Pregnant Fish

[kansaschick08]

Hey y'all,
I havent been posting in a while but I would like to tell ya'll that my fish are 37 weeks old, and I now have 7 new baby fish!, and 4 older fish. Now, when does my fish stop looking pregant?? Please reply!

BYE!

 

[Menagerie]

What kind of fish?

 

[kansaschick08]

white mollies

 

[Menagerie]

Sorry, I recently bought Mollies, but have no real experience with them. I would google them and find out more about their breeding habitats and body types.

 

[kansaschick08]

ok thanks!

 

[William]

White Sailfin?

White Lyretail?

White Balloon?


And they should loose alot of their girth when the babies are expelled.

However, just forwarning.. They do eat their young, some of my not so bright mollies have dropped a fry, turned around ate it, dropped another, turned around and ate it, ect ect.

She dosn't look any more slender than when she was carrying the fry?

If she dosn't, Does her scales poke out like a pinecone?

 

[Menagerie]

If she looks a tad bloated (no scales sticking out) try blanched peas to help things pass.

 

[kansaschick08]

whats blanched peas??? whats girth?? im only 14. the mother still looks the same fatness...

 

[Menagerie]

Girth is the roundness of your fish (when I was fourteen--my mom made me look up everything in the dictionary, that one is your free pass ).

As for blanched peas--it's a way to cook them. I use frozen peas and microwave them for a couple of mins and then pop them out of their skins. Once they are cooled, you can feed them to your fish. This will only help if there is indeed a problem and if you don't feed them other food.

When exactly did she have the fry?

 

[TankGirl]

If you pop some frozen peas into boiling water for a minute or so, you have "blanched" them, and made them easier for the fish to digest. It is kind of like fishy laxative, to clear any kind of blockage in the digestive tract.

Girth is how big around she is, so her girth should reduce after dropping her fry. If she is a balloon molly they always have that round body appearance.

As mentioned above, if her fins are sticking out in a way that reminds you of a pinecone, that is an illness called "dropsy" and she should be removed and quarrantined. If she is eating normally and doing her normal thing, but just still looks round, then I would try the pea trick - mollies should scarf up a pea no problem. It may be that she ate too many of her babies and has a blockage issue.

Good luck, and let us know-

 

[kansaschick08]

She didnt eat her babies cause i cought her in the process of giving birth. but where do the babies come from? I realy hate asking yall so many questions but this is what the board is for. well her girth has gone down but she still is fat...."pregnant" looking still.. but a little smaller that what she has been w/ the babies.

 

[Endgame319]

Its also possible that she is prego again.

 

[Menagerie]

but where do the babies come from?

Anatomy-wise or "birds and the bees"-wise

The female fish has ovaries and a uterus. Once fertilization occurs (which is internal), the fry begin developing in the uterus. The female gives birth after a certain gestation peroiod (how long it takes the fry to develop).
Do you have both males and females? Male liverbearers (Guppies, Platies, Mollies and Swordtails) have a modified anal fin called a gonopodium, which is used to internally fertilize the female. Females lack gonopodia and have a triangular anal fin instead, so they’re easily sexed.

If you have no males in your tank ( http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/show_article.php?article_id=13: )

Many livebearers produce packets of sperm called spermatozeugmata and impregnate the female with these. Spermatozeugmata can remain in the folds of the ovaries and uterus of female livebearers for up to a year in some species, allowing the female to fertilize several successive batches of eggs from a single spawning.

 

[kansaschick08]

umm ok thank you I do have the male and female. easily sexed meaning get pregnant easy..i asume. the female so when the fry(babies) grow up then she'll give birth again? oh by the gonopodia right up there... its all black...is that bad? or does it matter? I bought some fry food well its not realy fry food its more like a treat. its a thing that you put in the water and it disolves and then it lets out little shrimps...at least that what the person at the pet store told me.

 

[millipede]

I'm glad you are here asking questions as this can all be quite confusing... the word "sexed" means to be able to tell the difference between a male and female, or to be able to figure it out basically... so saying "it is easy for mollys to be sexed" means it's easy to tell the difference between them... And I think this is what you were asking, the female will continue to get pregnant and give birth regardless of what babies are around. I don't know of any fish that wait for the young to grow up... well, I guess there are a few that take care of the young for a while... but mollys are not one of them. Once those babies come out, they are just another fish to her...

 

[kansaschick08]

So either way the female will be pregnant FOREVER and EVER? well keep birthing...? i dont know if i can handle it...i have a 3 gallon tank and now 10 fish that will be in there. even with three there isnt realy ALOT of food for those. is there a way that she can stay not pregnant? like women get their tubes tied...can you get that for a fish??

 

[Menagerie]

That would be quite a surgery for a fish 8O
The best thing to do is separate the males, females and fry (you may need to give some away to the LFS or friends that keep fish). The females may already be pregnant, so be prepared for more babies. Do you keep any other fish? This may sound cruel, but you can feed other fish the little fry--it's what would happen in the wild--other fish may eat the young. The reason the fish have so many offspring is to give just a small percentage a chance to survive. I just watched my silver tip tetras the other night try to spawn in my 50 gal community tank. The female would dart around and a male was close behind her. The eggs she was releasing were hardly noticeable. The Serpea tetras were also RIGHT there to eat the eggs--good nutrition for a fish, not so good for the survival of offspring. The only way to ensure you get no more fry is to keep only males.

 

[Menagerie]

oh by the gonopodia right up there... its all black...is that bad? or does it matter?

I don't think it matters.

I bought some fry food well its not realy fry food its more like a treat. its a thing that you put in the water and it disolves and then it lets out little shrimps...at least that what the person at the pet store told me.

I would get special fry food--I think I have something called "fry bites". I was told (and who knows if this is true) that flake food might cause bloating in young fish because they keep eating (they don’t yet know when enough is enough)! I noticed that in a 3-month-old cichlid I was raising—his tummy looked terribly distended after eating. He would eat everything--he was a pig!

 

[Allivymar]

*nods and agrees*

Live bearing fish such as mollies are baby machines. If there's a male and a female together at some point, there's babies. As Menagerie explained, the female stores sperm; you could buy all females at the lfs, and STILL wind up with babies. And keep in mind, fish have no issues with incest. If there are male and female fry, as soon as they are sexually mature they'll breed too; more babies.

A 3g tank is too small as you surmised, but its even too small for 2 mollies. Mollies get to be around 5 inches long as adults! You might want to look into a larger tank; a 10g minimum, or try a male betta as thats about the only fish that should be kept in a tank under 5g.

 

[kansaschick08]

but wont the male betta kill off the fish?