Who's your Daddy?

[GingerDiva]

I’ve had my 2 tanks running since Christmas, when I put 2 mollies into my small (22.6L/6Gal) tank and one instantly spawned – hence the large(150L/40Gal) tank LOL.

So over the months since the tanks were set up, I have been on the steep n00b learning curve of acidity, ammonia, nitrate/ite levels etc, and have lost a few unfortunate fishies along the way – but luckily only a few. Now I’m glad to say my tanks are happy and healthy, and have been for quite some time

I have only 3 mollies, all lyretails, all males – the mother was one of my casualties and I gave away several of the fry, leaving only 2. I have loads of platies, all young (oldest being about 8 weeks) and all just plain ordinary cute-as-anything platies. All of the platies were born here, so weren’t knocked up when I got them

3 of the female platies were pregnant until a few days ago – 2 have spawned now and one to go. The thing that raises questions is that around 70% of the fry so far are lyretailed!

I’ve read in my research travels that female platies mature far faster than males, which would mean the males are still too young to sire the young so soon – so is the daddy a molly?

Can mollies and platies cross breed? – because that looks like what has happened

 

[thominil]

Hi,
I poked around and found this http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f82/molly-platy-breeding-99983.html.

 

[GingerDiva]

Hi thominil, yep I saw that thread too - in fact that's the one which brought me to this forum.

Unfortunately it doesn't tell me anything apart from 'yes it is possible', 'no it isn't' and 'it may be but there's no evidence'.... I thought I'd start a new thread to see if anyone had further input

Thanks for the reply!

 

[thominil]

O well i tried. I never thought of that happening? Wat kind of lyrtail is the molly dalmation, black, silver? Maybe when the babies get older you might be able to see some traits from the molly if he really is the father.

 

[JohnPaul]

Very interesting, to say the least! Please, please keep us posted.

 

[fearlessfisch]

I'm convinced that dalmation mollies are magic. Mine changed color completely after I bought them I looked in the tank, and all of a sudden I had different fish!

 

[GingerDiva]

OK I finally managed to get (crappy but there) pics of a couple of the lyretail fry and 2 of the 3 possible daddies.

First the daddies - the first image is either the daddy or grandaddy - he is the father of the second image....

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/atta...892804_0_fe3049e083aba949a011696a6fa1738e.jpg

.... and the two babies which weren't completely camera shy.... in fact these ones were real posers, but the flash kept me from getting a better shot

at around 1/2 inch long, these are real cuties!!