Unexpected fry - they are black?

[TrishinRoswell]

Well, I looked in my tank today and I saw two little itty bitty black fry. I am new to this. When I bought my Dalmatian Molly, apparently she was pregnant and I do have eight baby fry from her which are about four months old now. In the tank that I have the black fry, I have two adult mollies five 4 month old mollies, two male guppies and two female sword tails. I watch them pretty regularly and I did not notice anyone being pregnant and I’m very confused that the fry are black. Whoops I just looked in and now it looks like I see three. I attached pictures of my fish. Fry is hard to see.

 

[Essjay]

Female mollies can hold sperm from a previous mating and use that sperm to have fry for several months. The dalmation molly could have mated with a black molly before you bought her and used sperm from that mating.
Or perhaps dalmation mollies have genes for black?

 

[emeraldking]

First, you don't know the genetic background of your mollies which makes it hard to tell what the phenotypical outcome will be of the offspring. A molly can be dalmation phenotypically but is it also genotypically a dalmation? Dalmation mollies that are more white or more black have both the black gene. So, it's not abnormal that they can reproduce black offspring. But it also depends on with what colored or patterned male a female molly has mated. Maybe the coloration of the offspring came from him. If a golden female molly mates with a marble male molly, the offspring could become marble. Or even a mix of them. If you buy mollies from a mixed group at a store, you'll never know beforehand what color offspring they'll have.

 

[Back in the fold]

First, you don't know the genetic background of your mollies which makes it hard to tell what the phenotypical outcome will be of the offspring. A molly can be dalmation phenotypically but is it also genotypically a dalmation. Dalmation mollies that are more white or more black have both the black gene. So, it's not abnormal that they can reproduce black offspring. But it also depends on with what colored or patterned male a female molly has mated. Maybe the coloration of the offspring came from him. If a golden female molly mates with a marble male molly, the offspring could become marble. Or even a mix of them. If you buy mollies from a mixed group at a store, you'll never know beforehand what color offspring they'll have.

That’s pretty heavy stuff there Man .

 

[emeraldking]

That’s pretty heavy stuff there Man .

Well, a lot of people think that if they just look at a fish's phenotype, that they think to know how the offspring must look like. And I've mentioned it a number of times on the forum that a certain phenotype doesn't have to be the same genotype.

 

[TrishinRoswell]

Thanks for all the responses. The last time the Molly had fry they were all translucent and now are predominantly white with black markings. The adults got very dark after they matured. I saw quite a few more new fry this morning and there was one that was translucent. They all seem to have slightly different coloration! I guess I just have to wait a few weeks and see how things develop.

Recently I noticed on the previous fry that a couple of them have gold to brown spots - in researching it looks like the Molly had some gold Molly in her genetic makeup. All in all I will have a very mixed bag of mollies when this is done. Right now I have 9 females and 1 male - they will be separated once I reorganize the tanks - I have three - one is a 10 gallon for the young fry when they get old enough to move - scared to do it now since I do not want to hurt them trying to catch and move. I do not want any more babies even though it is fascinating to watch them develop. They are in a 29 gallon now.

 

[TrishinRoswell]

Thought I would share a pic of the first batch of fry - I think they are about 2 -3 weeks in first pic and the second pic is two weeks later