Please help sex my Mollies (pics)

[Annastasia]

How long will it take? Well...that's kind of hard to answer, without knowing how long she's been pregnant, or what she looks like. If she's REALLY fat...I'd say within a week. Just to be safe.

Oh, and a note...try not to buy very pregnant fish. You can stress them out a lot, with moving them from the store, and acclimating them. Sometimes this can cause birthing problems, or even cause her to abort them.

If she doesn't give birth in 3 or so days, take her out of the breeder. She can also get very stressed in there, and that can also cause problems.

Just a warning, and congrats on the new fish!

 

[GSD]

the red looks identical to one of me redf platies to me

 

[GSD]

http/www.tropicalfishintl.com/images/enl...ty/RedPlaty.jpg


it looks like this red platy

anyway beautiful fishie and i hope it lives a long and happy life!

 

[Annastasia]

The red is a Swordtail. You can tell by the body shape, and the fins. Swordies have a longer shape, where as Platies look a little...fatter. The fins are more rectangular, where as the Platies usually look more fan shaper.

 

[daudy_dojo]

female female and male look at the anal fin, females have a triangle shaped anal fin and males have like a long slender one (used almsot like the human penis)

 

[fawnmodel]

Yep I took my pic of the red fish to a breeder guy at the good petstore... and he said she is a female red velvet Swordtail. But that she is rarer cause they usually have a touch of another color like black or orange on their sides or fins.

So Next week or so, I am going to get her a male red PLATY (he has a cute one that we are going to save for me, they are oranger, and have a bit of silver) - and cross breed the reds. Prob get another female at the same time so they have a little group.

Few weeks after that ill put a few more danios and we are done!
whoo hoo, thanks for the help, jury is still out on the lyre, I see...I guess we will just wait and see if anything, ahem, develops. lol


The preggy molly is still doing good, if she doesn't pop by tomorrow I am just going to addd a mass of plants to the tank, cover the intake with net and set her free...I'll try to add a pic of fatty she is, she is a gold molly they said but she is very light colored sort of like a creamsicle molly, but some black tips on her fins.

thanks again!

 

[pica_nuttalli]

So Next week or so, I am going to get her a male red PLATY (he has a cute one that we are going to save for me, they are oranger, and have a bit of silver) - and cross breed the reds. Prob get another female at the same time so they have a little group.

while inter-species breeding is possible, it's not very likely. and hybrid fish are a tetchy subject anyway. presuming that you did successfully cross the swardtail with a platy, it would be difficult for you to ethically dispose of the fry such that they weren't recombined back into one of their parent groups. any hybrid fry would also have reduced fertility rates and, depending on the cross-section of genes, the male hybrids could have any of several tail-types but very few would carry the beautiful long sword that is prized in pure swardtails.

i suggest that instead of trying to cross-breed the reds, you look around for a red swordtail male and try to preserve your female's color that way.

 

[fawnmodel]

Hmm I am not so sure.

Both the livebearing breeders I spoke to told me that Platy and Sword are genetically nearly identical as they hve been cross bred for so long that they readily interbreed and their genetic makeup is entirely compatible...and since there was confusion on whether my fish was a platy or a sword, that it doesnt matter.

But, it doesn't matter to me if they breed or not, we are hoping for the Molly babies soon

 

[Bryan1957]

Where do you live? I have about 20 beautiful velvet swordtails in a growout tank. I'm sure there are males in there. They are about 6 weeks old so it will be a few months before they are mature enough to breed. BTW there isn't a speck of another color on them or the mother. I have two female velvet swordtails and will be breeding some of them with a velvet swordtail that isn't the mother.

