Omg - Such A Greedy Fish! (sailfin Molly)

[Athena]

Well, I am completely amazed at the behaviour of one of my Sailfin Mollies. She is a beaufitul white sailfin molly, very pretty and graceful looking - but oh what a greedy guts she is.

She is in a 2ft tank with just two platies and one red tail shark. Anyway, last night I had fed them their usual - small pinch of flake food, followed a while later by a few bloodworms. I noticed that my shark wasn't getting a chance to eat anything so I thought I'd drop an algae flake in for him as that would drop to the bottom and he'd have a better chance to get it.

So, dropped it in - only for Miss Molly to head straight for it. The two platies also followed suit but were angrily chased off by Miss Molly. She wasn't about to share the food with anyone.

Ok, so my poor shark still hadn't eaten. So I had the idea of dropping another algae wafer in, near to where he was hiding. Dropped it in, he was just about to have a taste when Miss Molly, who still had an algae wafer of her own, decided she wanted the OTHER wafer, also. She swam over and chased the shark away, started pecking at the new wafer and almost dragged it over to where the other wafer was. So now, she had TWO wafers - and the shark still had nothing and the platies couldn't get a look in either!

So in a final attempt I dropped ANOTHER wafer in the tank - the other side of the tank, thinking she was on one side busy pecking at both her wafers that she wouldn't notice the fish eating from the wafer on the other side of the tank. Wrong!!! She spotted them - and again, chased them away, and somehow managed to get that wafer from one side of the tank to the other.

She was stockpiling food like a nutter!!!

I just couldn't believe that a molly could be so greedy and devious. I had to remove a couple of the wafers in the end for fear she would eat herself to death.

Has anyone else noticed this kind of selfish behaviour in their mollies?

Athena

 

[kewskills]

Yea, my mollies are gluttons also, just feed them up, eventually they stop eating and the other fish will get a chance.

 

[Athena]

Yea, my mollies are gluttons also, just feed them up, eventually they stop eating and the other fish will get a chance.

But I was worried she might over eat and end up dying. How much is the right amount of food for a molly in one day? I have two other sailfin mollies in another tank (male and female marble pair) and they also go a little manic at feeding time - but nothing as crazy as the white one.

 

[kewskills]

I generally feed twice a day, what ever they eat in 2 minutes, which is a lot. i feed floating flake for the mollies who whip around the top like little busy bees, at the same time i drop sinking pellets and sinking flakes for the Gobies i have on the bottom. seems to work for me.

Not sure if a fish will over eat to the point of dieing, i suppose they could get bunged up, maybe someone else has a view

 

[Athena]

Thanks - maybe I've not been feeding them enough then, which is why they go crazy at the sight of food. I normally do one small pinch in the morning - about 6am - then the next feed is at 8pm when I return home from work - another small pinch of flake food, plus a few bloodworms or baby brine shrimp, sometimes crushed up pea or an algae flake.

There's never any food left floating in the tank as it's gone more or less as soon as I put it in there. Ok, so I am going to try timing for 2 minutes tonight and see how much more food they get through. If this is what you're doing and your fish are fine and not bloated, then it must be ok.

Maybe by giving more at feed times this will calm Miss Molly down a bit and stop her from being so selfish with the food in future.

Athena

 

[wackystarfish]

Id imagine its also a good way for her to get algae into her diet, it is a little known fact that mollies rasp for algae
My pair of kribs have a little cave in the driftwood which they call home. However, i need to take the whole thing out every month because of all the food they hide their kinda cute though!

 

[kizno1]

my molly dose that aswell she chases of all the other molliesand a pleco twice the size of her and no matter how many alge wafers i put in they will all end up in a corner and none of the other fish will get a taste of it

 

[Miah002]

Hello an ancient thread.

Last post was years ago.

 

[kizno1]

how was it that long ago it was like 5 down

 

[Miah002]

Figure of speech. It's 8 months old still.