Molly & Platy Breeding?

[Vanessamanfredi]

Hi everyone!

I just set up my 3rd aquarium, a 55 gallon tank with one female platy, one male molly, one pleco, and one African dwarf frog. It’s pretty empty right now since it’s new.
The male molly keeps harassing the female platy and sticking his bottom fin inside of her. I did not know the sex of the fish before I put them together. There is one live fry in the tank that I see every once in a while because it likes to hide. But I was wondering how common it is for Mollies and Platies to breed?

I saw online that it is “impossible since they are from different families” but I have no other explanation for why there is a baby since the male is so interested in the female and she occasionally swells up and looks very pregnant.

So my question is did my Molly and Platy have a miracle baby? Is that even possible? I have attached some photos of the baby, molly and platy.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Andy Sager]

The issue with livebearers is that males are always ( it seems) looking for a female of any fish to mate with even tho the mating is usually unfruitful. It is more common for Guppies to breed with Mollies ( both ways) and Swordtails breeding with Platies ( also both ways) since those two groups are related more closely. With that said, Platies do have the ability to hold sperm so the platy may have been pregnant the whole time? In your pic, the bottom gold colored fish looks more a misshapened molly than a " typical" platy so you may in fact have a pair of mollies and not the mix you believe you have. The real answer will come when that fry grows. If it was a mix, it should turn gold in color ( based on the parent's colors). If it stays black/marbled, I would think more along the lines that it's from a previous pregnancy. If it turns out to stay marbled and is a Molly, that should tell you that your female is most likely a molly and not a platy. IMO
Hope this helps.

 

[okapizebra]

Agreed, those are both mollies.