 

[MaDDog1281]

I would agree that all are female. The lyretail doesn't have a thin "stick shaped" anal fin. It just isn't fully opened. The red molly you have is actually a female swordtail. The females don't have the long "sword" on their tail like the males do. The fins are more rectangle showing that it's not a platy. Platys have more rounded fins. The zebra danio you have is a female which is full of eggs. You do not have to worry about babies from this one. They do best if they are kept in groups. They are egglayers. Also just because you have no male mollies, doesn't mean they cannot get pregnant again. When they mate the males will leave up to 7 packets of sperm which mean the female can have up to 7 batches of babies with a male not even present. The number will usually go down through every batch. Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

Hmm I am not so sure.

Both the livebearing breeders I spoke to told me that Platy and Sword are genetically nearly identical as they hve been cross bred for so long that they readily interbreed and their genetic makeup is entirely compatible...and since there was confusion on whether my fish was a platy or a sword, that it doesnt matter.

But, it doesn't matter to me if they breed or not, we are hoping for the Molly babies soon

....
new one on me.
would you mind if i started a new topic to investigate this claim? also, are all the people who told you that buddies? i presume they aren't the source of your "red molly", since they didn't tell you about platyxswordie hybrids to start with.

they mean their particular stocks are like that, but still. it has interesting repercussions in terms of evidence of why we should struggle to true-breed all our species.

 

[CLUELESS????]

red is female dalmation female white male and dino is female also

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Hmm I am not so sure.

Both the livebearing breeders I spoke to told me that Platy and Sword are genetically nearly identical as they hve been cross bred for so long that they readily interbreed and their genetic makeup is entirely compatible...and since there was confusion on whether my fish was a platy or a sword, that it doesnt matter.

But, it doesn't matter to me if they breed or not, we are hoping for the Molly babies soon

Swordtails and platys can breed but the offspring are often infertile and it isn't very widespread- some people can have swordtails and platys in the same tank for years and not get a single hybrid fry. You should check out some of the debates in the hybrid section about livebearer hybrid fish .

 

[fawnmodel]

Hi just a wee update on the re-stocking of the tank(s)...

After hearing from you all, I listened and instead got a male red sword for the female we-hope-she's-a-red velvet sword. They are close to the same size and color, though he is the normal orange red, not the blue red. The breeder still gave me the red little young male platy, just incase my female is one. ) They are doing great and get along.

(Btw to who was asking = the two breeders/fishtore guys I mentioned are NOT the fishtore I got the female, I may have neglected to mention they were IDIOTS (and it was Walmart! I know...)

Most of my fish come from these two breeders - who also operate their own petshops. One is close firends with my husband. We also bred our firebellied toads for his shop, and we buy and sell our our herp and reptile things there. Both are way more intelligent about fish than the other places locally so I tend to go there most of the time.)

I also got a black male sailfin for the Mollies. He is almost all black, with a tiny bit of silver, so I suppose you could say he is a dalmation really. He is timid, and just tries to get out of the tank, everyone ignores him

The female creamsicle Balloon molly who is 'udderly' prego, I moved her to the smaller and uninhabited 'fry' tank, she will prb feel safer to release her eggs in there, alone cuz I did not want to keep her in the breeder for long. When she does (It hink it will be very soon her bottom is pointing out now) I'll leave her for a day and move her back to the main, 30 gal.

We have all the fry food etc set so its just a waiting game now. We are going away for the long weekend so blockfeeding and hope that she will wait until we are back to release....

Thanks again, you are teaching me alot about these unique fish! I'll try to post some photos again soon, and babies I hope

Fawn

 

[fawnmodel]

Where do you live? I have about 20 beautiful velvet swordtails in a growout tank. I'm sure there are males in there. They are about 6 weeks old so it will be a few months before they are mature enough to breed. BTW there isn't a speck of another color on them or the mother. I have two female velvet swordtails and will be breeding some of them with a velvet swordtail that isn't the mother.

oh that is sweet! I am in Canada, BC actually I did finally get a red male swordtail, he is a red/orange with the orange sword. They had OUTSTANDING females, this breeder did, body mainly white with like 5 bright colors in patterns on fins and sides. I would have grabbed a male like that if they had any left.

Thanks and good luck with the fish