55 Gallon New Stock

[PRW1988]

Hey all, I was thinking about redoing my 55 gallon as either a tetra tank or a livebearers tank. Specifically i want mollies but I dont know how many could go in the 55 and what tank mates I could have. any help would be great

 

[KittyKat]

If you kept only mollies, then it would take 15 nicely (assuming there is some other stock), but of course the problem is always that livebearers breed out of control. I personally would have swordtails over mollies.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Just come across a new Molly article at PFK which you might find intresting, http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=3454

 

[hughessomefish]

If you got a livebearer tank full of mollys the only problem would be they would reproduce so fastly, enless you get all females, but even then sometimes there already pregnant when you get them. What I did with my 30 gallon instead of having all livebearers I have a community tank. So some tetras, so corys, and some liverbears.

 

[OldMan47]

Amazon mollies are not your typical fish Goat. I really think that I could benefit from a stock of amazon mollies but I am not a typical livebearer breeder.
In a 55 the ideal molly population would be less than about 10 fish, which most people would see as an empty tank. Although that small number of fish would yield an empty looking tank, it would allow the needed space for the fish to mature and develop properly.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Definitelky not a typical fish, Oldman47!

Quite an evolutionary quirk, these Amazon Mollies, that do away with the "blokes" altogether and rely on sperm donations from other species to produce clones of the female. But as the article explains, cloning has a very negative effect on this species as regards adapting to changes in their environment.

 

[OldMan47]

Not altogether goat. They require a male of a closely related molly species to reproduce but they produce clones of the parent female rather than a cross. The breeding activity merely stimulates the female to produce her fertile eggs.