molly babies vanishing?

[shadylady23]

Okay, so I went from 11 Molly's to now it looks like 4. They are a few weeks old now so they are pretty big and easy to see and I can't find the others! The filter intake has a cover on it and they are not stuck to that, I cannot see them on the floor or floating either. Just gone. I even stuck my hand in there and waved it around to see if any were hiding on the bottom or something. Still nothing. My others are looking really fat, do you think they ate them? I checked my water and ph was at 7.6, ammonia 0, nitrites 0, and nitrates 20 (before I did my water change)

Any suggestions?, I really think they ate them!

 

[shadylady23]

Oh BTW, the babies are in a tank ALONE, no other fish.

 

[mike47517]

check around the rim of the top of the tank they might be floating up there some where thats my only guess.

 

[robott]

yeah. that's totally bizarre. any plants? or any other animals besides fish?

 

[musicman]

I think they ate them. But they didn't eat them in one gulp. They all took bites.

My bet is that the mollies picked the weakest fish, chased it about until it was exausted. Then when the mollie died the others each took their share of it. Then they repeated it with the next weakest fish. Pretty soon your mollies had eaten themselves down to a smaller population.

Territory issues could have provoked such cannibalistic behavior.