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Date Posted: 22:50:43 06/30/01 Sat
Author: James
Subject: Re: dalmation mollie babies
In reply to: Deb Smith 's message, "dalmation mollie babies" on 09:18:57 06/24/01 Sun

I am not usually a poster here; stumbled in by accident, but glad I did. I am no way a "pro", but having kept several varieties of Mollies for 4 years and other livebearers for twice as long (plus I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night), I think I can answer your question.

The easiest way to tell male from female is simple: males will have a "gonopodium" on their underside, where as females will have 2 fins. A strange thing about female Mollies... they can store a males sperm and give birth to several batches of fry (fish babies) at any given time, so they only really need to mate once.

You probubly purchased a female that was already pregnant, as the gestation period is much longer than the short time that you had your fish. I can't recall the gestation period off the top of my head, but I know it is in excess of 3 weeks.

If you plan on keeping all of the Mollies in one tank (the 2 you initially purchased and the 2 survivors), I hate to break it to you, but you are going to need a much larger tank. My rule of thumb is 1 gallon of water per inch of fish. If you have the "Sailfin" variety of Mollies, males can grow bigger than 4 inches and females can get 3 inches. The other varieties of Mollies are much smaller, about 2-3 inches for males. If your female is about to have fry again, they will be canibalized as they will not have a lot of room to hide. Plus, after she drops the fry, all males will persue her in attempt to mate, and she will exhaust herself trying to stay away from them.

Although I wouldn't recommend it, you can keep them in the tank they are currently in, if it has good filtration. Albeit, it would be like a family of 5 living in a 1 bedroom apartment. My first pair of Mollies, which were my first fish, were Sailfins that I kept in a 29 gallon tank, but all of their fry didn't have the room to grow, and didn't quite get the same body size as their parents. I then purchased a 55 gallon tank that I kept my pair of Sailfin Mollies in. I had an undergravel filter with 2 powerheads. I sold the 55 and now have a 90 gallon which houses Platys and Guppies, with the same set up plus 2 Whisper 5 filters and 2 submergable heaters. I normally change 1/4 of the tank water each month, and check the pH level and try to keep it at Neutral.

Of course, all of my experience with Livebearers occured over a 12 year period of time, and it appears that you have just started your journey into fish keeping.

After a long hard day at work, watching fish swim about their tank effortlessly is the best stress reliever I have ever known.

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