Oops, I Think I Got Some Hybrids

This wasn't intentional, but I think my 55 gallon has some female Molly/Male Guppy fry. I've had blonde delta guppies for a while, and I am planning to stock some female guppies, but the store hasn’t had any in months. In the meantime I picked up some silver lyretail mollies, though I never bothered to sex them because I have no plans to get into purposefully breeding fish. Apparently, at least one of them is female. I had heard that it is possible for mollies and guppies to interbreed, so I suppose I should have expected this. I’m not opposed to the hybrids, and I still plan to get female guppies because my mom likes the idea of an ecosystem, and I have space in another tank for extra guppies, and my friend is talking about setting up her own tank after seeing mine; also there isn’t a ton of cover for fry, so I imagine the guppies, danios, and mollies will be dining well lol. But now I have questions.

First is the obvious question: what do the offspring of male blonde delta guppies and female silver lyretail mollies look like? Is there a chart somewhere that I can use to estimate colors/shapes? I tried googling this, but without knowing what they looklike I can’t be sure I'm looking at a hybrid or a show quality bred guppy. Also, are the hybrids called muppies, or gollies, or are those the same thing? Finally, how quickly will the fry grow, and what is the life expectancy/quality of life for the hybrids? Are they usually deformed/suffer from health problems?

Thanks for any feedback, and please tell me about any hybrids you’ve had/seen! I’d like to hear about them, or see them if you have pictures!

Attached is an attempt at a picture, but they’re so small I’m not sure there's any point sharing it:

 

I sincerely doubt you have hybrids. Even deliberate attempts to create hybrids of the two species are rarely successful. Make guppies just aren't interested in female mollies, and male mollies aren't interested in female guppies. You've probably just got regular mollies.

 

Most often live bearers are already pregnant when you buy them

 

Mollies and guppies are closely related members of the same genus. If you have male guppies in the tank, but no females, the males may try to mate with female mollies. If this does occur and there are fry, in most cases, the fry will not be fertile when they reach adulthood. This is quite often the case with hybrids.

Many female livebearers can store sperm from a previous mating encounter. Thus, if the female mollies were in a tank a the store along with males, they may have mated before you ever bought them. Sperm from that encounter can be used later to fertilize eggs within the female even though no males are currently present. that may be the most likely scenario.

You will have to wait until your fry to mature before you can determine whether they are mollies or a guppy/molly hybrid.

 

Mollies and guppies are closely related members of the same genus. If you have male guppies in the tank, but no females, the males may try to mate with female mollies. If this does occur and there are fry, in most cases, the fry will not be fertile when they reach adulthood. This is quite often the case with hybrids.

Many female livebearers can store sperm from a previous mating encounter. Thus, if the female mollies were in a tank a the store along with males, they may have mated before you ever bought them. Sperm from that encounter can be used later to fertilize eggs within the female even though no males are currently present. that may be the most likely scenario.

You will have to wait until your fry to mature before you can determine whether they are mollies or a guppy/molly hybrid.

Out of curiosity, have you seen hybrids? I read the account of a guy who attempted to ensure he bred hybrids by isolating the female mollies and guppies from the males of the same species, and he didn't get a whole lot of fry. His conclusion was that, despite the shared genus, the males just weren't that interested in the females of the other species for whatever reason.

As for the nomenclature of hybrids, a male guppy/female molly hybrid is a golly.

 

Mollies and guppies are closely related members of the same genus. If you have male guppies in the tank, but no females, the males may try to mate with female mollies. If this does occur and there are fry, in most cases, the fry will not be fertile when they reach adulthood. This is quite often the case with hybrids.

Many female livebearers can store sperm from a previous mating encounter. Thus, if the female mollies were in a tank a the store along with males, they may have mated before you ever bought them. Sperm from that encounter can be used later to fertilize eggs within the female even though no males are currently present. that may be the most likely scenario.

You will have to wait until your fry to mature before you can determine whether they are mollies or a guppy/molly hybrid.

Interesting. I didn’t know that female mollies could store sperm. Useful for reproduction, I guess!

The male guppys were definitely chasing two of the mollies a week or so back, but that stopped after a day or two so I assumed it was just because they were new fish. I never even assumed the females were gravid—they didn’t ever look any different, and still don’t. I didn’t relate that behavior to mating until I saw the fry today, but since everyone is jumping to say otherwise, I'm probably wrong about them being hybrids. I’ll keep an eye on the fry, and assuming they aren’t eaten by their tank mates, we'll see what they are in the coming days.

