Amnagrla

Alright. My 10gallon tank is WAY WAY WAY overstocked. In August I noticed my first batch of balloon molly fry. My male died a week later. Since then, just about every 3 weeks I get a few more fry from my two adult females (Pinto must have knocked them both up before he passed). I last saw new fry about a month ago. So my tank has fry of ALL ages. I've been calling around to the stores around me and they won't take any of the fry until they are 1" long. There are only a handful that are 1", some that are alllmmooosttt, and of course, some much, much smaller. It's hard for me to catch just the 1" ones so I've been trying to just keep them until they are all (or at least 50% of them are) big enough for me to give away. *sigh*

That being said, I know my tank is overstocked, however, I am diligent in checking the parameters and doing water changes. I obviously have a thriving aquarium! (When I finally do give them away, my tank is going to look so empty.....)

Okay, so my question. I have no adult males in my tank since Pinto (the father) died in August. There is one particular baby that I've fallen in love with. I've tried hard not to get attached to any of them too much but I have for this one. I made the decision a few weeks ago Phantom (the baby has a big black spot on his face, reminds me of Phantom of the Opera). However, Phantom is middle aged as far as they go and has since developed into what I can see is a male. Would it be awful if I kept him since the only other mollies would be his 2 female possible mothers??

Thanks!!

Oh, and so everyone knows... I saw snow for the first time this morning!!! Yay!!!

COBettaCouple

it would be risking sickly & deformed fry from the inbreeding.. but the fry could be healthy, it's a possibility. the only sure thing is that he would breed with them and both would be pregnant. i'd keep him in a seperate tank.

swords3711

believe me they are fine
i have a way overstocked tank too but i keep it clean and the fish are very healthy
as for inbreeding i have a pair of mollies that were brother and sister from the same brood that bred and right now i have 16 extremely healthy 2 week old fry
good luck

COBettaCouple

that's the rolling of the dice.. our one platy had fry from a 'brother' and all of the fry were born deformed and most died within 2 weeks of being dropped. The few that have made it have scoliosis.

Amnagrla

I don't think I'll end up keeping him.... Even if everything DID work out, I just know I would be constantly worried about him.

Plus, if I give him away with the other fish, I can buy a whole new fish!!

You know, there are so many fish in my tank... and I don't know what regular molly fry looks like, but, I really don't think a single one is balloon (scoliosis). They all look fine to me! I mean, maybe I'm missing it but it's kind of strange to have let's say 50 different fry, maybe 6 different batches?? and from balloon parents, and none of them have scoliosis.

COBettaCouple

perhaps the conditions they're raised in allow them to be normal mollies, rather than balloon. i could be wrong, but i think scoliosis is more caused by conditions on the fry than genetics.

Amnagrla

really.... I thought it would be genetics.

I remember armadillo had balloon mollies have fry and ended up with one with scoliosis.

Kevin

thats pretty cool, i would keep phantom, breed them, and then just sell the babies to pay for other stuff
...that is IF the babies turn out to be reg. mollies

Amnagrla

lol. But I already HAVE tons of regular molly fry!! I can't seem to find anywhere that would give me money for them...

Tom

And I thought you were a person who followed all the rules, I guess not. lol
Tom

Kevin

demand money from them...make their greedy manager give you money for your healthy fish
youmanager

Amnagrla

HA! Fooled you, didn't I!!!!!

Tom

Ya you did. lol
Tom