Male endler guppy trying to breed with molly

[wildroseofky]

I have two male endler guppies and two small ones that could be guppy or endler guppies. The little ones were caught in the net with the adult males and the store said to just take them too for no charge. They are growing but are not that big and I have no idea if they are male or female. They were just tiny spots at the time. One of my adult males is trying to get cosy with a juvenile molly. The molly is 4 months old. He seems only interested in the one molly. He is a lot tinier than her. Should I move him to another tank for now. I am taking the juvenile mollies to the pet store soon and plan on getting some more endler guppies. They were listed as fancy guppies but have sword tails and endler like coloring. I want to breed him if the others are girls but it will be awhile before they are ready. This is my first time with guppies. I do not think my juvenil mollies are ready to breed. The only male molly isn't showing any interest in them.

 

[Oohitsae]

First - to tell the difference between male and female endlers, if you aren't able to see the gonopodium, only males have color.
2nd - unless you want endler/guppy/molly hybrids, I'd move the molly out of that tank. Any and all of those can interbreed. Fry from molly x endler/guppy are generally sterile, but they definitely can produce them and it's kind of frowned upon in the hobby to do so.

 

[Margie3689]

Hello there! From what I've read guppies will try to mate with almost anything! Even other male guppies. It is said that they also try to mate with other livebearing fish such as mollies, platies, and sword tails. Usually you can tell male guppies apart from females by their size and shape. Males are usually narrower and have longer tail fins and much more colorful. They also will have two triangular type fins on their belly where as females with have 1 round fin there. Female will also have a dark spot on their belly known as the gravid spot which gets darker when she's pregnant. Guppies reproduce easily. It's recommended that you keep 3 females for every 1 male so that the male doesn't chase the one to death. Also keep a breeder net or java moss in your tank for the babies since the parents WILL eat them if they can. It doesn't surprise me that he keeps chasing the one mollie since it's fin shapes are similar to a female guppies. If he won't leave it alone, I recommend separating them, I've used a divider and it helped. Hope that helps!

 

[Margie3689]

First - to tell the difference between male and female endlers, if you aren't able to see the gonopodium, only males have color.
2nd - unless you want endler/guppy/molly hybrids, I'd move the molly out of that tank. Any and all of those can interbreed. Fry from molly x endler/guppy are generally sterile, but they definitely can produce them and it's kind of frowned upon in the hobby to do so.

I agree. Too much interbreeding leads to weakened immune systems and fish more susceptible to diseases.

 

[Oohitsae]

I agree. Too much interbreeding leads to weakened immune systems and fish more susceptible to diseases.

I was talking about cross breeding - the guppies with the mollies. But you're right, neither is good.

 

[Fishfur]

Might be frowned upon, but it's been done. pics at the link below are of molly/guppy hybrids.. the owner is considering calling them Muppies. I don't see why it would be frowned upon, it's very common to hybridize animals and while the results are not always good, sometimes they are great.

I think the main reason not to do it is if the offspring have some abnormality that affects their ability to live a normal life. Some big cat hybrids, for example, can result in giants that never stop growing, because the genetic trigger to complete growth is missing. I'd have to look up whether it's tigons or ligers that continue to grow, but they can become enormous, much larger than either parent species. I would disagree with producing this type of hybrid, but crossing two fish species to get another pretty fish, I see little potential for harm in that so long as they are never released to the wild. Perhaps that's a reason not to, but there are plenty of hybrid fish in the hobby.

Hybrids also have something referred to as hybrid vigour, which is the result of mixing two distinct genetic pools, giving the offspring more genetic resources than purebreds would have.

Mollies & guppies cross breeding?

 

[Fishlover3578]

I think the crossbreed looks interesting

 

[Fishfur]

I thought they were quite pretty myself.

 

[Sdimatties]

I have a pair of dalmation Molly/guppies. I thi k they have a lot of personality and are quite pretty. You might be able to see them in my album.

 

[Fishlover3578]

Sorta blurry but looks good

 

[wildroseofky]

The molly juveniles will be going to the pet store this weekend. If I can catch them. I could only catch 16 last week and gave up on the rest. now I need the others gone before they over load my tank. I believe the two little guppies are female. They have tan bodies, rounded anal fins, and rounded, small tails. One of them is getting a little color in her tail but it isn't growing. I have two males left. I started out with 6 but the others evidently died. I couldn't find them after I messed my tank up trying to catch the mollies. I stirred up a lot of crude and I think it might have been too much for them. There has got to be an easier way to catch fish in a heavily planted tank. I have a 5 gallon and a 10 gallon that are cycled. They have snails and shrimp in them. I am thinking of taking the best colored male and the biggest female and putting them in the 5 gallon for awhile. I want more so I may as well breed my own. The pet store said they will take all I do not want. Saves her money not having to go and buy a bunch from a distant supplier. I tried to get a photo but they would not hold still. All the photos were to blurry to make out the fish. I am doing more research on guppy breeding. I do not want molly guppy fry. They look cute but seem to have too many problems. no use in breeding something that might not be healthy.

 

[Mogurako]

All Poecilia can interbreed with each other and so can all the Xiphophorus. However Poecilia and Xiphophorus have little no chance of crossing to the best of my knowledge. It all has to do with the shape of their gonapodium, if the males is shaped to differently than the male that would normally breed with that particular female he will be unable to impregnate her. I know this is true with some of the more uncommon wild strains of wild Xiphophorus, even though they are the same species they can't cross because the difference in the gonapodium shape is to extreme.

I say it its fine to let livebearers cross, you can get some truly beautiful specimens that way. However it's my opinion that those crosses should never leave your aquarium. Otherwise you run into the whole problems as X. helleri and maculatus, they have been cross bred so much to achieve certain color patterns its almost impossible to find true strains of either unless they are wild caught or bred from wild stock. This crossing is sadly also starting to affect the Xiphophorus variatus.

 

[wildroseofky]

If I planned on keeping them, I might let them cross but I just do not have the room for everything I want. LOL I am right now planning a neon tetra breeding tank, a shrimp only tank, and a puffer tank. I want to move the mollies to their own tank because they look strange next to the guppies and tetras. Like bulls in a China shop. LOL I am wondering if my male molly is not cross breed. His mother was in a tank with guppies when I got her. She and her tank mate, another female from the same store tank, gave birth back to back 6 months after I got them. No male was in the tank. Both original girls had mostly deformed or dead fry. The ones that survived where small and pale. Only two survived. They are the male and female I have now. The male was always strange. He is longer and has a different shaped head than the other mollies I have seen. He also has a sail fin and somewhat odd coloring. his fins look like they are dusted with orange. you cannot see it unless he flares in front of the light. His female tank mate and he have breed but she never gave birth. She got big and square and acted like she was going to give birth but no fry ever showed up. All of my fry have been from a newly acquired creamsicle molly that came pregnant. I have had the other two for 8 months and they have never had viable fry. I keep trying to get a decent photo but have only gotten blurry ones. I included the best one I got.