad news is that I have no breeder box or any other separate tank, what can i do with the babies?! Will the babies get eaten, then will I get ammonia?!
www.fishforums.net
There's nothing wrong with his anal fin (which is a gonopodium in this case).
This is just the shape of how his gonopodium looks like. Nothing wrong with it.
True! But this goes for all livebearers. It's the female which choses the male to mate with her no matter how long or often males are chasing her.
That's just his nature.
Old specimens (both sexes) hardly do their best to mate. And very old females stop producing eggs.
This is not correctly spoken. When a female has mated, doesn't mean that she's fertilized when she's only storing the donated sperm of one or more matings. She will only be gravid once she opens one or more folds of her fallopian tube to release sperm packets to fertilize her eggs. Even if a female is carrying sperm from a mating, and not using it at the moment, we can't say that she's fertilized. But I do get what you mean by your reply.
True, but it's also accurate that the female often arrives from a store tank already fertilised! Like in this case, he'd only had the female mollies for 18 days before they've birthed fry, so they were already gravid when he bought them.
Also true. In this case, you're right for the gestation period would be to short for this specific male to be the father of those fry. But it's not always the case. That is what I tried to say in my reply for Gary stated that it's very rare for a female molly to arrive unfertilized. A female is only fertilized when her eggs are fertilized. If she's only storing the sperm without fertilized eggs, she's not fertilized.
This is why I always make the remark that livebearer females aren't always pregnant. For I do read quite frequent that people write down that livebearer females are always pregnant. It's not only that a female decides when she allows a male to mate with her but she also decides when to release one or more sperm packets to fertilize her eggs. Best thing to say is that most female ovoviviparous (viviparous female livebearers can not store sperm packets) livebearers are already storing sperm instead of being pregnant or fertilized.
But again, I do know what you mean.
@emeraldking It's a good point. I suppose I should have said it's rare for a pet store molly to have had zero productive contact with sexually active males. But then I sound like a corporate flunky.
There's an old school approach that sees the male as dominant and decisive, one I think is mostly held by human males with strange dreams. I see it a lot with Cichlid breeders especially, but it also drifts into the world of livebearers and killies. It's like the belief that only male fish have territories. It was debunked decades ago, but it fits some world views even though there is little support for it.
There's an old school approach that sees the male as dominant and decisive, one I think is mostly held by human males with strange dreams. I see it a lot with Cichlid breeders especially, but it also drifts into the world of livebearers and killies. It's like the belief that only male fish have territories. It was debunked decades ago, but it fits some world views even though there is little support for it.
ChasingFish
Fish Fanatic
Depositing their milk (milt?) is a very fast process for livebearers, you may just not be catching it when it happens. I really wouldn't worry about this unless a couple months go by and none of your females are showing signs of being pregnant. In that case, maybe your male is just up in age and not interested in breeding any longer. I have had a male and female sailfin molly pair for about 2 months I think, and not seeing signs of pregnancy. Both appear very healthy, and the tank that I bought them out of had fry in it at my LFS. But there is no guarantee that it was "their" fry. There was one other female in the tank at the store, and who knows how many others may have been in there previously and already sold. But still, I am not too worried. I'm giving them more time, they have to adjust to a new tank, etc. If after another month or two, still no fry, then I will probably add another female and go from there.
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