Stupid Question(s)

[Diva]

Hello everyone!

Stupid question #1: Can mollies breed with platies? I think mine have, but Ive read some things that say they 'cant'.

Stupid question #2: Can fancy guppies breed with platies or mollies?

My fancy guppies have been mating with my platies and my females dont seem to mind at all.. .. and it just plain freaks me out. I guess this is not uncommon.. but .. well..

Anyway.

My female platies have had lots of babies, as have my guppies.. so I have a good idea now of what they look like from birth..

And this week.. well.. Ive got some babies that are colored like the platies.. but are shaped differently.. and they are not shaped like the baby guppies either.. its like something inbetween.......

And ive got the other 2 kinds in the baby tank to compare them too... so.. well.. uh.. someone please tell me I dont have some bizarre thing going on in my tank..

Thank you.

8O

 

[tetrin]

u seem to be the mutation guru....
should try ur hand at other species too!

anyway, AFAIK, its not uncommon for livebearers to crossbreed....

 

[Umberle]

Guppies and platies I know are possible....and I wouldn't be surprised if mollies and platies could interbreed....it may just not be common

Congrats though....now I want to throw some guppies in with my platies and see what happens

 

[Jchillin]

Diva...your questions cannot be considered stupid because you are a witness to the events! The benefit of this is you will get to name the new genus. Let us know how you make out with your new species.

 

[Diva]

Thanks for the answers!

Hmm...

I was really kind of expecting everyone to say I was imagining things..

But since you seem to think it could be possible, let me go into a little detail..

The male is a black molly for sure. The female he first bred with I thought was a gold molly.. but Im pretty sure she was a gold platy now. she died, but I had a second one like her, and still do. They have also had babies..

The babies are a few months now and are big... WAY bigger than the balck molly and the males all have a distinct curve from the forehead down to the mouth, unlike the black molly.. but they all have that same curved top fin he has..and they all seem to have this red neon streaky line in the middle of their bodies.. from front to back, its pale though

Im assuming gold mollies dont look like this...but i really have a hard time finding good pics anywhere...

So unless shes a gold molly.... i already have a bunch of molly/platy babies.. (well, they are like 3 months now and i need to give them away!)

the guppies have for sure mated with these babies on numerous occasions.. though Ive never seen a male mating with female guppy.. only the male guppies are trying to mate

so these new babies would most likely be 1/4 molly, 1/4 platy, and half guppy...

I was just looking at them and they really look different. its so strange. they arent tiny like baby guppies (and they are only 3 days old, and I have some 4 day old guppies in there to compare to) but they arent shaped like the other babies.. they are colored the same... orange with black spots.. but they have that elongated body a guppy has as it starts to get older....

and they are thin... whereas the molly/platy babies have a distinct difference in size of the 'head' and rest of the body...

Too much info??

sorry..

I keep thinking its my imagination. but i have this nagging feeling that it isnt!!

I keep trying to find info that shows they can breed.. I thought in theory they could..

So what if I really have a new kind of fishy? would anyone care???

Im living across the world in central europe though... not sure they would care here...

though the germans might..

Thanks for listening to me ramble!

 

[FawnN]

Anything is possible, but I would wait until they get older. Since livebearers can hold sperm and have 3-4 different batches of fry every 28-30 days, without being near a male, they could have been pregant before you bought them.

I know that livebearers can hold sperm from 2 different dads and you can have a mix of both of the dads. Could that be a possiblity?

 

[Diva]

Well.. but its the babies that were born in my tank that are mating with the guppies....

And they are all suspiciously a mix color of black and gold..

So I just assumed they were offspring of the 2 (black molly/gold platy)...

But also, there are many of these females that are offspring and they have all had babies (unfortunately!!) and they have never looked like these..

But who knows.. for sure not me!! =)

Ill keep an eye on them, and if they grow up to be something else, Ill post some pics!

 

[fyrclwn]

yeah, got some mollies at Thanksgiving, and as soon as they went into the tank it was orgiastic mayhem! the male mollies and guppies were basically going after anything they could catch! lord knows what i may see in my tank in a couple of weeks! LOL the male molly has settled down, but the guppies.....well, i don't think the Apocalypse would stop them. ; )

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I purchased four mollies from my LFS. I guess the new kid didn't know crap about fish because I asked for either 4 males or 4 females. He gave us two male and two female. We had babies every two weeks! We had to set up a whole new tank just to hold the babies. Suprisingly about 30 of them survived without being eaten by the Bala sharks. We found that mollies will breed with just about anything that they are physically able to.