aggressive molly

[corylover5]

I have 4 female and 2 male mollies in my 29 gallon. One of my females is in labor right now and my 2 males have become extremely aggressive to each other and any other fish that goes near her. The smaller male (a balloon molly) is attacking my female's fins and tail while my dalmation male is not bothering her but protecting her from my balloon male. The dalmation male is less aggressive and not hurting any fish but the balloon male is. The balloon male is really stressing my female who's in labor right now. Should I take out my breeder box and put the balloon male in it until my female molly has her fry?

 

[Naughts]

Yes, I would.

 

[corylover5]

Thank you. I moved him to the breeder box and peace has been restored in my tank.

 

[Retired Viking]

I agree he is the problem, the female would only be more stressed if you moved her to the "box" Do you plan on keeping the fry since you have a breeder box?

 

[corylover5]

I would like to try and catch some to move them to my 10 gallon fry tank.

 

[Retired Viking]

I would keep the adults well fed to reduce the chances of eating the fry, make sure there are plenty of hiding places, floating plants can also help-my tetra fry loved hiding in hornwort. I dimmed the lights to reduce the stress when it was close to the time. A turkey baster is good to pick up fry with. Good luck

 

[corylover5]

Thank you. I saw some Hornwort at petco and it looks really nice but does it shed leaves all over your tank?

 

[Retired Viking]

When it breaks down yes it can and my snails ate it. Water sprite is not bad for fry too if you can get it thick enough. It has to be thick enough so the fish below can not see them. Here is a picture when I had it in my 55 gallon tank-the two fish in it are tetra fry, as they grew they would come out on the edges, the second pictues is two of them waiting for me to feed them, They are near the corner of the tank lid.

 

[corylover5]

I've caught 11 fry so far to put in the 10 gallon. I can't catch a lot of them though since they're hiding in tiny cracks between the driftwood and sword plants in my tank.

 

[Retired Viking]

Did you try the turkey Baster? you could also try vacuuming them.

 

[corylover5]

I had a turkey baster for my tank but I can't find it anywhere so I used the smallest net I have.

 

[Retired Viking]

11 is not bad at all, please try and post a picture of them when you have them settled into your fry tank.I had to try out the new one

 

[corylover5]

I'll get some pictures of them tomorrow

 

[corylover5]

I ended up with 13 and I went to check on them but 2 are dead and one is flopping around on the bottom of the tank. I have no idea what caused this. The cory fry and my other 3 week old molly fry are in that tank and doing fine. Water parameters for my fry tank and the tank I moved them from are the same. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 7 nitrate. They have lots of plants and driftwood to hide in the fry tank. There is a difference of 1 degree in the temperature though. My 29 gallon is 78 degrees while the fry tank is 77. Could this have killed them? I really want this batch of fry to make it.

 

[Naughts]

1 degree is unlikely to effect them. Hope the rest make it.