Don't know who the mom is

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Ginnyh828

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jun 14, 2017
Messages
4
For the past 2 days, I've been finding tiny babies in my tank that I've been scooping out one by one to put them in a separate tank. I'm up to 18 babies!!! But I can't tell who's in labor! Help!

Neither mollies belly are "squared". Neither of them are acting different. I read that they usually poop white when they are in labor but they are popping normal. No sudden movements... no one isolating themselves.... no one hiding...

What other clue can I have to find out who's giving birth? Anyone experienced more than one molly pregnant at the same time? IMG_7587.jpg
 
I had three give birth within hours of each other in a community tank. I had to wait until the fry were older to figure out who the moms were, and even now I still don't know who some of them are. (I had two golden balloon mollies and about half of the babies are calico and dalmation balloons.) Sometimes unless you actually see the mom give birth you won't know. The only mom I know for sure is my creamsicle lyre tail. Her babies all look like her, only some aren't lyretails. The dad I'm 99% sure about, though.
 
by looking at your tank I'm sure you must have had other mollies drop babies that have gotten eaten. I have bare bottom tank for my mollies,but I have one quarter of the tank plated with artificial plants 2 plastic grass mats , lots of artificial hairgrass other artificai style plants that go up the tank a quarter of the way,this gives the females a breather from the males. it also is the nursery.I have schools of different size mollies swimming in this. I have mollies giving birth every few days.Your tank needs plants if not for the babbies, for your poor females that I know are constantly getting chased.
 
by looking at your tank I'm sure you must have had other mollies drop babies that have gotten eaten. I have bare bottom tank for my mollies,but I have one quarter of the tank plated with artificial plants 2 plastic grass mats , lots of artificial hairgrass other artificai style plants that go up the tank a quarter of the way,this gives the females a breather from the males. it also is the nursery.I have schools of different size mollies swimming in this. I have mollies giving birth every few days.Your tank needs plants if not for the babbies, for your poor females that I know are constantly getting chased.



All the mollies in my tank are females. All the males are in my husbands tank. I will buy more plants though! Thanks! [emoji1360]
 
I had three give birth within hours of each other in a community tank. I had to wait until the fry were older to figure out who the moms were, and even now I still don't know who some of them are. (I had two golden balloon mollies and about half of the babies are calico and dalmation balloons.) Sometimes unless you actually see the mom give birth you won't know. The only mom I know for sure is my creamsicle lyre tail. Her babies all look like her, only some aren't lyretails. The dad I'm 99% sure about, though.



How exciting!!! How many babies did you get total?
 
How exciting!!! How many babies did you get total?

Something like 70. We let nature take its course for many of them. Then moved a bunch of the fry to a different tank when they got too big. Then I gave many of them away, and now I have a bunch of older friendly juveniles. They're about six months old now. My lyre tail's daughters are absolutely gorgeous. She's my dominant female, and her one daughter is probably going to be taking her place pretty soon, I think.
 
Not always does a female has to be fat or even squared off to start dropping fry. It happens often as well that a pregnant female drops fry when she's ain't that bombastic to look at. And that those fry seem totally normal in size.
 
Back
Top Bottom