Pregnant Livebearer Behavior/Missing Fish

HI y'all,

My question is whether or not livebearer fish, specifically balloon mollies tend to hide for extended periods of time just before giving birth?

One of my female balloon mollies has disappeared. I haven't seen her for about a day, and I have moved some, not all of the decorations looking for her. She is NOT in the filter nor is did she jump out of the tank.

I am hoping she is pregnant and is just hiding, getting ready to give birth. I am not even 100% she is pregnant, balloon mollies are so hard to tell because of their body shapes. Is this normal behavior for pregnant live bearers, or does anyone have any other theories as to where she may have gone to?

If it is normal behavior for pregnant fish to hide like this, I will give her a few days, otherwise I am going to have to remove everything from the tank in order to find her body...

Thanks for any responses!

 

What size tank and what other tank mates do you have?

Your profile says you don't know the nitrogen cycle. Is this tank cycled? What are your water parameters - pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrates?

 

Thanks for the reply.
Sorry about my profile, I have not updated it since I first created it months ago.
And I didn't give my aquarium information because I didn't think it was prudent for my question...
All I am looking to learn is whether or not pregnant livebearing fish in general, but more specifically balloon mollies, go into hiding when about to give birth. Is this true or not?
Thank you!

 

It depends on the fish, but a lot of the times, yes they go into hiding. Since ballon mollies are only a genetically modified Mollies, I imagine it's the same for them.

 

Thanks for the reply.
Sorry about my profile, I have not updated it since I first created it months ago.
And I didn't give my aquarium information because I didn't think it was prudent for my question...
All I am looking to learn is whether or not pregnant livebearing fish in general, but more specifically balloon mollies, go into hiding when about to give birth. Is this true or not?
Thank you!

Just making sure they didn't disappear or die because of other reasons like water quality issues or killed by an aggressive tankmate, especially since you said you weren't sure if she was pregnant or not.

 

My parameters are all fine.
My only aggressive tank mates are two bolivian rams. I doubt they did anything because a) I have other mollies that are ok, b) they have been together for over 6 months now and I have never seen my BRs attack any of my mollies.

 

Well, I removed all the decorations in my tank looking for her and she is still missing. I don't know where she could have gone...

 

Did you check behind the tank, around it, ect? She may have passed and the others ate her remains.