Black female molly X silver male had all orange fry?

[Bre7337]

So at least one of my two pregnant black mollies dropped a few fry about a week ago (both still looking very square though) and the seven I’ve saved are in a separate tank. My question is though, both females were bred by the same silver male, and yet all seven fry are orange/ pale yellow and I was wondering how that might be? They haven’t had any other contact with any other males, around 2 months ago one of them also dropped fry that were again all orange.. unfortunately the breeder box they were in ended up tipped over at 2-3 weeks old and they were eaten [emoji51] Anyways, I’m familiar with punnet squares and predicting the traits and colors, I’m just confused as to how these black females seem to only have orange fry when they haven’t been around any males at all for about 6 months before the first fry drop and then were introduced to the silver male.. are molly fry just born orange and then change colors? Or am I missing something in my calculations and there’s some really strong orange genes in both parents that just aren’t visible?

Probably seems like a bad question but I’m new to live bearers, I’ve mostly bred cichlids and watched them develop more color as they got from wigglers to free swimming fry, and like I said before, the first round of fry from the black female were also orange, all the way up to when they were eaten around 2 or 3 weeks old..

Thanks in advance for the opinions [emoji4]

 

[mimiheart]

They can store sperm, so they could have had sperm from another male before you got them. It's also possible the black molly is a gold dust molly, or had a gold dust parent. It's a trait that will give mixed babies usually, and/or fry that change colors. And fry do change colors. I've had fry that started white turn into really dark dalmations and calicoes. I'm also not sure what gene this is, but there's one that seems to give gold/creamcicle mollies a black dusting, which is the opposite of gold dusting.

 

[Bre7337]

Oh wow. How old do you think they’d be when they change color if that’s what they’ll do?

 

[mimiheart]

Oh wow. How old do you think they’d be when they change color if that’s what they’ll do?

These two are six months old. Dad is a black Molly. Mom is a golden balloon. They're siblings. They were both white until they were about two months, then they looked Dalmatian. Then he started getting much darker. So, it's an adventure.

 

[Bre7337]

Gotcha. Maybe because mine never got that big they never really changed lol. Is there like a specific/ general size they’re supposed to grow to at certain times? I guess kinda like “milestones” would be a good way to put it..

 

[Bre7337]

Like should they be a certain size at 3 weeks to be considered healthy and then grow a certain amount to kinda be “on track” at for example 6 weeks?

 

[mimiheart]

It will depend on the parents, really. Since the ones I posted are balloons, they're shorter than my non-balloons that are six months (almost full-grown). 4 months or so for non-wild mollies is sexually mature, but not really full grown. I think of it like teenagers. I can't really give inches, though. As long as they're growing consistently, they're probably fine. What you want to watch for is a fish whose eyes are really big compared to its body, and it doesn't continue growing.

You may also get some "late blooming" males. They look like females long after the 4 month mark, may even act like females and get chased by the males. It won't get pregnant, and then one day it'll be a male. These guys tend to be more fertile, from what I understand, but I only know from articles and youtube.

(Note: I try not to breed balloon x balloon. Balloons aren't the healthiest of mollies to begin with, and they're not the best swimmers. It is a dominant gene, though. I've found that breeding with non balloons makes them not as "balloony" but it also helps them in the swimming ability, and they're just overall healthier. The siblings I have in that tank will probably breed, but I have tetras in there that eat the fry.)

 

[Bre7337]

That makes sense. Thanks a bunch