Tryin to breed mollies

[FishieQueen]

Hi, i am new to this site but i have been to other forums quite often.
Well I keep asking this question but no one seems to want to answer me.
Well, im going to ask here and hopefully I'll get some answers.

I just recently about 4 months ago bought a 10 gallon tank, i have everything for it, I have 3 mollies, 2 female, 1 male, and i have two black skirt tetras which soon im going to put in another tank, and i have 3 zebra danios and then two african dwarf frogs, which are always hiding in a little cave they usually come out at night. well i wanted to try to breed my mollies since all are doing fine, no one is dead and i'd like to test my skills.

I have learned a lot from reading all sorts of forums, reading articals online, reading about all different kinds of fish and how to care for them and i have just learned so much. Recently i got a new molly, a female because i read if u want them to breed get more females than males so the male cant bother/stress out the female so i got a kind of weird colored female, mixed with all different colors and shes part platty. When i put her in the tank, my male molly went wild! He must have liked her a lot because he kept chasing her around the tank for about a day then start to um, get under her and poke at her anal fin and differnt things like that, so i thought they were getting ready to mate, but then after that he started doing the same thing to the other female, he had never done that before until i put Polkadot, the new female in the tank. well Polkadot and Pearl, the females, are starting to get a bit of a tummy and i'd like to know if maybe they are pregnant. I know how long it takes and how to care for them after they give birth.

What i want to know is
1. How is it done? what does it look like when they mate lol
2. How can you tell when the females are pregnant during the first week.
3. If both females are pregnant, Can i put them in a 5 gallon tank together to give birth beacuse they got pregnant around the same time?
4. If I do that, if one gives birth b4 the other, will the other still pregnant one eat the babies?

Thx, i'd appriciate any answers to my 4 questions!

 

[MountGuppy]

Yes it sounds like your females are pregnant and that they did mate.

It is very hard to tell the first week but later gets easier.Two ways to tell later on is the female will stop eating and another is if you look at it from behind the belly has more of a square shape with corners rather than round.Both these ways have worked for me.

Yeah you could but you would have to keep a close watch on them as they might have babys and eat them.My guppies gave birth at night so i would never get much saved.It will help if you plant your tank very fully so that the fry have places to hide.Make sure you dont put them in way to early.

Yes the other onemight try to eat the others fry but if she doesn't eat and you have her in their most likely she is not going to eat her fry.Or just deansly plant the tank like i said earlier.

PM me or post here if you have any more questions or want more detailed answers were here to help

 

[FishieQueen]

Thank you for replying I really do appriciate it.
My male molly, his name is neon, keeps annoying the other two females. Should i get more females or is he just um, hor*ny?
I'd like to get more females, but im not sure if its a good idea because i only have a 10 gallon tank. I dont want to over crowd it.

So what should i do about the male annoying the females?

 

[Ford]

well i don't know about getting more females, but i can tell you that the mollies will have a whole lotta babies!! we've had our mollies since the end of july and we've already had 3 fry generations. we have a 2 way breeder and it is so the mom can have her fry and is unable to eat them. we've always just found the fry in the tank the next day, but it also works to keep the fry in until they are "bigger than the other fish's mouth". also you should invest in some "newborn" fry food, the flakes and etc. are too big for them. we use "wardley small fry". good luck with it! it's fun to see how fast they grow!!

kristyne

 

[FishieQueen]

how am i able to keep my male molly from annoying the females? because i dont want them to get stressed out from him.

 

[MountGuppy]

your best bet woud be to add more females.As long as you have a good filter and do water changes regularly you dont have to be to worried about overstocking

 

[MountGuppy]

post any more questions there fun to answer

 

[FishieQueen]

Hi again,

Are you sure it wouldn't be over stocking because i have a 10 gallon tank, with, 2 african dwarf frogs, two black skirt tetras, three zebra danios, and my three mollies.

I have heard that i am over stocking my tank already, but im not too sure because they all seem to be pretty happy. The tank is always really clear, i do about a 20% water change with the gravel vacuum thing, and I feed twice a day for my pregnant girls, i wait for just them at the top and put in a couple freeze dried blood worms.

Everything seems alright, but since it is only a ten gallon, would it still be over stocking even though my tank is always practically spotless (clean)?

 

[fuman_chica]

My male does the same thing. But both of my females have had their babies just fine. Both are doing very well after just giving birth. I don't think that you need to get more females. If it is really bothering you that he keeps "mating" them, that is what he is trying to do even though they are already pregnant , seperate him from them, either with a tank devider, or put him in the 5 gallon you talked about until the females are about to pop. Then put them in there, and move him back to the main tank.

As for if one had her fry before the other, I would say, either go out and get another 5 gallon, or go buy a breeding net to put the fry in so the other mom doesn't eat them. Breeding nets are only like $5 or so...not too bad.

One thing you need to be aware of is that the frogs WILL eat ANY babies that they find in the tank!!! So if you want to keep the babies, as soon as you see them, either start getting them out, or take out the frogs. I don't know how many my frogs ate when my molly Sunshine had her babies, but I do know that the frogs were suddenly fat, and were so bloated that they couldn't say on the bottom of the tank. They would go down, but float back up with in 2 seconds. they had to work pretty hard to get back down again, just to float back up. They were bloated for days. That isn't good for the frogs either.



Good luck!!!

 

[FishieQueen]

well i dont have to worry about FrogS, beacuse today one of them died.
of course i cried. my froggie just died of old age, I have had it for a while now so its a good way to die, but it was weird because for two days i couldnt find it around the tank, but then today i looked at it from a different angle and saw it upside down. I was so sad. I hope that having a frog die isnt going to effect my pregnant fishie girls, would it?

 

[fuman_chica]

First off, sorry your froggy died. i know how that goes.

Second, no, unless they played together, it shouldn't effect the pregnant fish. My fish don't really pay much attention to the frogs, so if one of them died, they wouldn't know. But if your fish play with the frogs, they might realize that one of them is gone, and stress out worrying where it is at. But that doesn't mean it would effect the pregnancy. They should be fine!

 

[Alien Anna]

You are a little over-stocked for a 10 gal, and if those mollies succeed in breeding, you're going to be well over-stocked. I'd start looking into getting another tank if I were you - a 20 gal would be good. Have a look in yard sales and in the local paper.

 

[MountGuppy]

sorry yeah that would be overstocking

 

[FishieQueen]

Yeah I am trying my best to get another tank, i am asking my friends, who have had tanks in the past, if they still have theirs and would be willing to give it to me with all the things that come with it. The thing is, I wouldnt know where to put it, i have an idea, but not sure.

And with the frogs, no my mollies didnt play with it too much, i guess to them it was just kind of there, but i noticed that my other frog seems really gloomy, they were best friends, I think tomorrow im getting another frog, I think my frog, because he and the other one had been together for so long, i think that Ant, my frog, needs a pal. I might get two or three. Poor Ant The Frog (whole name).