Sailfin Molly premature birth?

[degbowl]

I bought a pair of sailfin mollies at my lfs. When the person was puting the fish in the bag he said this one is ready to give birth. I took home the fish and had the bag floating. I came back to bag about 10 minutes later to see her giving birth. I quickly took out the male then the female when I thought that she was done. I put the babies in a breeder trap in the tank. When I took a look at the babies they were not swimming. Some looked liked little balls with eyes. They were not fully developed. Even though the guy said she was ready to give birth, it must of been too soon. Do you think the stress of being netted and put in bag brought on her giving birth?

 

[woodsplace1]

sounds to me like she aborted...I took out my dalmation molly and put her in a breeder net when I thought she was just about to drop and everyone kept telling me it could stress her out and she could abort the fry....HTH, maybe tomorrow or the next day she could have more once she gets acclimated to the tank. They say they can hang on to the fry for 28 days, keep checking back, never know! HTH!

 

[Puriti]

Yeah I agree with woodsplace she probably aborted. IME I never put my fish in a breeder trap because it just stresses them out more and I just let them give birth and even though they are said to eat their young...they really only eat a few, it's more or less the OTHER fish you need to worry about for the fry eaters. I just scoop em up after as many as I can find because in the long run, you might have a crap load of babies and nothing to do with them...lol

 

[degbowl]

The molly never made it to the breeder trap. She had them in the bag.

 

[Creamhorses]

Seems the folks @ the LFS should have known enough to seperate the pair for transport, given the notice of a plump female. It may not have prevented the loss, but it would have @ least dimmished the stress.

I lost a beauty of a mature male sailfin moly a couple months back. I think it was injured in the bag with the female as they tore back and forth in the plastic.

From now on when I look to bring home fish for mating or if they're expensive, I'll request that they be bagged seperately.

Dave