Why won't my Molly fish mate?

[Cuauhtli1312]

Ok so I wanna know why two of my fish won't mate. I have a 20 gallon tank with 1 betta, 1 rubber lip pleco, 1 clown pleco, 1 mystery snail, 2 female full grown Dalmatian Molly, 1 silver sailfin lyre tail male Molly, 1 black female Molly, 1 young Dalmatian Molly, and about 60 Molly fry. Water parameters are all normal, I change water every Saturday, and do use aquarium salt. I want to get my silver lyre tail male Molly to breed with the black female Molly. She just gave birth to about 20 fry, probly pregnant from the fish store so she is old enough to mate, I've had both the silver and the black for around a month and a half, and he will not mate with her. He practically rapes the other 2 Dalmatian mollies, one of which gave birth 2 weeks ago to over 40 fry, the other is about to drop any day now. I'm going to give away most of the fry away but would like to see the silver and the black mate and see what offspring they produce for me to keep. Is he racist towards her or what's the deal? Does anyone know anything about this?

 

[henningc]

First, you have that tank overstuffed to the max.

There may be simply too much traffic and the males are after the sure thing. If you remove the females the males like for a day they will start chasing the other females.

As for numbers, get a kiddie pool and set it up in the back yard. Toss in all the molly fry and they will grow twice as large as your adults from the pet store.

 

[jwh0818]

Ok so I wanna know why two of my fish won't mate. I have a 20 gallon tank with 1 betta, 1 rubber lip pleco, 1 clown pleco, 1 mystery snail, 2 female full grown Dalmatian Molly, 1 silver sailfin lyre tail male Molly, 1 black female Molly, 1 young Dalmatian Molly, and about 60 Molly fry. Water parameters are all normal, I change water every Saturday, and do use aquarium salt. I want to get my silver lyre tail male Molly to breed with the black female Molly. She just gave birth to about 20 fry, probly pregnant from the fish store so she is old enough to mate, I've had both the silver and the black for around a month and a half, and he will not mate with her. He practically rapes the other 2 Dalmatian mollies, one of which gave birth 2 weeks ago to over 40 fry, the other is about to drop any day now. I'm going to give away most of the fry away but would like to see the silver and the black mate and see what offspring they produce for me to keep. Is he racist towards her or what's the deal? Does anyone know anything about this?

Your tank is simply way overstocked. All the fry need to be removed or drop some bigger fish and put something that will take the fry out of the equation.

 

[Cuauhtli1312]

Well, I understand what your saying, but thing is the male hasn't touched the black female since I got them both together, as far as the fry, I have people lined up to buy them from me later this week, the first 40 batch are going out this week, the second batch of black Molly are going out in a week n a half, the other Molly just dropped last night and only got about 8 healthy fry and about 20 yellow balls(eggs) that were u developed, and i have all the fry in a small net breeder, as to not mix them with the rest of the aquarium, i also clean the fry poop every 2 days because they go so much as to not pollute the tank. The only fry i would be really interested in keeping is the offspring from the silver and black molly if i can get them to mate. So as I know the tank being overstocked is a slight problem which will be resolved in a matter of weeks, that's still not the problem of why the silver sail fin lyre tail male wont mate with the black female. I did try separating them together in a betta bowl I have lying around for day n they still showed no interest in each other.

 

[jwh0818]

Then your gonna have to remove the other females from the equation and hope the male doesnt harass the female too mucj

 

[Nats-fishies]

I have heard that if there are fry In the tank with the adults mollies that the mollies don't tend to breed as often. I just moved my fry to the big tank with the adult male and moved the female to the small tank to birth the next fry. I am hoping that when I put her back into the big tank the male won't bother her as much. Guess I will have to see what happens.