I'm not sure if I'm posting in the correct place but...

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Beginrfishkeep

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Sep 10, 2013
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2
I bought 3 creamsicle mollies from my local pet store and after watching them for a few days I noticed that two were always chasing the other one. I did a little research online and found that I have two males to one female. So I go get another female but this time I got a dalmatian molly. The problem is the creamsicle mollies don't interact with the dalmatian molly. Should I return her and get another creamsicle, or should I leave them be? I'm hesitant to add another fish as I only have a ten gallon tank and think four is enough possibly too many. Someone please help me out.
 
A general rule with live breeders is that you want to have two to three females to males. Also find out I the species variations interbreed. For example neon swordtails won't breed with pineapple swordtails, or so I'm told.

I hope this helps.
 
Welcome to AA, it's weird that your creamsicle mollies don't interact with your other molly from what I know all mollies are the same species (poecilia velifera), you should try to get more females, with most livebearers (mollies, guppies, platies, etc) the correct balance of fishes should be three or two females to male.
 
the reason behind having less males for example my live birth mosquito fish ratio is 2 full males and 1 juvenile male versus 5-7 females. the females of my fish species will actually delay pregnancy if there is a threat nearby. aka like a male chasing the female. this stress at the max can cause unwanted deaths. so to avoid this u are fine to get just some more at least 2 females if u keep your previous new one. you might want to research you fish and see how many you can have in a 10g based on territory size and see if the 2 types really can mix peacefully
 
All species of mollies will interbreed - same with all livebearers, if their species is the same they will interbreed, mollies can breed with guppies and endless (though rare), endlers and guppies is more common, swordtails with platies, so on...
But it's more likely that they will stick to fish similar to them, so that's why your creamsicles won't interact with the Dalmatian. What you should do, if possible is return one male and the Dalmatian and come home with 2 female creamsicles.

I've noticed that mollies are some of the more aggressive livebearers and unlike guppies which can usually be okay in pairs, they absolutely need a higher female ratio to males, I'd suggest atleast 3 females per male. I had 2 pairs of pandas/gold dust together for quite some time and my males were always chasing the females down pretty aggressively, when I added 3 more females of the same type they all relaxed and while I still saw a lot of chasing, it wasn't nearly as bad as it was before.
I should also add that if you had 0 females and all males this would also help lower the aggression a good amount and keep you from ending up with a severely overstocked tank from all the fry. Molly fry, along with "fancy" guppies (guppies that aren't a certain strain like what you'll find at the pet store), are some of the hardest fry to rehome. Unless you have a rare strain, your LFS will likely only take them as donations, if they take them at all because they are so common and easy to breed. -just a thought-
 
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