Hello All. I'm new to this forum and i had a quick question about my molly. we set up our tank in late feb and bought a few Mollies along with a few others for out community tank. I have a black Balloon molly that has not gave birth since we brought her home in Feb. She was looking very pregnant and her scales around her anal area were white from her being so big.

So last night i put her in a breeding box to try to save the babies from our other fish. Just about an hour ago i noticed something coming out of her, but it was only an egg. She's given birth to about 6 more eggs after that.

My question is, did she get stressed out and abort her babies or will there be any fry coming after these eggs? Or did she not have any viable ones to begin with since she has not given birth since Feb?

(My husband and i also have a ten gallon tank that has been cycled, but we are waiting for payday to get a heater for it to put our pregnant swordtail in to avoid the stress of the breeding tank.)

well while typing this i guess she had a few more and i've counted about 20 eggs in there now. Was really hoping for some fry

Well Im no expert but I have read in a couple other posts that sometimes in labor, eggs will sometimes come out because they wernt fertilized. I don't know what aborting a pregnancy looks like, but if all that comes out is eggs, I would guess thats what happened. She might just have had a hell of alot of un fertilized eggs. lol its okay though, I would look for fry. Maybe there are some around the tank you havent seen yet. If she doesent give birth to any fry and its all eggs, Im very sorry ):

Livebearers don't 'lay eggs', it is not because they are unfertilized. She is aborting unformed fry, possibly because of stress caused by being in the breeding trap. I would return her to the main tank and keep your fingers crossed for the next drop. Livebearers can store sperm for a long time (six months?) so you could still get viable fry the next time she gives birth. What other fish do you have in the tank? Java moss and lots of plants will give the fry somewhere to hide until they have a chance of survival (e.g. until they are too big to fit in the mouths of the other fish!) If not you could consider a breeding tank (5 gallons or so) keep her in there until she has given birth then remove mum to the main tank and raise the fry separately.

I know they don't lay eggs, that why i was worried that nothing but unfertilized sacs came out of her. I counted 34 in total and let her back in the main tank. She still looks pregnant, thought. unlike our other molly that gave birth in the main tank (all her babies were eaten and i think she got beat up by our male dalmation molly whos a big bully. she almost had no fins and no tail left when i saw her the next day and she died after that)

we have a 10 gallon set up for our tiger barbs because they were terrozing the other fish. I would like to make that our breeding tank since its cycled, but i don't know what to do with the tiger barbs.

in our 30 gallon comunity tank we have 3 angels, 3 mollies, two male and one female (we trying to get more females) a male and female swordtail, female is pregnant. and two male and female red moons? (i think that what they are, i'm not completely sure, my husband just bought them) and a pleco

We have plants in the back of the tank and a huge two piece pirate ship. Going to get more plants this weekend in case the sword drops her babies to give them a chance of surviving

Thanks for the replies, though!

see!! I knew they were unfertilized!! Unfertilized and aborting unformed fry is practically the same thing.. It has the same end result.. I really don't understand why stress could cause the fry to not form.. I think that as long as there fertilized they should grow. Thats just my ignorant view of the situation though.

I am so sorry for your molly, if she still looks pregnant then maybe she still has babies in her belly? I hope that she has little fry still, that would be great

This post has been edited by MollyFresh: Jun 26 2008, 04:18 PM

Don't want to get into an argy-bargy (and I am sure there are more knowledgeable folks on the forum who can put us straight on this one!) but I'm fairly sure that they don't drop anything at all if they aren't fertilized.

All sorts of animals spontaneously abort their young due to stress (whether caused by hunger, fear, drought etc) it is nature's way of ensuring that the mother survives to raise healthy young the next time round when they are more likely to make it.

Anyhoo,

If you want to rehome the tiger barbs (they might be happier in a bigger group in a bigger tank anyway) then the 10g would be an excellent size for a breeding tank. Since you have lots of different livebearers (& so will end up with a lot of fry!) you might even be able to put up a mesh divider and separate them by size / sex / whatever. You could also keep your fry on one side and mum on the other until she has recovered a bit - it sounds like the other one was bullied because she was weak after giving birth.

Or you could do what I did and by ANOTHER tank (!) but just use it as a quarantine / hospital / fry tank as and when you need it rather than having it set up all the time. A couple of gallons would do for this. I keep an extra small filter running permanently in the main tank, then when I set up the quarantine tank I have a ready-cycled filter to go straight into it. Or you could just put a bit of matured media from your main filter into a small filter for this tank. A healthy bacteria colony can double in size within 24 hours or so, taking a wee bit out won't harm the colony in your main tank. Because you're not going to be using it all the time you don't need to worry about substrate etc. I put in a plastic rock / cave thing so the fish have somewhere to hide, this can then be sterilised with boiling water between each use.

Red moons - sounds like platies to me, these are sometimes sold as 'moons', 'moonfish' etc but if you post a pic I am sure someone will be able to give you an ID on them.

Hope this helps!