My tanks are exploding!

[Sashimi]

I never intended to breed these Lil fishies of mine, but apparently they have plans of their own! My Mollies were rabbits in another life apparently...my Dalmation Mollie just had like 50! The gravel in this tank is black so it was a couple days before I realized my gravel was moving! and 2 of my Panda Mollies look ready to burst also! I have 4 new platys and the biggest surprise was in my 30g...I have a couple cory catfish that I had named Ren and Stimpy...they play all day swimming through the bubbles...turned out Stimpy was a girl! I found eggs all over the walls, had no idea what was going on...had to do some research! Anyways after a couple tries at keeping the eggs separated, none seemed ro be fertilized so I just said ehh. Whatever. I will just let them figure it out...last night out of nowhere I see a little catfish swimming around!
Apparently 1 of the eggs I knocked off into the substrate was a good one

Anyone have any suggestions on what to do with all these Molly frys???

 

[GaryE]

The solution is maybe a problem. If you want to raise them, then your home will rapidly fill with 40 gallon tanks. I see nothing wrong with that, but I seem to be odd.

A store will take them as feeders - there's no profit in raising baby fish.

What both things mean is you have skills. You are providing those fish with an environment where they can live as they like to - as breeding machines.

BTW - many rabbits were mollies in a previous life...

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Mollies, like most livebearers, tend to be like that!


As for what to do with them, you'll want to either find homes for them through private sales, or find a store willing to take them
(selling feeder fish is illegal here so I didn't have that concern, but it can also be hard finding a store here that's willing to take an endless supply of livebearer fry). But you'll want to find somewhere willing to take them off your hand fairly quickly, and decide whether you want to keep the adult female mollies too. Because even without males around female mollies can store sperm packets for months, even a year or more, and keep churning out big batches of fry every 5-6 weeks, so even with only 1-2 females, that quickly becomes a lot of fry! Then those fry rapidly grow and need to be separated by sex as early possible, lest the new young females also become gravid, and you have an exponential rate of growth... it can get out of hand very quickly, even if parent and other fish pick off many of the young.

Which species of corydora do you have? Congrats on having a fry raise itself in the tank! It does happen sometimes, but it's always nice to see, especially if the rest of the eggs failed. Fun!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Oh wait, just saw you said you got platies too, do you know whether you have male/female?

 

[CarissaT]

Platies and mollies can interbreed. Just fyi

Another solution is to get fish that will eat fry. Since I put angelfish in with my platies, I’m not seeing many survive to maturity. Many of the fry will get eaten by the adults anyway, but a few fast and smart ones will continue to survive.

 

[Essjay]

Platies and mollies can interbreed. Just fyi

No they can't.

Platies are in the genus Xiphophorus, mollies are Poecilia.
Platies can breed with swordtails, they are both Xiphophorus, and mollies can breed with guppies.

It is more complicated than just different genus, their sexual organs must also be compatible. @emeraldking is a lot better at explaining this than I am.

 

[emeraldking]

True! Mollies and platies can not crossbreed. Besides the different genus, it will basically be the sexual organs that are not compatible with another to have a natural mating.

Platies and mollies can interbreed. Just fyi

What made you think that...?

 

[Sashimi]

The solution is maybe a problem. If you want to raise them, then your home will rapidly fill with 40 gallon tanks. I see nothing wrong with that, but I seem to be odd.

A store will take them as feeders - there's no profit in raising baby fish.

What both things mean is you have skills. You are providing those fish with an environment where they can live as they like to - as breeding machines.

BTW - many rabbits were mollies in a previous life...

I will have to keep looking...petco said no they don't accept them

Thank you, I'm glad I am keeping them happy lol I just wish they'd take a breather!

 

[Sashimi]

Mollies, like most livebearers, tend to be like that!


As for what to do with them, you'll want to either find homes for them through private sales, or find a store willing to take them
(selling feeder fish is illegal here so I didn't have that concern, but it can also be hard finding a store here that's willing to take an endless supply of livebearer fry). But you'll want to find somewhere willing to take them off your hand fairly quickly, and decide whether you want to keep the adult female mollies too. Because even without males around female mollies can store sperm packets for months, even a year or more, and keep churning out big batches of fry every 5-6 weeks, so even with only 1-2 females, that quickly becomes a lot of fry! Then those fry rapidly grow and need to be separated by sex as early possible, lest the new young females also become gravid, and you have an exponential rate of growth... it can get out of hand very quickly, even if parent and other fish pick off many of the young.

Which species of corydora do you have? Congrats on having a fry raise itself in the tank! It does happen sometimes, but it's always nice to see, especially if the rest of the eggs failed. Fun!

The Ren and Stimpy I mentioned are emerald cory I also have peppered cory and false julies.
Yea the mollies birthing cycle of anxiety (for me not them) had already begun
This last batch is like round 3...however this time they haven't eaten as many of the frys, and my gourami died a couple weeks ago, and he was my population control fish lol

 

[Colin_T]

I am sick of pet shops refusing to take fish back. It happens here too now and is stupid. The big chain stores have to take fish if they sell them to you. I know they refuse to, so we as consumers need to write to the government and consumer protection and state we want all pet shops to take back fish we can no longer care for, or want. The shops supply them and it is the shop's responsibility to take care of any unwanted fish that came from them.

Sorry, not having a go at the OP. Just venting coz this is getting on my nerves. Pet shops sell the fish so they should take the damn things back.

 

[Sashimi]

I am sick of pet shops refusing to take fish back. It happens here too now and is stupid. The big chain stores have to take fish if they sell them to you. I know they refuse to, so we as consumers need to write to the government and consumer protection and state we want all pet shops to take back fish we can no longer care for, or want. The shops supply them and it is the shop's responsibility to take care of any unwanted fish that came from them.

Sorry, not having a go at the OP. Just venting coz this is getting on my nerves. Pet shops sell the fish so they should take the damn things back.

I feel you