Molly fry with slightly crooked spine

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cfd

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jul 22, 2008
Messages
15
One of my Molly fry, about 10 weeks old now, has been growing just fine... but its spine is slightly crooked. It is getting bigger and keeps up with the rest of the healthy Guppy fry that I have. It eats normally like all the others. It swims around just fine too.

There were about 7 Molly fry and only 3 of them have survived, this little guy being one of them. Overall it seemed like a weak batch. Some were multi-colored and looked very weak. I'm guessing bad, inbred genetics.

My question is: Will it continue to grow into a healthy adult? Or, due to the bad genetics, should I just feed him to a bigger fish?
 
Chances are it is genetics. The spine might become more bent or straighten out it is hard to tell at this point. I wouldn't breed it and keep an eye on the next generation of fry.
 
I've never dealt with breeding mollies, but I have 7 years experience with guppies...

Guppies will get a crooked back from in breeding too much. Its good to introduce some new fish to the gene pool every now and then to prevent this, and weed out the ones with crooked backs.
Some people will feed the deformed fish to bigger fish in another tank, or keep them in a separate tank, or freeze them to kill them (they say its humane and painless, but I personally think its a waste of life. At least if you kill it, feed it to something else so its life had a purpose)
 
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