Psychlist1972

My wife pointed out that the silver/white molly had a huge, umm, pink thing on her backside, above the gravid spot. Turns out she's giving birth.

However, it doesn't look like any survived, and there was a lot of mucous and what looks to be unfertilized eggs, all strung together in the process.

I temporarily moved her to the only thing I had, a small fry/birth floating isolation tank, for some of them so I could get some pictures and see what was going on before the other fish ate what she dropped.

The fry are still curled up in an egg shape, and aren't moving. I assume, given the category "livebearer" they should be out wiggling around. Can anyone school me on this?

Pete

Attached Images

	molly_birth_01.jpg (77.8 KB, 171 views)
	molly_birth_02.jpg (80.8 KB, 148 views)
	molly_birth_03.jpg (67.0 KB, 145 views)
	molly_birth_04.jpg (65.6 KB, 144 views)
	molly_birth_05.jpg (87.0 KB, 142 views)

TFA101

it really does look like she miscarried. i think it might have been the move to the breeder box that caused her to abort her fry in that way. But I've never seen it like that before...

Psychlist1972

no, that's how it was going on in the tank before I moved her I moved her to the box so I could see if the babies truly were dead before the zebras snatched them up.

My tank really isn't great for mollies anyway. No salt, probably not as hard as they'd like (although I do add calcium for the snails at every water change). Blame me for not doing research before I got them earlier in the year. Pet store said they do well with any of the freshwater fish they have.

Pete

TFA101

well that statment is true to some extent. many fish can adapt to the water you have, although, they will not be at their best if what they have isn't what they need.

Maybe the mollies are feeling intimidated by the zebras or other tankmates? 10 gallons really isn't much to play around with, and if the mollies don't have enough room to escape the commotion, it may stress them out during birth.

Psychlist1972

I definitely agree on the tank size. I have a 55 waiting for me to finish setup and then move those fish over.

It just seems like the molly gave birth too early or something. The number of unfertilized eggs and fry in various stages just seems odd to me to be a point event.

Pete

Tony G.

It could be a prolapsed uterus. She was probably stressed and miscarriaged which caused her to get this. Is she a balloon molly?
Also, the chacnes of it being a Prolapsed uterus look high to me. Sometimes it cures itself, sometimes it doesnt. The problem about moving her out of the tank could be that she gets even more stressed and dies. The problem with leaving her in the tank si that she can get picked on by the other fish causing an infection and causing her to die. I dont know what to do, this stuff takes time.

Here is a Helpful link to a Prolapsed uterus:
What is this weird thing on my pregnant guppy?
unfortunalty, she did not survive.

Psychlist1972

@Tony yes, she is a balloon molly.

Prolapsed uterus. That stinks. Thanks for the pointer, though. I didn't think it looked normal. However, it does suck back in after each round of births. Still doesn't look that good; looks ripped or sore - unless it is normal to be visible/pink and scale-less. I'll keep an eye on her and see what happens.

Pete