Is My Molly Pregnant Or Just Large?

Hey everyone! Ive had my molly for maybe two or three weeks and I noticed it was getting somewhat larger. I looked it up online and I think the Dalmatian molly is a female? Does she look like she’s pregnant or just a bigger fish? And if she is then should I prepare a larger tank for her and my other fish? They are currently in an 8 gallon tank. The silver molly is just for a size comparison. If anyone could help me get some answers I would be very grateful!

 

So this is her with my silver molly female

 

She looks pregnant to me

 

HI there, from my own personal experience if say she definitely could be pregnant though for me she's not big enough to the point I can give out a definite answer. Her slightly large stomach and the fact that if she came from a pet store she probably had contact with a male at some point are all telling me that the likely hood you'll have some babies are high. More than likely when getting a female llive bearer from a pet store she will already come pregnant or at least has mated and stored male contribution so that when she feels safe in her new home she can impregnate herself. In all my time of keeping mollies I've never really had bought a Molly that didn't end up going birth soon after purchasing her.

I also would like to say that I am not perfect so I don't expect yourself to be either as my situation does not allow me to have a proper size tank for the fish I'm keeping but I'd like to say mollies usually need a tank bigger than 8 gallons. Most would say a 20+ gallon tank is best as they can get pretty big sometimes not to mention they aren't lazy fish and they do produce a decent amount of ammonia.

Especially if babies are going to be had a bigger tank should at least be in your future plans, I can speak from experience where I had a pregnant Molly live in a spare 10 gal I had and ended up raising her fry in there with her, keeping the water stable was difficult and mollies can be prone to get sick when stressed or not kept in a proper environment so I worked my tail off to keep the mother happy as well. Once I sold the babies I bought a 20 gal tank and things got much easier for me by far. Bigger tanks are just easier to maintain and your fish will thank you

 

Thank you for the information! I have a 60 gallon tank in my basement so in the next few weeks I’ll set it up so I can transfer over my fish. Hopefully everything goes smoothly with her!