Hi all,
My husband and I are aquarium newbs. We have a 55-gal aquarium that we have had for almost 2 months now. It currently has 2 Cory catfish, 4 tetras, a clown loach, and 3 black mollies. Overall aquarium health seems good (water levels are healthy - just tested a couple days ago, temp is at 78, hubs has been vacuuming and doing about a 10-15% water change weekly, we have a variety of foods we are feeding, etc). Over the past 4-5 days, one of our mollies has been hiding out with his dorsal fin pressed straight down against his back, and I'm not sure he's been eating an awful lot. Prior to this, the 3 mollies swam together and generally seemed to get along, but the largest molly would become pretty "nippy" during feeding time, and often chase the other mollies off (he's even gotten a bit nippy with the other species during feeding, but not terrible). After doing some research, it seems we may have two males and a female, so I'm considering getting a few more females to help the dynamics of the social structure in the tank. The one female we have has also been hiding out near the filter current, so I wonder if she's also sick of the male-dominated atmosphere. I had considered getting a couple dalmatian mollies. Do I need to get black female mollies like the others, or do other colors of mollies help solve sex dominance issues? Also I may be way off thinking this is even the problem, so any other advice is appreciated. Thank you!
My husband and I are aquarium newbs. We have a 55-gal aquarium that we have had for almost 2 months now. It currently has 2 Cory catfish, 4 tetras, a clown loach, and 3 black mollies. Overall aquarium health seems good (water levels are healthy - just tested a couple days ago, temp is at 78, hubs has been vacuuming and doing about a 10-15% water change weekly, we have a variety of foods we are feeding, etc). Over the past 4-5 days, one of our mollies has been hiding out with his dorsal fin pressed straight down against his back, and I'm not sure he's been eating an awful lot. Prior to this, the 3 mollies swam together and generally seemed to get along, but the largest molly would become pretty "nippy" during feeding time, and often chase the other mollies off (he's even gotten a bit nippy with the other species during feeding, but not terrible). After doing some research, it seems we may have two males and a female, so I'm considering getting a few more females to help the dynamics of the social structure in the tank. The one female we have has also been hiding out near the filter current, so I wonder if she's also sick of the male-dominated atmosphere. I had considered getting a couple dalmatian mollies. Do I need to get black female mollies like the others, or do other colors of mollies help solve sex dominance issues? Also I may be way off thinking this is even the problem, so any other advice is appreciated. Thank you!
