Should I Remove The Male Mollie From Tank?

[Val285]

We have three mollies, but I can't tell which are male or female. I'm going to try and get pictues of them to post to see if anyone can help us tell them apart.

We did not intend to breed and didn't even realize until until yesterday that they weren't all the sex (we thought they were all female). Imagine our surprise when we found little baby fishes yesterday (they are cute ). We did buy two new fish three weeks ago. Could one have been pregnant when we got it? I'm not sure how long fish are pregnant for.

If we so have both male and female we don't want them to continue to have a ton of babies. Would seperating the fish be the best way to prevent this from happening without causing stress to them? If there is a male will he just become depressed if he is placed in a seperate tank? Would a divider in the tank be a good solution?

Also we moved the babies we could get into a smaller tank. Is this alright? I read on one site that they can be in the tank with the parents if there is plenty of places for them to hide and as long as the parents are well fed. Is that true that they will not eat the babies if they are well fed. If so, should we move them back to the big tank?

The other question I have is what size tank do we need? We have a five gallon tank for the three Mollies but with the seven babies (they were the ones we moved, I'm not sure if there are any others that are hiding in the main tank) how big should the tank be for the babies to grow at a healthy rate?

To piggy back on this and I apologize if this is a really stupid question but will the babies breed with each other when they get bigger? I know most animals do not breed with siblings but I don't know that much about fish .

Thank you so much for any help and advise!!

Val

 

[Nick16]

hi and welcome to tff. you can tell the difference between males and female easily. the anal fin on a female is open (fan shaped) and on the male it is like folded up and parallel with his body. it might make the male grumpy but if you dont want babies then what choice have you got!!!

 

[lilfishie]

Female:
RED: shows the gravid spot, this is where the fry develop inside mum.
PURPLE: shows the female’s anal fin, notice the shape, very ‘fan’ shaped.

Male:
BLUE: shows the gonopodium (male sex organ) notice the shape is small and pointed.


Its the same for most livebearers

Also about the seperating, you could seperate but the female will continue to have fry for up to 7 addition broods after the 1st, they can store sperm

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Val. The fry are not safe in a tank with their parents. Some will survive if there are enough hiding places but the only kinds of fry in that situation are the quick and the dead. A separate tank is needed if you want to actually save fry. I see Lilfishie gave you some pictures to tell what kind of common livebearers you have. Some of the less common ones can be harder to sex. The bad news for you is that a female typical livebearer will carry packets of sperm that she can use to produce more fry for at least 6 months after the last time she was with a male. What it means to you is that even if you have only females in your tank, the females will continue to produce drop after drop of fry at about 4 to 6 week intervals.

 

[dnn3]

this is going to sound bad but having 2 types of livebearers in my tank i let every other group of fry get eaten.like i said,with 2 types of livebearers their is no way i could house that many fry.it's just an option.i have to admit a guilty pleasure,my german rams get extremely colorful when they eat a baby molly or swordtail.

 

[Val285]

Thank you lilfishie for the digram and all the information. Thank you Nick16, OldMan47 and dnn3 for all the information and advice. I hate to say it but if we have more fry I'm going to have to leave them in the tank and allow the fish to follow their natural instints. There is no way I can get a tank to accomdate 6 or 7 more group of fry and unfortunately I've been asking everyone and nobody wants to adopt them either .

Also after looking at the digram we do have all female and it looks like the two we got a few weeks ago were both pregnant. I just feel bad that I have to leave the babies in there to be eaten .

Thank you again.
Va

 

[lilfishie]

don't worry, the fry are smart you'll still get a few survive providing you have hiding places and such

 

[dnn3]

lilfishies right,at least a couple always survive.