My Molly Gave Birth To Undeveloped Fry!

[JohnRossDele]

hi all, since i researched on livebearers for the past 2 months i have finally bought 6 mollies and 6 platys and 2 mollies were pregenant when i bought them! i might go back to the LFS and get more because they really add a rainbow of colour to my tank

the only bad news is that one of the mollys that i put into a breeding trap (she was about to explode with fry as it looked) gave birth to few developed fry ( some in their egg stage) and some not even slightly developed while i was researching i learnt that this is called aborting, but i dont really know what i should do with the undeveloped ones. Should i leave them to develop or what else?! help!

 

[nosoup4you]

They will not develop once they have been aborted, remove them from the tank before they foul the water. On the bright side, she should be dropping another load in 4-5 weeks. Next time, leave her in the tank or provide her with her own (larger than a fry trap) birthing tank. Good luck!

 

[Tortea]

don't get rid of them before you give them a chance, this happened to me, but i left it a few days, one or two died but a few made it.

 

[hughessomefish]

the reason why she aborted was cause you moved her into the breeding trap at the wrong time,causing her great stress so she aborted

 

[OldMan47]

An almost finished fry will sometimes survive being born prematurely if it just has a bit of an egg sac attached. Anything much earlier than that will not ever develop into a living fry so you may as well remove it. Stress can indeed bring on a fry drop, whether or not the fry are ready. A sad fact is that people who routinely use breeding traps must become very good at predicting when a female will drop so that they don't lose too many fry that way. I follow the advice that NoSoupForYou gave and establish a female in her own birth tank a week or more ahead of her drop so that she has time to settle in before dropping her fry. The end result is that I lose a small number to predation by the female but my fry are almost always at full term when they are born and do quite well from the start.

 

[nathan1987]

I was just wondering is it normal for like one or two fry look smaller and others larger even tho they all get the same amount of food, and out of the livebearers is their any that aren't too bad with their young not to always eat them I find it sad that, that happens because they don't get a chance to grow up a bit or develop.

 

[OldMan47]

There are tons of livebearers who are not much of a predator on their fry Nathan. I keep a group of fish in the goodeid family that all seem to be very gentle with their fry. My goodeid tanks run with light cover and produce lots of fry all the time. The fry from goodeids are much larger and better developed than poeciliid fry so they are less subject to predation just for that reason. I keep my goodeids in species only tanks so I don't need to worry much about what other fish would do to their fry. Another group that I have found are fairly good with their fry are the Limias. I have Limia melanogaster and Limia perugia and both tend to leave their fry alone. Even a common molly like my big girl does not do much to harm most of her fry. She probably snacks on a few the first day, but after that I get about 30 survivors from each drop if I leave her in the tank with them. It comes out looking like this after 4 or 5 weeks.

I also have a colony of Heterandria formosa that are growing constantly with no real help from me to protect the fry.

This picture shows how much endlers ignore their fry. It is a picture taken at feeding time in the tank and you can clearly see that the fry don't pay any attention to the adults, because they do not consider them a threat.

Another species that I just started breeding is the Xenophallus umbratilis, golden teddies. I bought 2 pairs at a fish auction in July and have at least 30 adults in their 10 gallon unplanted tank now. Here are a couple of pictures of a male and a female.

 

[Amberleaf]

Just a question, Oldman; how big do those golden teddy things get?

 

[OldMan47]

The male in the picture is about an inch long, the female is slightly longer, maybe 3 cm. I did some extreme closeups for those pictures.

 

[hughessomefish]

Are golden teddys rare i have never seen any they are nice looking

 

[OldMan47]

From what I have read, they are fairly common in the UK. Here in the US, you need to find a livebearer specialist to find them. I got my first 2 pair at a club auction but have far more of them now. They are as common or rare as a Heterandria formosa in the US. Having either one means you have spent some time looking or gotten very lucky. I saw them at the ALA convention in April, bought mine at my club's auction in July and saw some again at a neighboring club's auction, in Indianapolis in November. I will probably only see them in a LFS if I bring some to them. (Yes I am one of those livebearer specialists)

 

[hughessomefish]

I should find a liverbearer specialist some where near me

 

[nathan1987]

Awesome thanks Oldman yeah my molly when she gave birth didn't attempt to chase or go after the fry in the fry tank, I just removed her as a precaution but my female swordtail seems predatory towards the fry when she had her own none survived unfortunately I want endler's but no where around where I am from has them only typical guppy, molly, swordtail and platy.

 

[Knox213]

Smoe mollies dont realy care about there frybeing there and just leave them to it..

my mollies did

 

[Amberleaf]

They have a bunch of endlers at my Big Al's.

Ughhhhhh.... I want those golden teddies. Hmm....