ahuwood

I recieved one Molly from my sister and she was pregnant. She gave birth to about 40 babies and I gave some to my sister and cousin, but all of a sudden she gave birth again! I don't understand, there were no other adult mollys to breed with and i think her babies were still too little for that, they are only about a month old! Now we have about 20 more babies, i know separating them is the obvious option, but is there any other way to stop breeding. I'm not sure what to do with so many fish and i don't think i can convince anyone to take all my females or male fish! any advice?? i now have about 25 mollys in my 20 gallon tank!

Barbrella

Mollys can basically store sperm and then give birth even though no male is present.

Nope, no birth control for fish yet!

Separating them is the only way to stop the steady stream of fry that is part of keeping livebearers.

You'll have to take the babies to a petstore, since 25+ mollies obviously cannot survive or be healthy in a 20 gal. tank.

armadillo

We give our molly babies to the pet store. Not all petstores accept, though, so you'd need to ask.

I wouldn't keep just one molly on its own. They're social fish. If you dont' want more babies, then I'd get two other females.

She shouldn't pop another batch now. Two sounds about right.

Like Barbrella says, she will have stored the sperm until she felt it was the right time.

If you are thinking of mixing male and female mollies, then just leave the fry in the tank and the adults would eat it. We're trying to rescue our fry each time, but the parents seem very quick as we only ever find two or three at a time.

ahuwood

we did leave the fry in the tank the whole time, never moved them until they got big, they never got eaten! haha. I will try to talk to a pet store then because I don't know who else to give these mollys to. I wish the pet stores would tell you that these little buggers breed so much! Oh well, we'll see what happens.