CindyJ

I think i've had her for a couple months and she was pregnant already and gave birth with in the first week! And all her babies are in the seperate fry tank and doing great!

I don't have any males but she so totally looks pregnant again! She's just getting huge and she's eating, swimming and behaving totally normal!

2 Weeks or so ago I thought she was gonna pop and put her in a breeder net but still no babies so I let her out after awhile. And now she's even bigger!

What do you think if you can tell by the pics? I took these last week.




Oh and how does that work again when there are no males around her that she can keep having babies? I read about it somewhere on here but can't remember!

Thanks for the help!

isis

Hi there! My mollies also had babies with no male in the tank. I'm not sure myself. i know that guppies can actually 'bank' sperm inside them 'till one day that they decide to 'use' it and fall pregnant. I also heard that some fish can actually change sex in a single sex environment to make sure that reproduction can take place. But I'm not sure if Mollies actually do that.

CindyJ

I think that's right that they can hold sperm for several months or something like that!

It just seems that if she is pregnant that she's been pregnant for along time and I think they deliver at around a month or something like that. Maybe i'm just off on my dates!

Does she look pregnant by those pictures though?

To me she once again looks like she did when I got her!

Thanks for helping isis!

lol

Cindy

isis

mmm yeah you are right they take about 20 days to deliver as far as I know. It could be that she is a bit bloated - eating too much maybe, could be internal parasites - or it could just be her body shape.
When my dalmatian molly was pregnant I only noticed it when she was giving birth LOL! But I did wonder why she was so fat a week or so before I saw all the babies.

Maybe just monitor her and see how much she eats - just watch her behavior to make sure she is ok.

You could perhaps boost her immunesystem a bit - just to make sure. Try adding some garlic guard to the water... if anything it will them stronger

KyWildFish

Mollies can bank sperm for two birth cycles. In other words they can have two rounds of pregnancy with one encounter from a male. The gestation is about 30 days for mollies, mine run about 25-28. The best option to keep any babies is to NOT PUT HER IN THE BREEDER NET. This might stress her out and she might abort the pregnancy. What I have done with very good success is put a lot of easy to move cover and wait till she births in the tank. After she is thinner and not hanging around the bottom, I carefully net the babies out. This takes a lot of time, the first time it took me several hours to get them all with no harm. I then moved the babies to the breeder net and provide them with cover for the first few weeks. You should feed them a diverse diet, I split between half newborn fry powder and half finely crushed flake food. They will take about a month to two months depending on how often you feed and how clean you keep the water. After they start looking bulkier I add them back to the tank and start looking to rehome them.

Edit: On second look at you pics it looks to be full of food not babies. The molly will take a boxy shape and lighter varieties will have a gravid spot by the anal fin. A few days before birth they will hang around cover and only come up to eat. Might cut back on the food and give them a day off food occasionally followed by some mashed up frozen peas. This might help move things along if in fact it is too full of food.

fishlover78

that's why everyone always winds up with livebearers coming out of their ears!

CindyJ

Here's hopefully some better pics I took today!




I hope these will help you better tell if she's pregnant for sure! I usually do go one day a week with out feeding them.

Thanks for the help everybody!

fishlover78

I she certainly is a little big. it's hard for me to tell because I always had guppies and its very very easy to tell if they're pregnant. good luck! -fishlover78

CindyJ

She's was so much smaller after she had that first batch of babies! I have another one just like her and she's much smaller on the underside!

That first time she had babies it was much easeir to pull up the plastic plants and ornaments to catch them. It still took maybe an hour but i'm not really wanting to up root the live plants i've got but I am wanting to do a rescape!

I'd put her in the fry tank but but some of those babies are still so small and I don't want them to get eaten either. There are tons of places in the 20 gal for the fry to hide so i'm not really worried about them so much in there.

I just wish she'd have them already!

lol

Cindy

brady12

Definately pregnant!

pennytupence

Hi im in the same boat as you LOL,she had one lot of babies and looks pregnant again, my friend said she lost more fry by putting them in a breeder tank. So i left mine in the big tank, and they are ok up to now, and my have they grown.The other Mollies dont bother them at all.Anyway good luck i think we both might need it.

CindyJ

Good luck to you!!! I just know from the last time how long it takes to catch the little buggers!!! But as long and mom and babies are ok that's all that matters!!! But the first time I didn't even know one of my fish had babies so it was hard telling how many there were or how long they'd been there!!

She came to be from the fish store already pregnant so I don't know who the father was but she's gold dust lyre tail molly so i'm also wondering how long before there tail will reflect the lyre tail? But for that matter I guess depending on who the male was they may not have the lyre tail I guess. I anyone knows let me know! Should I do a seperate post about the tail?

Merry Christmas!

lol

CindyJ

Well she finally had her babies today!!! So far I can only find 3 of them and they are hanging out at the top of the aquarium on top of partially submerged leaves of my pennywort and water sprite!!!

I'm hoping more show up and that they are just hiding in the rocks or something!! Last time she had about 20 give or take a couple. Last time my tank was just planted with plastic plants and this time there are lots of plants!! It was so much easier to pull out plastic plants and move the gravel around to find them than it is with real plants so for now i'm gonna try to leave them in there till I can catch them a little easier!!

The three that I have found are so tiny!!

biscotti

She looks just like one of my mollies who's had a lot of babies over the last year. She doesn't have large batches, but just has 1-5 babies about once a month from about the 3rd month I had her and continued for about 8 months. Don't forget that all the babies look like females for about 6 weeks, then you better keep a lookout for any boys and remove them.

CindyJ

Her first batch when I got her was about 20 and this batch was about 8 fry!

Yah for now the first batch still all looks like females! But I will keep an eye out for the males!

Thanks

Cindy