# New here! Question about mollies



## ThatCrazyPetLady (Jun 30, 2011)

I would like a pair of mollies for my tank. It is 55gal and I currently only have 6 corys and 6 har. rasboras. 

I do not want to have babies.... I don't think. What do you do with them??
So what I want to know is, if getting a pair of females is the best route? 
Or do they need to be in a group (3+)


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

:welcome: I see this is your first post. Somehow I remember your name! 

You could get only male or only females. The males have longer fins. If you get females they are probably already pregnant so there's no guarantee. I love molly babies. They have fewer and much bigger babies than other live bearers. You can give the babies to a LFS or friends. Mollies will hang around together. I think they are happiest that way. I'd get 3. You have PLENTY of room for that many in your big tank.


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## ThatCrazyPetLady (Jun 30, 2011)

Is LFS... live feed store? 

And I don't have friends with tanks..... that I can think of. 

I wouldn't mind babies but if it happens continually, I really don't want that many. 

Are two males aggressive toward one another?


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## ThatCrazyPetLady (Jun 30, 2011)

hahahaha i see it's local fish shop.... thank god. I wasnt going to give them away to be eaten 

Do they just take them off your hands? or what?


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## christian_cowgirlGSR (Jun 20, 2011)

Some LFS will just simply take them. Others will give you store credit for them. 

A couple years ago, I had a 30 gallon tank with some guppies, cory cats, and 2 dalmation mollies (of course, I managed to get a male and a female). One day, I was watching my fish and it almost looked like the gravel was moving. Upon a closer look, I realized I had baby mollies - LOTS of baby mollies. I grabbed a net and separated the babies into a different tank. I lost count somewhere around 75. 

Before you get any livebearers, you should make sure your LFS will take the babies. When I had ~75 baby mollies on my hands, I discovered that my LFS wouldn't take them. I did eventually find homes for them, but it was a lot of work. My female seemed happy enough being the only molly in the tank. 

I honestly don't tell you this to scare you or anything. Livebearers really are great fish. I just wanted you to be able to make an informed decision. If you really don't want babies, you should get all males. I don't think you'd need to worry about aggressive behavior between them.


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## ThatCrazyPetLady (Jun 30, 2011)

75 babies at ONE time? Are you serious??? I live in Orlando so I am sure that I could find a place to takes babies SOMEwhere but my gosh! 75!!!


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## christian_cowgirlGSR (Jun 20, 2011)

ThatCrazyPetLady said:


> 75 babies at ONE time? Are you serious??? I live in Orlando so I am sure that I could find a place to takes babies SOMEwhere but my gosh! 75!!!


Yeah - 75! I was thoroughly surprised as well! When I originally realized there were babies in the tank, I estimated 20-30. Boy, was I wrong!

Let us know what/how many you decide to get!


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## ThatCrazyPetLady (Jun 30, 2011)

Well, I think I got what I didn't want. lol
I got 2 black mollies, definitely two girls and they were both very small. 
Then last minute I saw the orange/yellow mollies were $1 so I asked for 2 girls of those two but didnt select them myself. I should have known better. I am pretty sure (they are harder to tell) that one is a boy and one is a pregnant female! 
Ugh - it's not the end of the world. One round of babies is find and I will maybe keep a few girls (maybe) and take the rest to a store with the male, if I deem he is in fact a male by then. 
That's what happens when you trust other people I suppose.


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## ThatCrazyPetLady (Jun 30, 2011)

okay well maybe they are all girls after all... but I still think the 1 is pregnant. Which is fine. I really like these fish and will keep some of them and like I said, I am sure I can find a store to tank the rest - credit or none, doesn't matter to me.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

*Livebearer Facts of Life*

1. Assume all females are pregnant, unless you raised them yourself and are *absolutely* certain that no male was ever in the tank with them.

2. A female can have multiple broods from just one mating. Females store sperm and it will fertilize later broods if no male is present.

3. They will eat their own young. Mollies aren't quite as bad as guppies, but be prepared.

4. Other fish will eat the baby livebearers, but probably not all of them. Your gouramis will relish them. This is natural population control.

5. It is likely you can find someone to give the babies to if you have too many. *DO NOT DUMP THEM IN NATURAL BODIES OF WATER!*


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## ThatCrazyPetLady (Jun 30, 2011)

Another question: How long does it take to have the babies? Will it be all at once? I have seen 1 tiny baby in the tank and she still look pregnant. It has been 24 hours since I first saw the 1 baby.


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## OVT (Aug 26, 2010)

Give it a day or 2 and you will see a lot more. I now have 3 tanks overrun with black mollies. I have gotten Betas for population control but they are now so fat they won't hunt anything unless it swims into their mouths. Enjoy


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## PlantNerd (Feb 8, 2010)

ThatCrazyPetLady -

Mollies (livebearers in general) are fairly easily to sex. Males have a a gonopodium like in the picture below










While females have just anal fins like so










One way to prevent them from making more is simply take the males out. If you want to get really adventurous you could put mollies in a saltwater tank then you can watch them breed like crazy..of course I wouldn't suggest it if your just looking to keep fish in general


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## asukawashere (Mar 11, 2009)

I like mollies - I have a 55g with a bunch of wild-caught sailfins I brought back from my last Florida vacation. They look great in planted tanks, but keep in mind that they like their water warm (80-82 is ideal) and with a high pH. Many aquarists keep them in slightly brackish water, i.e. they add a small amount of marine aquarium salt (not regular table salt) to raise the pH. As a euryhaline (adaptable to both fresh and marine water) species, the mollies like this. But, many aquatic plants dislike the high pH and/or the salt, so you have to pick species that are tolerant of those water conditions. Java ferns (which are naturally brackish), hornwort, Vallisneria, Sagittaria, Anubias, and crypts are all plants that acclimate well to those conditions. I've heard of Cabomba working as well, but have never tried it myself... I have a pile of needle-leaf java ferns attached to sycamore root driftwood in my molly tank. Planning to add a background of vals and foreground of dwarf sag one of these days LOL.

In terms of diet, mollies like a lot of algae/plant matter in their food. Which I've always found interesting, considering they don't tend to bother plants. But I feed mine Ken's veggie sticks (anything they don't eat is picked up by the olive nerites that share the tank) and spirulina flakes. The babies (of which there are many) get golden pearls to help speed up growth.


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