What to Do When a Molly Fish Had Babies
Here's some other batch of Molly fry! Yous must exist ecstatic… or not.
If having more and more fry is overstocking your tank and giving you trouble instead of joy, yous need to acquire how to reduce your fry or avert it earlier information technology happens.
To avoid having too many Molly fry, y'all can:
- Continue only females in the tank or carve up your Mollies past gender
- Make tank conditions unfavorable to convenance
- Allow natural food chain have its course and get fries eaten by adults
- Sell or give away newborns
Before we discuss the methods listed higher up, it will help to find out showtime why Mollies seem to multiply exponentially in such a short time.
Why do Mollies go on having babies?
Reason #one: They're livebearers
To experienced hobbyists, this statement alone explains itself. Just say you're taking care of livebearers and they instantly know their convenance habits. Other species such as Guppies, Swordtails, Endlers, and Platies are some aquarium favorites that carry the aforementioned style.
Livebearers are certainly prolific breeders. Information technology takes merely i male person to impregnate multiple females. Specifically, these lady Mollies tin give birth every 30 days to up to 100 babies. Larger Mollies similar the Sailfin gestate for about 60 days.
Livebearers have the advantage of existence born a swimming fish in what is known in scientific discipline as viviparity. It's an advantage for fish as they can escape predators easier as opposed to being laid as eggs that are just sitting somewhere waiting to be hatched (and eaten). But information technology also translates to more surviving Molly fry in your community tank.
At the speed with which Mollies reproduce, they are classified equally invasive.
Reason #2: Female Mollies tin can store sperm
And hither's where the mystery begins for a lot of beginner fish keepers. They wonder why their female Mollies get pregnant fifty-fifty without males around.
Female Mollies have this ability called sperm storage. They can go meaning several times over a few months from only one male contact.
This explains why you bring some female person developed Mollies home hoping to go along but them simply cease up with fry anyway. They've already had contact with males in the pet store and now bring you these surprises. Whether these surprises were pleasant or panic-inducing would dictate your next deportment.
Before y'all mutter to your pet store, just know that these beliefs and characteristics are normal for Mollies.
How to forestall or finish Molly pregnancies:
- Keep only i gender or split males from females
Mollies are livebearers, meaning they are non-terminate breeders. If kept together, yous'll keep having babies every xxx days with every pairing. If you have 5 females and two males in your school, that'south 5 batches of fry every month!
Separating male Mollies from female Mollies is crucial to stop pregnancies. Only keep Reason #2 (above) in mind, as they may already be meaning even after you separate the fish.
If yous programme to restock, it helps to purchase female person Mollies that are still juveniles so they tin't get significant notwithstanding. Or you tin buy from a single-gender tank that your pet store has kept since these fish were juveniles. Merely call up that if y'all're getting all males, get at least five to continue aggression downwardly.
- Continue the tank "unromantic"
Altering weather condition in the tank to go along Mollies from mating is possible. It can also be done after separating the genders to discontinue pregnancies. Don't become to extremes though, as there is a fine line betwixt keeping them from breeding and stressing them to the indicate of affliction or death.
To breed, Mollies need a temperature of near 78 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. You tin can lower this to 71 to 72 degrees which they can thrive on.
You can likewise reduce their protein intake if they're on a diet that consists of live nutrient such every bit frozen or live bloodworms and brine shrimp. Supersede them with flakes and algae wafers instead.
While it may help, discouraging Mollies from breeding is non a guarantee that they won't breed.
What exercise you practice when a Molly Fish has babies?
So the babies are here already, that's fine. You tin can still lower the population with a few methods.
- Let nature run its course
Not doing annihilation has probably lowered the actual number of your fry. Adult Mollies are notorious for eating their niggling ones. If you lot want to encourage this type of behavior, reduce the number of times y'all feed your Mollies. If you feed them every day, you tin can skip a day of feeding twice a week so they'll be more inclined to swallow the fry if they haven't polished them off yet.
You can likewise remove a few plants and decorations so the fry volition have fewer places to hide in.
With this method, merely a few fries will survive which is more manageable for you.
While we want to advise that you keep other fish that eat Molly babies such as Angelfish or Gouramis, you might end upwardly with fry of these fish instead.
- Sell or give away the fry
A friend or two can help yous out by taking some fry off of your hands if they're interested. Y'all tin also join community fishkeeping groups in your surface area so you tin swap or sell fish and other aquarium-related items. Non only do you lot get inexpensive and difficult-to-discover items merely important knowledge from other people'south experience as well.
Giving or selling some fry to your pet shop can also be an selection. Some stores might not give you coin just probably a discount on your next purchase. It'south all the same a win-win state of affairs.
Things NOT to do
At that place are some things that yous should avert at all costs considering of sure consequences.
Never release unwanted fish into the wild. Mollies are invasive species and volition threaten local fish populations if released irresponsibly. Native species are vital to the environmental of an expanse and their elimination will disturb that balance.
It has already happened in certain places. For example, the Desert Pupfish, a local species in California, has become endangered e'er since the Sailfin Molly took over the region. The aforementioned Molly species has also caused the subtract of populations of native Damselflies in Oahu, Hawaii.
Places similar Vermont, California, New Jersey, Florida, New Due south Wales and Queensland in Australia, and many more places (cheque your local environmental laws) prohibit the release of non-native species into their bodies of water. You could be penalized or at least fined for doing so.
And then don't throw them to the nearest river or stream or flush them down your toilet. Fish might survive in the sewers and find themselves out in the wild.
Never stress out a pregnant Molly to the indicate that she dies. When we advise altering the conditions of your tank to become unfavorable to convenance, don't do so to the point that you kill your fish.
Never starve fish to death. Mollies will swallow fry more if you skip a feeding or ii. But don't skip for a whole week of feeding that they go also sick or starting time getting stressed with the lack of food. You won't be dealing with but hunger merely probably fights among the adults. This will snowball into other problems like treating injuries or infections and expiry.
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Source: https://explorefishworld.com/mollies-keep-having-babies-heres-what-to-do/
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