Molly Bullies

[pferguson89]

So I ran/am running into a few problems with my fish. Current setup is:
36 Gallon Tank (fully cycled)
3 Small Platies
1 Male Black Dalmatian Molly
1 Male Silver Molly
1 Angel Fish
8in Common Pleco

Live plants, aerator, multiple drift wood (one large separator/divider drift wood).

Now yesterday I purchased two male Balloon Molly’s, acclimated then to the tank and introduced them. At first they were fine, within an hour, one Balloon was chasing the silver Molly all over and nipping at the tail. Soon after the second balloon Molly started doing the same thing to the Dalmatian and silver Molly.

Are the balloon Molly’s typically aggressive? Is this a territorial establishment thing? I currently have the two balloons in time out. The store (aquarium adventures) said I could return them if wanted.

What do you all suggest my course of action is?

Any other fish suggestions? I’m wanting semi larger fish, along the size of my current Molly’s (roughly 3 inches)

Thanks in advance

 

[Colin_T]

Balloon mollies are simply mutated mollies that have shorter rounder bodies. If you had 2 females and introduced 2 males, the new males will chase the females and try to breed with them. If you post a picture of the fish we can tell you what sex they are.

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How long, wide and high is your tank?

What is the water chemistry in your tank, pH and GH (general hardness)?

As a general rule angelfish come from soft acid water and mollies & platies come from harder more alkaline water. When we know the water chemistry we can offer suggestions as to what can go with what

 

[AbbeysDad]

As a general rule angelfish come from soft acid water and mollies & platies come from harder more alkaline water. When we know the water chemistry we can offer suggestions as to what can go with what

I'm not sure if this is a myth or just 'old school' thinking. When caught in the wild this may be true. However, many, if not most, of the fish we see in the hobby have been bred and raised for generations in tanks and ponds with all sorts of water chemistry. I have a pair of Angels, 10 neon tetras, a couple of corys AND about 6 stocky swordtails (and I previously raised/grew out some 54 Mollies) all in the same planted display tank. My water is neither soft nor hard and I often add some Seachem Equilibrium for increased calcium/magnesium. These fish are all very healthy and have been in this tank for years.

I once had a very aggressive Swordtail that would chase other males relentlessly. However, he never messed with the much larger Angels as they would have had him for lunch (so to speak). Some fish are problems and you're forced to make the hard choices. If they are all males, with no females, it may be territorial without enough tank breaks. Sorry to say, but perhaps these particular fish need to go back.

 

[seangee]

Think you're both right to an extent. Captive bred fish are a good deal more tolerant but...

Fish take the minerals they need from the water. For soft water fish hard water contains more minerals than they need so they get what they need (they may have a shorter life but can be healthy). So soft water fish can adapt to hard water. Fish that need hard water simply cannot get the minerals that they need from soft water and will have serious health issues because of this - think about how many "help my mollies are dying" threads we see.

I personally keep tetras and corys in hard water and have been doing so for about 20 years. Their behaviour, growth rate and lifespan suggests they are healthy (I have no way of measuring happiness in fish ). As an aside I have never seen spawning behaviour (or eggs) for the soft water species in all that time. Whenever I have added hard water species they have spawned like crazy.

 

[pferguson89]

Sorry I guess I should have added it’s a fully cycled and established tank, water parameters are spot on (hard water). 20-25% water changes and gravel vac every 5-7 days.

I’ve never had a problem introducing new fish, so what I ended up doing was putting them back in the bag and sitting them in the water (time out) for around a day, then re introduced them. They haven’t been a problem since.

I don’t know if it was the time out, or me chasing them around for 5 minutes trying to catch them while they hid that scared them into not being bully’s. Lol

Thanks for all the responses!