How long does it typically take for fry to grow? Is there a general timeline?

 

Molly fry take 3 to 4 months to reach full size if well fed. They'll be capable of breeding before that, though.

 

I sincerely doubt you have hybrids. Even deliberate attempts to create hybrids of the two species are rarely successful. Make guppies just aren't interested in female mollies, and male mollies aren't interested in female guppies. You've probably just got regular mollies.

Interesting. I had read otherwise about breeding mollies and guppies while trying to identify the fry. It's certainly possible I have regular molly fry—that certainly seems to be the general consensus from others; I didn’t realize many live bearing fish come from the store gravid!—but in hindsight I’m fairly sure I saw mating behavior from the male guppies that I didn’t make connections about at the time. Either way, I’ve got some fry, so now to see if they make it! I’ll share some more pictures when they’re bigger. I haven’t had fry since my guppy tank when I was a kid, so this is fun.

As for the nomenclature of hybrids, a male guppy/female molly hybrid is a golly.

Good to know! Thank you!

 

Out of curiosity, have you seen hybrids? I read the account of a guy who attempted to ensure he bred hybrids by isolating the female mollies and guppies from the males of the same species, and he didn't get a whole lot of fry. His conclusion was that, despite the shared genus, the males just weren't that interested in the females of the other species for whatever reason.

As for the nomenclature of hybrids, a male guppy/female molly hybrid is a golly.

I would not put male guppies in a tank with female mollies and no female guppies, so I have not see any hybrids personally. However, if you search for guppy/molly hybrids, there are photos of possible hybrids posted on the Internet. I say "possible" because the only way to know for sure would be through genetic testing which few people are going to do unless they work in a research lab doing work with hybrids.

 

Further to your situation Aysu. The females store sperm for 3 months ( or more) . That’s 3 batches of fry .

You will need to remove the male fry before they breed with their sisters or mum at around 3 months of age.

Trust me miss one male and you will have every female pregnant for another 3 months.

 

Further to your situation Aysu. The females store sperm for 3 months ( or more) . That’s 3 batches of fry .

You will need to remove the male fry before they breed with their sisters or mum at around 3 months of age.

Trust me miss one male and you will have every female pregnant for another 3 months.

Oh dear, thank you for the warning. I’d better brush up on how to sex them, because while it is a large tank, I can see the mollies quickly overrunning the capacity. I didn’t realize before adding the mollies that this all would happen—I didn’t even know they were livebearers until I got the fry. I suppose this is what I get for seeing a pretty fish and buying a few without researching them first.

The only problem is that I really don't want to have to remove all male fish, because then the guppies will have to go too, and I like them a lot. Would it be alright to instead remove the females, or will the males turn aggressive? I have a smaller planted tank that can probably stand a couple of female mollies being added.

 

You can remove the females, but you need to make sure you have at least 4 of each species. They prefer not to be alone, and, when kept in small numbers, they can get aggressive with each other. Also make sure your tank has lots of places for them to hide.

Personally, I like to let them breed and then sell or give away some when I get close to capacity. Also, they don't overrun the tank as swiftly as you might think. The adults eat the fry, and, as you get more adults, a larger percentage of the fry get eaten.

 

If you have two tanks removing males from females and their fry is the logical way. It matters little who is in the display tank Because the females are continuously dropping fry . You can’t sex the fry for a couple of months. In which time more fry arrive. Some fry turn into males . These are the new males to remove.

Male guppies will not breed successfully with mollies.

 

If you have two tanks removing males from females and their fry is the logical way. It matters little who is in the display tank Because the females are continuously dropping fry . You can’t sex the fry for a couple of months. In which time more fry arrive. Some fry turn into males . These are the new males to remove.

Male guppies will not breed successfully with mollies.

Alright, thank you for the advice! I’ll let them get bigger/older, see how many make it, figure out who's what, and go from there. No place near me buys fish, but I have a friend who's talking about setting up a tank after seeing mine, so they might want some fish.

 

Hi everyone, just wanted to post a final update here.

As people said, the fry are mollies, mollies, and more mollies haha. A recent batch has a much darker fry, so I assume the color has reverted back because of a hybrid trait or something. Genetics are a bit beyond me.

Anyway, thank you all for the information and interesting discussion! Now I just have to figure out how to catch the fry out of there before this gets any more out of hand