I never wanted any babies...

Yesterday (01/02/2015) I went to PetSmart and wanted to get a snail and a male molly. The woman who helped me was obviously new and was overwhelmed as there were quite a few people in the fish area. I told her I wanted a male, black molly. She went to get me one, but she obviously didn't know how to sex the fish or didn't care to because I went home that night, put my new snail and molly in my tank, went to bed, and woke up with about 10 baby mollies in my tank.

Since I had to go to work and wasn't really sure what to do anyway, I put the adult molly in a separate tank and left the tank as was for the entire day. When I got home about six hours later, all but three of the babies were gone. The other fish in my (20 gallon) tank ate them, I assume (there are three tetras and a gourami). The net I have has holes small enough that the babies couldn't escape so I moved them into the tank (2.5 gallon, btw) with their mother. Like I said, I never wanted any babies; I'm not a fish breeder.

I have a couple questions I'm hoping you can answer: a) I've heard that female mollies can store sperm and get pregnant multiple times off of it. I'm guessing I can't keep that from happening, so what should I do with her? I don't want to keep her, I don't want anymore babies, b) consider all of the mollies are females. Can the baby mollies get pregnant from their mother's stored sperm? This seems unlikely to me but I thought I should ask, and c) I don't want to keep all of the mollies because I don't want them breeding either, and again, I don't want more babies. What should I do with them? I might keep one of the males, considering one of them is a male, but, otherwise, I don't want to keep them.

I've had my 20-gallon tank for about a year. I've told you the fish that are in it. There is one live plant in there, however I am unsure of what it is. I have a heater in there and I keep the tank around 78-80 degrees Fahrenheit. I filter the tank but I am unsure of the model of the filter. I put a conditioner in the water when I change the filter. Decorations in the tank include the live plant, a rock with holes in it for the fish to swim in, a "log" with holes in if for the fish to swim in, another rock without holes, miscellaneous pebbles, and white gravel. The water is water from the tap with conditioner.

The 2.5-gallon tank contains the black mollies. Minimal decorations, only rocks on the bottom. I only use this tank for holding fish if something is wrong in the 20-gallon. Has a pump. There is no heater, and no light.

 

How do you know all the babies are female, I would say there is a good chance some are male. And no they can't get pregnant from the mom's stored sperm only the mom can for about 6 months from the time she stored it. You could return her to the store.

 

You should return her to the store. I had to teach a worker at petsmart how to sex Mollies when I bought mine. It's sad. All they are taught is how to scope fish out of a tank (dead or alive) and make sure they price them right.

They really should incorporate more education into their store for the employees and for people purchasing pets! Everyone buying an animal should have to sit through a quick class on proper care!

 

I have to disagree some with amzwiz87. Yea some of the workers at petsmart aren't as knowledgable as they should be but they all aren't that way. The first time I bought fish at petsmart I was stocking to tanks a 55 and a 37 gallon. I was picking out quite a few fish. The working said to me that she doesn't recommend I put that many fish in a tank all at once. I told her I was stocking two tanks and told her what size, so the. She was ok with it. It surprised me she would say something like that being a "petsmart" employee. Then just last week I went to get some guppies to put in my 20 gallon. I told the guy I wanted 2 male and 4 female. He asked me what size tank I had and what other fish I had in it. I told him I just had one male and one female guppy. He then told me his recommendation on how many guppies I could keep in my tank. He told me up to about twelve, which seems right in my book. So maybe some of the employees do know what they're talking about and are not just taught to scoop fish out. On the same note I have been to a local fish store and have asked the owner questions and he had to look the answer up in a book, so I guess we all just need to take everything that is told to us about fish keeping and do our own research and trials and come up with our own methods and spread the knowledge on sites like this one.

 

Hey everyone, just a quick reminder.
This thread isn't about store employees.
It's about helping the OP with their questions so let's get back on topic.
(any further debate will be removed)

Here is the original post.
Thanks!

Yesterday (01/02/2015) I went to PetSmart and wanted to get a snail and a male molly. The woman who helped me was obviously new and was overwhelmed as there were quite a few people in the fish area. I told her I wanted a male, black molly. She went to get me one, but she obviously didn't know how to sex the fish or didn't care to because I went home that night, put my new snail and molly in my tank, went to bed, and woke up with about 10 baby mollies in my tank.

Since I had to go to work and wasn't really sure what to do anyway, I put the adult molly in a separate tank and left the tank as was for the entire day. When I got home about six hours later, all but three of the babies were gone. The other fish in my (20 gallon) tank ate them, I assume (there are three tetras and a gourami). The net I have has holes small enough that the babies couldn't escape so I moved them into the tank (2.5 gallon, btw) with their mother. Like I said, I never wanted any babies; I'm not a fish breeder.

I have a couple questions I'm hoping you can answer: a) I've heard that female mollies can store sperm and get pregnant multiple times off of it. I'm guessing I can't keep that from happening, so what should I do with her? I don't want to keep her, I don't want anymore babies, b) consider all of the mollies are females. Can the baby mollies get pregnant from their mother's stored sperm? This seems unlikely to me but I thought I should ask, and c) I don't want to keep all of the mollies because I don't want them breeding either, and again, I don't want more babies. What should I do with them? I might keep one of the males, considering one of them is a male, but, otherwise, I don't want to keep them.

I've had my 20-gallon tank for about a year. I've told you the fish that are in it. There is one live plant in there, however I am unsure of what it is. I have a heater in there and I keep the tank around 78-80 degrees Fahrenheit. I filter the tank but I am unsure of the model of the filter. I put a conditioner in the water when I change the filter. Decorations in the tank include the live plant, a rock with holes in it for the fish to swim in, a "log" with holes in if for the fish to swim in, another rock without holes, miscellaneous pebbles, and white gravel. The water is water from the tap with conditioner.

The 2.5-gallon tank contains the black mollies. Minimal decorations, only rocks on the bottom. I only use this tank for holding fish if something is wrong in the 20-gallon. Has a pump. There is no heater, and no light.

 

I would return the female back to the store you got her from. First I'd make sure I knew how to tell the sexes of mollies apart. Then I'd return to the store and explain you want to exchange the female fish you got for a male one. Finally, I wouldn't rely on the store employee to select the fish for you. I'd look each one over and make sure that I got a male.

Fortunately mollies aren't too difficult to sex if you know what to look for.